and both Passover lambs were eaten roasted with unleavened bread (, matzah) and bitter herbs. And both the first and second Passovers took precedence over the Sabbath. A Midrash interpreted the words of , "Lo, if we sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians before their eyes, will they not stone us?" to teach that the Egyptians saw the lamb as a god. Thus, when God told Moses to slay the paschal lamb (as reflected in ), Moses asked God how he could possibly do so, when the lamb was as Egyptian god. God replied that the Israelites would not depart from Egypt until they slaughtered the Egyptian gods before the Egyptians' eyes, so that God might teach them that their gods were really nothing at all. And thus God did so, for on the same night that God slew the Egyptian firstborn, the Israelites slaughtered their paschal lambs and ate them. When the Egyptians saw their firstborn slain and their gods slaughtered, they could do nothing, as reports, "While the Egyptians were burying them whom the Lord had smitten among them, even all their firstborn; upon their gods also the Lord executed judgment." A Midrash noted that God commanded the Israelites to perform certain precepts with similar material from trees: God commanded that the Israelites throw cedar wood and hyssop into the Red Heifer mixture of and use hyssop to sprinkle the resulting waters of lustration in ; God commanded that the Israelites use cedar wood and hyssop to purify those stricken with skin disease in ; and in Egypt God commanded the Israelites to use the bunch of hyssop to strike the lintel and the two side-posts with blood in . The Midrash noted that many things appear lowly, but God commanded many precepts to be performed with them. The hyssop, for instance, appears to be of no worth to people, yet its power is great in the eyes of God, who put it on a level with cedar in the purification of the leper in and the burning of the Red Cow in , 18, and employed it in the Exodus from Egypt in . A Midrash taught that the words of , "The fig-trees put forth her green figs," refer to the sinners of Israel who died in the three days of darkness, as says, "And there was a thick darkness . . . they saw not