THE EXODUS BEGINS

BOOK OF EXODUS

CHAPTER 12:21-51

            It’s great to have you back with us again as we study the book of Exodus.  Today our Daily Bread joins Moses as he tells the children of Israel God’s plan for their exodus from Egypt.

            Moses gathered all the elders of Israel together and told them, Everyone take a lamb for your family and kill the Passover lamb.  Take a bunch of hyssop, (a plant used by the Hebrews for sprinkling blood when purifying things) dip it in the blood of the lamb and strike the side posts and the upper door post of your houses.  Don’t go out of your house until morning.  The Lord will pass through to kill the Egyptians and when He sees the blood on your doorposts, He’ll pass over the door and won’t let the destroyer come in to your houses to kill you.

            You must remember this thing and observe this holy day.  You must pass it on to the generations after you for ever.  When you get to the land that the Lord will give you as He promised, you must celebrate this holy day and when your children ask you what it means you will tell them, It is to remember the Lord’s Passover, when He passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when he killed the Egyptians and saved our families. 

            The people bowed their heads and thanked God and they went to their homes and did what the Lord commanded Moses and Aaron. 

            That night at midnight the Lord killed all the firstborn of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on the throne to the firstborn of the prisoner in the dungeon and all the firstborn of the cattle.  And Pharaoh woke in the night, he and all his servants and all the Egyptians and there was a great cry in Egypt.  There wasn’t one single house where there wasn’t one dead.

            Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron immediately and said, Get out from among my people, both you and the children of Israel.  Go serve the Lord as you asked.  Take your flocks and your herds and go, and bless me also.

            The Egyptians insisted to send God’s people away in a hurry because they feared for their lives.  So the children of Israel took their bowls of unleavened dough and wrapped them up in clothes on their shoulders and they borrowed jewels of gold and silver and clothing from the Egyptians just as Moses told them to do.

            The Egyptians were supportive of God’s people and they lent them everything they asked for and the children of Israel plundered the Egyptians.  They traveled from Rameses in the land of Goshen to Succoth, about 30 miles.  There were about 600,000 on foot that were men, beside children.  Their flocks and their herds and all their cattle were with them too.

            Now here’s a little unleavened Daily Bread crumb for you.  The Lord knew that His people would be hurried out of Egypt and that is why He said that they should have unleavened bread in their houses.  They baked their unleavened cakes of dough and they didn’t have any other food prepared.

            The very day that the children of Israel were in Egypt for 430 years, all the hosts (multitudes) of the Lord went out of the land of Egypt.  It is a night of watching, and for the children of Israel to honor the Lord for ever, for bringing them out of bondage in Egypt.

            God gave Moses and Aaron the laws of the Passover celebration.  No stranger should eat the Passover.  For an owned servant to eat it, he must first follow the Hebrew customs.  Foreigners and hired servants may not eat it.  It will be eaten in one house, not carried out of the house or any bones of it broken.  (Not one of Jesus bones were broken either.)  All the congregation of Israel will honor the holy day.  When a stranger stays with you and wants to celebrate the Passover, all the males of his house must follow the Hebrew customs and become as one that is born in the land.  The same one law applies to both the home born and the stranger that stays with you.

            All the children of Israel followed what the Lord commanded Moses and Aaron.  And the very same day, the Lord brought His children of Israel out of the land of Egypt by their armies.  They were called armies because army means a great multitude and each of the twelve tribes stayed together in groups.  God referred to them as His armies.

            When we come back next time, we’ll talk more about Israel’s exodus from Egypt and Pharaoh’s reaction after they left.  Remember first he refused to let them go, then he said you can sacrifice to God here in Egypt.  Then he said, go, but not far. Then, only the men can go.  Then, you and your little ones can go, but your flocks and herds stay.  Each time, Pharaoh changed his mind and wouldn’t let them go at all.  Is the death of his firstborn enough to make him honest this time and soften his heart?  Come back and see next time at Daily Bread.

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