Exodus 11.1-13.16

Okay, let’s jump right in, because we have a lot to see today. If you remember, in Exodus 5-10, Moses stood before the king of Egypt, the Pharaoh, as God’s representative, demanding that the Pharaoh release the people of Israel from slavery. The Pharaoh continually refused to listen, so God let loose nine different plagues against Egypt, each one worse than the last. As time went on, no matter how bad the people’s suffering got, the Pharaoh grew harder and harder against God’s commands, refusing to let the people go.

But there was one plague left. And through this final event, and everything else that surrounded it, God would prepare his people for something much bigger, coming much further down the road.

We’re going to be looking at three chapters today—Exodus 11, 12 and 13—and these chapters are dense: there is a lot of imagery here that we can analyze, and there’s no way I can get through it all. So I’ll just be scratching the surface today, but even that is enough to feast on.

Preparations (11.1-12.28)

So we’re going to begin at the beginning of chapter 11, right after the ninth plague of darkness covering the whole land of Egypt. God tells Moses what he’s about to do—what the tenth plague will be: he says that at midnight, he will go out into Egypt, and every firstborn in the country will die—“from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his throne, even to the firstborn of the slave girl who is behind the handmill, and all the firstborn of the cattle” (v. 5).

But then we see something interesting. God gives instructions to his people concerning how to prepare for this night. This is the only plague God has sent against Egypt which demands preparation from the people of Israel. With every other plague that has taken place, the Egyptians were targeted, while the Hebrews were left alone. When, for example in chapter 9, all of the Egyptian livestock was killed, Moses said that the Lord would make a distinction between the livestock of Israel and the livestock of Egypt; all the Egyptian livestock died, all the Hebrew livestock were fine.

But in this case, it’s different. In chapter 11 (a relatively short chapter), Moses tells the Pharaoh what God will do, and of course the Pharaoh doesn’t listen to him. (We saw the reasons why that is the case last week.)

And then at the beginning of chapter 12, God gets the people of Israel involved in the process. First of all he resets their calendar, saying that from now on this month will be the first month of the year, and during this month, each family will make a sacrifice of a lamb, one year old, without blemish. On the tenth day they’ll set their lamb apart, and at midnight on the fourteenth day, every one of these lambs will be killed.

And on this first occasion of this particular sacrifice, the Hebrews are called to do something really specific. Before they cook the lamb and eat it, they must take some of the blood from the lamb and put it on the doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. Once they go inside to eat, they are not to come out until morning.

After that, he gives specific instructions on how this meal is to take place. Chapter 12.8:

8 They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it. 9 Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted, its head with its legs and its inner parts. 10 And you shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. 11 In this manner you shall eat it: with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. And you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s Passover.

The bread they eat is to be without leaven. Unleavened bread stays good a lot longer than leavened bread; it’s food for traveling. They will bring no leftovers—no roasted lamb sandwiches for lunch the next day. Whatever meat you don’t eat, you burn, because the meat won’t stay good on the road. You’ll eat this meal with your shoes on, your belts cinched around your waist, your staff in your hand. Keep your backpacks on, your car keys in your hand—be ready to move.

Why? Because tonight, God is going to clear a path for you to leave; this time tomorrow, you’ll be out the door. V. 12:

12 For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord. 13 The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.

So the people of Israel do what Moses tells them to do. They get their lambs ready, they kill the lambs at the same time, they take some hyssop branches and paint the doorposts at the same time, and they go inside and have their meal.

Can you imagine the heaviness of that meal? You’re at that table, eating that food, with your bags packed and your shoes on, about to be released from slavery…and the whole time, you know full well what the cost of your freedom will be.

The Exodus (12.29-42)

And finally, once the people of Israel are safe and sound in their houses, with their doorposts painted red with the blood of the sacrificial lambs, God visits one last plague on the land of Egypt, because of the Pharaoh’s refusal to obey him. 12.29:

29 At midnight the Lord struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the livestock. 30 And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he and all his servants and all the Egyptians. And there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where someone was not dead. 31 Then he summoned Moses and Aaron by night and said, “Up, go out from among my people, both you and the people of Israel; and go, serve the Lord, as you have said. 32 Take your flocks and your herds, as you have said, and be gone, and bless me also!”

So the entire people of Israel—six hundred thousand men, plus the women and children, which would likely have put their total number at around two million people—take up their belongings and leave Egypt. Their belongings are now substantial, because, as we see in v. 36, God had influenced the people of Egypt to give them riches. Thus, Moses writes, they plundered the Egyptians.

