Freedom is for Worship-Exodus 12-13

Exodus, Old Testament, Sermons

  • Not only did the Jews keep the Passover, but the Passover has kept the Jews alive.
  • Both the bitterness of their slavery and the sweetness of their liberation are acted out in this sacred meal.

Liberation from and liberation for. Is freedom destroying the U.S.–the land of the free? The purpose of the exodus is NOT only freedom from slavery, for freedom per se gives license and results in anarchy. That’s why, in God’s name, Moses repeatedly demanded freedom for the Israelites NOT for its own sake but so “that they may worship/serve Me” (Exo 5:1,3; 7:16; 8:1,20; 9:1,13; 10:3, etc). How exactly does one worship and serve God?

  • Ritually and especially ethically, for God is primarily worshipped through moral conduct, which is repeatedly emphasized (Dt 6:18; Isa 5:16; Jer 9:23-24; Mic 6:8). The listing of laws is therefore intended to remind the Israelites that they are being liberated from slavery in Egypt to serve God.

“God is the only God” is the central theological tenet of the Torah and of the whole Bible. This final devastating plague reinforces again that only the Lord God is God and all other gods are false (Exo 12:12).

Oddly, the rules on observing the Passover [and the Feast of Unleavened Bread] are detailed before the Passover happens. In a directive probably unmatched in human affairs, a fledgling people–a mere mass of oppressed slaves–are told even before it happens, how to celebrate forever the event of their not yet deliverance forever (Exo 12:17). Gratitude and recompense must be expressed forwared, by undertaking the tasks of instruction of and transmission to future generations. Their obligation to commemorate and reenact the people-forming act of their deliverance by the Lord stands as the keynote teaching.

The Passover [pesakh; lit. pass over], described in Exo 12:1-13:16, is a break in the action. God told Israel how to celebrate it, generation in, generation out, and Israel held the 1st celebration. Thus, Israel celebrates God‘s great act of deliverance before it happens. The plague narratives are interrupted to list the laws the Israelites must follow on the eve of the Exodus. Dramatically this is poorly situated as the suspense is now at its peak, for God is about to bring the final and most devastating plague upon Egypt.

The 3 themes are (12:1-13:16) are:

  1. the Passover lamb
  2. protecting the [life/death of the] firstborn
  3. the Feast of Unleavened Bread [bread without yeast]

God declares a change in calender in advance before giving any orders. This month will be “the first month” (Exo 12:2) of the year, which is the spring month of Aviv (13:4). The Jewish calendar has 2 different 1st months. Tishrei, the autumn month that includes Rosh Hashanah (New Year) and Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement), celebrates a time of repentance, new beginnings, and the creation of the world. Aviv or Nissan, the spring month that includes Passover, celebrates a time of rebirth, renewal, and the beginning of the Jewish nation. A new age is dawning. Therefore this month shall be forever reckoned as the beginning of your calender year. Virtually every nation celebrates both the beginning of the New Year and the beginning of its country. In the Torah they are both New Years.

The first step to freedom and dignity is not to live on nature’s time but on God’s time and your time. Aviv is made the first month, not because it is the time of renewed sprouting an dgrowth but because it is the month of Israelite deliverance and the beginning of a new history. For everyone else spring is nature’s springing forth, but for Israel it is the time of the people’s “sprouting,” a sprouting resulting not from natural necessity but from divine choice and deliberate intervention. 

God refers to the Israelites for the very first time as “community [or congregation] of Isreal” (Exo 12:3), not as the Children of Israel. What they are asked to do will be their first positive people-forming event: an event comprising sacrifice, eating and blood, with each element holding great significance. This builds a community of freedom, for only free people are able to plan for themselves in advance.

Sacrificing lambs (Exo 12:3) would be offensive to the Egyptians and a danger to the Israelites. It represents a symbolic gesture of the people’s entrance into the battle against Egypt and its gods. Doing so willingly–which will not come easily to them–requires taking responsibility for themselves and not rely exclusively on Moses and God. [It was simply ritual slaughter for food, as opposed to secular animal slaughter for food.]

Household-by-household character (12:3-6) reaffirms the importance of family life with their new nation born of households–NOT of isolated individuals–with attachment also to the community and to God. So the household principle is being subordinated to the communal principle and to divine service.

No waste (Exo 12:4). Exo 12:5 is a list of requirements: lamb, sound, male, one year. They were to be sound, year-old males, sheep or goat kids. “Lamb” (Exo 12:3,4) is a generic word that could refer to either one.

The Paschal meal is God‘s central instruction. The frugal meal before the Exodus is meant, among other things, to teach the Israelites to leave their Egyptian appetites behind, as underlined by the manner in which the Paschal lamb is to be eaten: ready for departure, with loins girded, shoes on feet, staff in hand, in haste.The anti–Egyptian meal is to be eaten halfway out the door and not looking back. God is saying this is not your ordinary meal, enjoyed in ordinary times. In fact, this is NOT YOUR TIME at all: something much more momentous is taking place, something that will change the time of your lives and that of the entire world. Get ready. Get set. It is time to go into a new age. But if they cling to the ways of Egypt, they effectively excommunicate themselves.

