The Passover meal was a celebration in advance of an emancipation declared already by God but still not declared by Pharaoh. The sprinkling of the blood (a reference to Exod. 12:7, 13, 21–23) was an act meant to protect the “firstborn” from “the destroyer,”83 who was yet to make his way through Egypt, so thoroughly scourging Pharaoh that he would at last release God’s firstborn, Israel. Both are done “in trust” or “in faith” because both pertain to future acts of God, to God’s coming fulfillment