They left in a hurry, bringing with them no provisions other than the unleavened dough they had made to bake bread. They left together, after 430 years in Egypt, many of which were spent in bondage. God rescued his people; it was the beginning of the fulfillment of his promise to Abraham, to give them a land that would be theirs.

The Feasts (12.43-13.16)

Now if you know the story, you know that we’re reaching the climax of this part of it—the scene at the Red Sea. And we really want to get there, because we’ve seen the movies—we know how awesome that part it.

But before we get there, we have another set of instructions, and they’re easy to overlook because what comes before, and what comes after, are both so massive.

But this is probably the most important section in this entire text, because not only does it respond to what has just happened, but it sets up some incredibly important things, not only for the rest of the book of Exodus, but for the entire biblical narrative.

Starting at v. 43 of chapter 12, through verse 16 of chapter 13, we see three separate sets of instructions that God gives to Moses and Aaron. They’re not instructions concerning where they are to go, but rather they are ritual instructions: God is telling them how the people of Israel are to commemorate what has just happened in Egypt.

The first instruction God gives them concerns the Passover that the people will now celebrate every year. He says (12.43-49):

43 And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “This is the statute of the Passover: no foreigner shall eat of it, 44 but every slave that is bought for money may eat of it after you have circumcised him. 45 No foreigner or hired worker may eat of it. 46 It shall be eaten in one house; you shall not take any of the flesh outside the house, and you shall not break any of its bones. 47 All the congregation of Israel shall keep it. 48 If a stranger shall sojourn with you and would keep the Passover to the Lord, let all his males be circumcised. Then he may come near and keep it; he shall be as a native of the land. But no uncircumcised person shall eat of it. 49 There shall be one law for the native and for the stranger who sojourns among you.”

Now, why these instructions about foreigners and slaves, and how they should approach the Passover? The first reason is because, as we see in v. 38, the people of Israel were not the only ones who left Egypt with them that day: a “mixed multitude” went with them. We don’t know exactly who these people were, but they were not Hebrews. So if they were hoping to join with the people of Israel, it would be natural for them to want to celebrate their feasts with them.

And God says that’s fine—provided that all the males of their households be circumcised.

This is actually really important, because it connects the Passover God is instituting here to his promises to Abraham. Remember, God gave circumcision as a sign of the covenant he was making with Abraham, and of the promises he had given to him. God told Abraham he would make him the father of many nations (Genesis 17.3-4). God was open to letting foreigners join in his saving purposes (something the people forgot fairly quickly later on), but if they would share in his blessings, they would also share in the commitments that came with those blessings: they would commit to fulfilling Israel’s side of the covenant, to obey God’s commandments.

The second instruction God gives, in 13.3-10, concerns a feast Israel would hold, called the Feast of Unleavened Bread. This was a feast that would last seven days; it would be initiated by the Passover, after which the they would eat unleavened bread for seven days before culminating in a feast to God.

Why unleavened bread? Because that’s what they had to take with them the night they left Egypt: bread that would not go stale, bread made for traveling.

The third instruction is incredibly important. The firstborn of all of Israel would be consecrated to God. 13.1:

The Lord said to Moses, 2 “Consecrate to me all the firstborn. Whatever is the first to open the womb among the people of Israel, both of man and of beast, is mine.”

To “consecrate” something meant to give it back to God, to set it aside for his honor and for his service. God goes further in v. 11-13:

11 “When the Lord brings you into the land of the Canaanites, as he swore to you and your fathers, and shall give it to you, 12 you shall set apart to the Lord all that first opens the womb. All the firstborn of your animals that are males shall be the Lord’s. 13 Every firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb, or if you will not redeem it you shall break its neck. Every firstborn of man among your sons you shall redeem.

So the firstborn of every creature belonging to Israel—the firstborn sons and the firstborn of all the male animals, were to be given to God.

Now concretely, what did that mean? It meant that every firstborn animal that was male was to be sacrificed to God (or redeemed through the sacrifice of another animal), and every firstborn son was likewise to be “redeemed.” That is, they would sacrifice a lamb instead of the son (thank goodness). In other words, God says, because I killed the firstborn of Egypt in order to free you, you owe me your firstborn as well. It’s only fair that if they lost their firstborn, you lose yours as well.

But I’ll provide a way for you to not have to lose your sons: sacrifice a lamb in their place, and your son will be considered “redeemed.”