The lamb was acquired on the 10th day of the month (Exo 12:3) and slaughtered on the 14th day (Exo 12:6) provided for 3 days of care before the day of slaughter. It may be as simple as providing time to control the animal’s diet, since it would be cooked with its entrails (Exo 12:9), or that the 3 days of darkness were the same days (Exo 10:22). This could also [1] teach them faith to wait on God and not fear the Egyptians sudden attack, and [2] practice delayed gratification of subordinating their bodily hunger for the sake of God. Sacrificing a lamb would be sacrificing an animal sacred to the Egyptians. They would be sacrificing the gods of their oppressors, before their oppressors’ eyes, to be ready to embrace freedom. It may be analogous to those in totalitarian states gathering to publicly smash statues of the dictator.

Eat it in haste (Exo 12:11). The details are necessities of haste or symbols of haste. The cooking method–roasted over fire and being fully dressed (Exo 12:8-9,11)–were symbols of traveling, when large pots were not available for boiling, and a symbolic action of haste with the animal not eviscerated but cooked with entrails intact (Exo 12:9) and bread made without yeast (Exo 12:8), a quicker method since it did not need to rise. Eaten “along with bitter herbs” (Exo 12:8)–lettuce, dandelion and chicory–was a reminder that their lives had been “bitter with hard/harsh labor” (Exo 1:14).

Eat it with trepidation is the secondary meaning of “eat it in haste” (Exo 12:11). The word “haste” means “trepidation,” “hurry,” or “alarm.” Why? Because “it is the Lord’s Passover” (Exo 12:11). The Lord would literally “pass over” [pesakh] their houses as they ate and as young men and animals died in Egypt (Exo 12:12). The important issue was the attitude in which they ate. It isn’t a celebratory feast. They were not to be indifferent to the suffering outside the walls of their homes, even the suffering of their enslavers (Prov 24:17). They should eat with the haste of alarm, since their deliverance was purchased at such a cost of human and animal life (Exo 12:12). God’s judgment of the gods of Egypt brought suffering to every home outside the protection God gave to Israel. God did the work while they ate in safety. God made a distinction between those whose God was the Lord and those who worshiped/served other gods, though they were all God’s creatures.

“The blood will be a sign to you” (Exo 12:13a). “Sign” in Hebrew is the same used for the other plagues. This culminating sign was not for Pharaoh, but for the people [“for you”]. The people received the miracle when they accept the Lord‘s offer of grace, protection and lordship by placing the blood on their doorposts (Exo 12:7). This was not a blood ritual that fended off an angry God. God’s grace provided them with a sign of the Lord’s prevenient provision of protection in the midst of general judgment in the land. The whole Exodus pattern is that God came down to deliver his people. The miracle was that of seeking God’s shelter and lordship by responding to God’s provision.

It is God who protects the people, not the blood (Exo 12:13b)–as though the blood were magical and designed to avert evil [apotropaic]. “Pass over” [pesakh] carries the meaning of “protect” or “shield” (Isa 31:5). It is God who protects and saves his people (Exo 12:23,27). The people could, however, reject the protection God offered. The absence of blood on a door frame would constitute a rejection of God’s offer of grace, protection and lordship. God offered 3 promises, better translated, “I will see the blood and I will pass over you; no destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt” (Exo 12:23).

“A day you are to commemorate” (Exo 12:14a) links the 2 observances [Passover/Feast of Unleavened Bread] by referring to the day of the Passover, continuing with 7 days of eating bread without yeast that follow it. The “lasting ordinance” (Exo 12:14b, 17) of “no yeast” is expressed in 3 ways:

  1. “Eat bread made without yeast” [matsah] (Exo 12:15a,20).
  2. “On the first day remove the yeast from your houses” (Exo 12:15b).
  3. “…whoever eats anything with yeast [khamets]…must be cut off from Israel” (Exo 12:15c).

Celebrate or be cut off. What is the reason for this celebration? “because it was on this very day that I brought your divisions out of Egypt” (Exo 12:17). The striking repetition of phrases in this passage is intentional for it has constitutional force for God’s people. Anyone who does not participate cannot be part of Israel and are cut off (Exo 12:15,19). It is comparable to not being baptized as a Christian or sharing in the Lord‘s Supper. Participation is non-negotiable. Participation in, and remembrance of, the Lord’s deliverance is a primary theme of Exodus, being emphasized throughout (Exo 13:6-7; 16:4-15,29-32; 23:5; 25:30; 29:2,23,32-34; 34:18,28; 35:13; 39:36; 40:23). This is to be remembered and celebrated by God’s renewed people “for the generations to come” (Exo 12:14,17). Practicing and participating in this shapes the life of the people.

