This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year. The calendar is reset. God is not merely giving Israel a festival; He is restructuring their sense of time around the Exodus. The month of the Passover — Nisan, in the spring — becomes the first month of Israel's religious year, even though the civil year had previously begun in autumn. Time itself is reorganized around redemption. Galatians 4:4–5 says when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son — the incarnation is similarly described as a reorganization of time around redemption. The Exodus becomes the orienting event of Israel's calendar because it is the originating act of Israel's existence as a people. Every year that follows will be counted from this moment.

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