The Exodus for Us

Now, let me ask you a question I find really interesting, that I always like to ask when I’m reading the Bible, particularly the Old Testament. You can’t always find an answer, but it’s a good question to ask: Why did God chose to do it like this? Why do you think God choose to free the people of Israel like this? Why go through all these complicated plagues, and the death of the firstborn in Egypt?

Because he could easily have done this another way. God could have just struck all of the rulers in Egypt dead—the Pharaoh, the ministers, the foremen tasked with managing the people of Israel, the heads of the army—and no one would have been left to stop the Hebrews from just walking out of there. Or God could have simply rewired the Pharaoh’s brain and changed his mind. God didn’t need the Pharaoh to let the people go; he could have made the Pharaoh do it, in an instant.

So why didn’t he do it that way? Because he wants to teach his people—and us—a number of things.

God frees the people from slavery in Egypt, and commands them to observe a number of rituals afterwards. I’m sure, if you read these chapters 12 and 13 this week, that you noticed something interesting. In these chapters we see something repeated: a hypothetical situation that would almost definitely come up in the life of a faithful Hebrew family.

The first time we see it is when God is giving his more extensive instructions for the Passover, in chapter 12. In v. 26, God says this:

26 “And when your children say to you, ‘What do you mean by this service?’ 27 you shall say, ‘It is the sacrifice of the Lord’s Passover, for he passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt, when he struck the Egyptians but spared our houses.’ ”

And again, in 13.8-9, during the instructions for the Feast of Unleavened Bread:

8 You shall tell your son on that day, ‘It is because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt.’ 9 And it shall be to you as a sign on your hand and as a memorial between your eyes, that the law of the Lord may be in your mouth. For with a strong hand the Lord has brought you out of Egypt.

And then again, in 13.14-16, during the instructions for the consecration of the firstborn:

14 And when in time to come your son asks you, ‘What does this mean?’ you shall say to him, ‘By a strong hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt, from the house of slavery. 15 For when Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the Lord killed all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both the firstborn of man and the firstborn of animals. Therefore I sacrifice to the Lord all the males that first open the womb, but all the firstborn of my sons I redeem.’ 16 It shall be as a mark on your hand or frontlets between your eyes, for by a strong hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt.”

When you see something repeated like this in such a short span of time, it’s because the author means for us to pay attention. What he’s saying is that these feasts, these rituals, were not meaningless; they have a pedagogical purpose behind them. They are meant to keep the events of the Exodus in the forefront of the minds of God’s people, so that they might not forget them. (A mark on your hand, frontlets between your eyes—something you won’t be able to miss.)

The Passover, and the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and the consecration of the firstborn, are a reminder—embodied memorials. They’re a series of physical acts that helped the people of Israel to look back at what God did in Egypt, so they would not forget.

But that’s not all it is; these feasts aren’t merely memorials to an event that took place a long time ago. They look back to the story of the Exodus, but the Exodus itself is a reminder of something too. It’s a reminder of a different sort—one that doesn’t look back, but forwards.

We see it in the Feast of Unleavened Bread. God reminds the Israelites of a meal taken in haste, with dough that would not need to rise, because their departure was imminent. We too have been told (Luke 12.40): You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.

We see it most clearly in the Passover and the consecration of the firstborn. God tells Israel to set aside all their firstborn sons for him. Even if you only have one son, that son is to be consecrated to God, and redeemed by the sacrifice of a lamb. God demands the first.

But he doesn’t just demand the first from his people. He gave the first to his people.

John 3.16:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

The firstborn of Israel were to be redeemed by a sacrifice that would take their place. God’s firstborn too, eight days after his birth, was consecrated in the temple (Luke 2.21-39). But this firstborn of God wasn’t only redeemed by a sacrifice; he was himself the sacrifice given for all the people—a perfect sacrifice, given once and for all.

When John the Baptist first saw Jesus coming to him at the river where he was baptizing, what did he say about him? John 1.29:

The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”

John already understood what other took longer to grasp: Jesus was the Lamb of God, sent to redeem his people—to be sacrificed in their place, that they might be freed from their sin.

God gave his firstborn—his only Son—in order to save his people. All of us are born in bondage to sin, that instinct in us to reject God and rebel against him. Because of that sin, we are as guilty as the Pharaoh: hard-hearted and under God’s just condemnation. But in his grace, he provided an Exodus for us: a means of being redeemed, a means of being released from slavery to our sin.

