Does Pesach mean passed over, or had pity? Ancient translators disagreed
Everyone knows Passover is named for God skipping the Israelites' homes. That reading comes from the Greek Septuagint. The Aramaic Targum Onkelos rendered the same Hebrew verb as he had pity, and related languages offer soothe, separate or harvest. Even the festival's name is a small scholarly puzzle.
Passover, Pesach in Hebrew and Peysekh in Yiddish, is one of the three Jewish pilgrimage festivals and celebrates the Exodus from slavery in Egypt. In the Book of Exodus, Moses tells the Israelites to kill a lamb, daub its blood on their doorframes and eat it that night; the tenth plague then falls on Egypt's firstborn but spares the marked houses, and Pharaoh finally lets the people go. The English word Passover first appears in William Tyndale's Bible translation and was carried into the King James Version.
The feast begins on 15 Nisan, the first month of the Hebrew year. Because the Hebrew day runs from sunset to sunset, it starts the evening before; in 2027, 15 Nisan falls on Thursday 22 April, so it opens at sundown on Wednesday 21 April. The calendar is adjusted to track the sun and guarantees that 15 Nisan lands only on a Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday or Saturday. Throughout the holiday, Jews may not eat or even own leavened food, known as chametz.
The story is retold at the Seder meal from the Haggadah, a set ritual book whose name echoes the biblical instruction to tell your son about leaving Egypt. The retelling itself fills a section called the Magid. Pesach also names the sacrificial animal: the lamb was chosen four days ahead and checked daily for flaws, slaughtered during 14 Nisan and eaten before midnight.
Scholars widely think the festival is older than the Exodus narrative. One view sees a merger of two rites practised in the Land of Israel, a herders' protective ritual and a farmers' harvest festival. The blood on the doorposts, applied with a plant called ezov, may originally have been a clan ceremony to keep demons out of the home, only later bound to the story of liberation.
Source: Passover
