Why is there a cup for Elijah at Passover?

The guest who is expected

The Bible never puts Elijah at a Passover table. The custom grows from two facts in the text. First, Elijah did not die: a whirlwind took him up (2 Kings 2:11), so he can come back, as Did Elijah die? explains. Second, the last of the prophets promises that he will.

Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of Yahweh comes. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to their fathers

So Elijah became the messenger who announces the Messiah. Why look for him on Passover? Exodus calls the night of the exodus “a night to be much observed,” in Hebrew a night of watching, “throughout their generations” (Exodus 12:42). The rabbis drew a bold conclusion: in Nisan Israel was redeemed, and in Nisan it will be redeemed again (Talmud, Rosh Hashanah 11a). The night of the first redemption is the natural night to watch for the herald of the last.

Four cups, and a fifth

The Mishnah requires four cups of wine at the Seder, even for the poorest person in Israel (Pesachim 10:1). The Jerusalem Talmud ties them to four verbs God speaks to Moses in Exodus 6:6–7: I will bring you out, I will rid you of bondage, I will redeem you, I will take you to myself. But the next verse holds a fifth promise.

I will bring you into the land which I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob; and I will give it to you for a heritage: I am Yahweh.

Does that fifth promise call for a fifth cup? Some versions of a passage in the Babylonian Talmud mention one (Pesachim 118a), and medieval authorities disagreed about whether to drink it. When the Talmud leaves a question open, it often ends with the word teiku, “let it stand.” A popular reading makes the word an acronym: the Tishbite, Elijah, will answer the hard questions. On that reading the fifth cup is poured but not drunk. It waits for the one who will settle the matter.

Opening the door

In most homes the cup comes late in the evening, after the meal and the grace that follows it. A large goblet, often the finest on the table, is filled. Someone, often a child, opens the front door, and the family stands. They recite verses that begin “Pour out your wrath on the nations that don’t know you” (Psalm 79:6), a custom that took hold in medieval Europe, when Jewish communities knew persecution well. Many families then sing Eliyahu ha-Navi, “Elijah the prophet,” the same song sung at the end of every Sabbath. Children watch the goblet closely, sure the wine level has dropped a little. Some explain the open door as trust: on a night of watching, there is nothing to fear.

Other places Elijah waits

The Seder is not his only seat. At a circumcision, an empty chair is set for Elijah. An old midrash ties it to his complaint on Mount Horeb that Israel had “forsaken your covenant” (1 Kings 19:10), and says God made him witness every circumcision from then on (Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer 29). Some modern Seders add a second cup, Miriam’s cup, filled with water for the sister of Moses, a custom from the late 20th century. The four cups themselves, and the meal around them, are explained in What does Passover commemorate?