You see, the story of the Exodus has its echoes all throughout the Bible, not because it is a seminal story in the life of the people of Israel, but because this story is our story. The true Exodus of the Bible is not Israel’s exodus, but ours.

The story of the Bible is entirely centered around God giving his firstborn in order to free us from bondage to sin, to bring us out of darkness into light, out of death and into life.

God Deserves the First

Now here is what we have to see. Jesus, through his life, death and resurrection, brought an end to the Law of Moses. We are no longer required to celebrate the Passover, or the Feast of Unleavened Bread. We are no longer required to offer sacrifices for our firstborn sons.

But God has not changed. These things are no longer required of us, not because they are unimportant, but because they are completed. What is not completed—what will never be completed—is the proper response God that deserves from us because of what he has done for us.

When God rescued the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt, he told them to observe these feasts, and to consecrate their firstborn, as a way of remembering and responding to what he did for them. When your sons ask you why you’re doing these things, he said, tell them it’s because of what God did for us in Egypt: how he freed us by a mighty hand.

The Exodus of the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt was far less significant than our Exodus from slavery to sin. This second Exodus took place, not for one nation, but for all nations—for people from every country, every tribe, every language, throughout all of human history.

But for many Christians today, if God made the same demands he made on the people of Israel—observe these feasts, perform these rituals, perform these sacrifices to consecrate your firstborn—they’d think he’s asking way too much. It’s just too much work; lighten up, God, no one has time for all that.

Why do we think that God would deserve so much less after the second Exodus than after the first?

You see, many Christians have completely misunderstood what grace means. God’s grace does not mean there is nothing left for us to do after we are saved; his grace means that even when what we do is far from enough to repay him, we are still loved and accepted by him. It means our salvation doesn’t depend on our works, but on his.

But he still deserves the first—not just of our children, but of everything we are, and everything we have: our time, our thoughts, our actions, our resources, our talents—everything. God has given us so much, so much that we did not deserve: that is the gospel. And we can gauge our understanding of the gospel by how we respond to the gospel.

If you remember, earlier I mentioned that first Passover meal in Egypt—the people of Israel eating their food with their clothes and shoes on and their bags backed, while they could hear the cries going up in all the land of Egypt around them. It’s a heavy image, and it would have been a heavy experience. The same is true for these festivals they were meant to keep. The consecration of the firstborn, the celebration of the Passover, were bloody affairs.

These things are meant to be heavy, because our salvation is not a light thing. The Exodus story helps us remember just how serious these things are—how much God has saved us from, and how much it cost.

This is no light matter. God gave the first, and he deserves the first from us.

Often when we think about where God fits in to our calendar, our budget, our priorities, we’ve already started off on the wrong foot. Just look at what I just said: we think about where God “fits in” to our priorities. God shouldn’t “fit in” to our priorities; our priorities should be shaped around him. He’s not the meeting we have to try to find a place for; when our calendars are clear, when our budget is still undefined, when our priorities are still taking shape, the first event we create, the first line in our budget, the first priority, should be his.

Not because we have to do it to be saved, but because he deserves it. After everything else he’s done for us, how could any other response make sense?

While we were in the U.S. on vacation we heard a great sermon on just Exodus 13.11-16, the consecration of the firstborn. The pastor told a story during that sermon of a discussion he had with his son, a discussion similar to ones we have had with both of our kids many times. He explained that he was paid at the beginning of every month, and the first thing he did at the beginning of every month was to set aside a certain sum for the church. When his son was about thirteen years old, he came into his dad’s office while he was writing checks for the monthly bills (this was before direct deposit). He looked at the stack of checks on the desk, and noticed that the first check on the pile was written out to the church.

His son’s eyes bugged out when he saw the amount (a lot for a thirteen-year-old). “Dad!” he said. “Why are we giving that much money to the church? Didn’t they just pay you that money? Why are you giving it back?”

The pastor looked at his son and said, “I give that much to God because I used to be a slave, but he set me free.”

God deserves the first—not just of our finances, but of everything: of our time, our talents, our love. And we know how much he deserves by how much he gave; he gave the first.

My prayer for my family, and for all of our families, is that we might live in such a way that will cause some confusion in our children—why do we spend our money on this? why do we spend our time doing this? why don’t we do this?

And I pray that when they come to ask us these questions, we might get excited about the answer we will give. “We do these things, kids, because we used to be slaves, but God set us free.”