“Go at once” (Exo 12:21). Moses speaks to the Israelites [elders Exo 4:29)] for the 1st time since they refused to listen to him (Exo 6:9). He gave them imperative directions for protecting their firstborn (Exo 12:21-23) and future remembrance of the event (Exo 12:24-27). Hyssop (Exo 12:22) is probably a kind of marjoram [herb like oregano]. “put” (Exo 12:22) is better translated as “touch,” the same word translated as “plague” (Exo 11:1): “I will bring one more plague [touch] on Pharaoh.” The wordplay is of the blood “touching” the doorframe while the “plague” was coming.

The Lord came to “strike down the Egyptians” (Exo 12:23), but would protect/pass over [pasakh – protect (Exo 12:13)] his people, for they accepted his lordship by applying the blood to their house. The blood of the lamb, through God’s protection, provided them with victory over certain death and over the evils of Egyptian enslavement. [So “conservatives” and “liberals” do their best to enslave their opponents when they are in power and have the upper hand?]

The theme of the Passover lamb is the protection from bondage to sin, death and evil. In the NT the Passover Feast became the Last Supper (Mk 14:12-16; Mt 26:17-19; Lk 22:7-13). John alludes to Jesus as the Passover lamb (Jn 19:14,31-33,42). Paul says that the Corinthians have been delivered from the “yeast” [bondage] of malice and evil by the sacrifice of Christ, the Passover lamb (1 Cor 5:7).

For Christians, the Passover is like Christ’s once and for all defeat of death through his death and resurrection. We share in deliverance from the dominion of death and are set free in new life under his lordship. The NT describes cleansing from sin offered in Christ (Heb 10:1-22) [but the Passover sacrifice (Exo 12:26) was not a sin-offering].

Deliverance is only from the Lord. It was not attributed to Moses’ or Aaron’s persuasive power, nor to the people’s will to freedom, for even at the sea they murmured and complained (Exo 14:31). The people worshiped (Exo 12:26) though they were not yet delivered, because they believed that the Lord would follow through on these promises.

A midnight shriek of agony. “I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn of both people and animals, and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord.” “At midnight the Lord struck down all the firstborn in Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh … to the firstborn of the prisoner … and the firstborn of all the livestock as well. …and there was loud wailing in Egypt, for there was not a house without someone dead” (Exo 12:12,29-30).

Is God‘s justice fair or does this seem heartless, ruthless and unfair? Why should the innocent firstborns of Egyptians [and cute animals] have to die? Yes, God punishes the Egyptians for mistreating the Israelites, but does He have to be so severe, even cruel, and seemingly without measure, striking the innocent as well as the guilty? [Such questions cannot be answered without considering who God is. Just who is God that gives him the right to just take a person’s life seemingly arbitrarily and randomly?] The objection and protest is that the Egyptian masses do not all deserve the evils God brings down on them via the plagues. [An easy answer is that God’s justice is different from human justice.]

The punishments or judgments [shefatim] fit the “crimes” [brutal slavery, infanticide] and the “criminals‘ [Pharaoh, but who else?–all of Egypt?]; they are NOT the expression of arbitrary or angry power. About the fitness of punishment, Pharaoh’s own testimony in 2 places [after hail and after locusts] that he is moved to confess that he has sinned, and in one place that the Lord is in the right and that he and his people are in the wrong (Exo 9:27). The question is not whether they should be punished but how. Ways of providing fitting punishment:

  1. Measure for measure–lex talionis, “an eye for an eye,” getting even–an outside agent forcing the retributive measure.
  2. Force someone to fully experience, as a result of his own deeds, the result of his own evil actions, as some of the plagues likely do–forcing Pharaoh to bear witness against himself by making him responsible for the logical consequences of his opinions and actions. Pharaoh will get exactly what he wished for, only to discover that it was not what he wanted.

Defending the justice of God‘s punishments on Egypt:

  1. The Israelites’ suffering at the hand of Egypt was unspeakably harsh and long-lasting, and could not have been carried out without the direct participation of many Egyptians. Some of the plagues look like strict payback, measure for measure:
  2. You drown my sons in the Nile, I bloody your Nile and kill your sons.
  3. You enslave my people at brickmaking in furnaces, I turn soot from the furnaces into boils that will punish your slave drivers.
  4. Many more Egyptians were no doubt complicit in these crimes and thus indirectly guilty. They did not try to stop them. They remained docile and complacent members of their society. They were in a sense guilty of what society did in their name. [The non-slaveholding North enjoyed the economic benefits of slavery.]
  5. Communities prosper and suffer as one, to generalize the point. Innocent individuals invariably suffer [Lot in Sodom] unfairly because of the evils of the regime, just as they will benefit “unjustly” from its merits to which they have not contributed. The strict justice we expect as individuals, where each person gets ONLY what he or she deserves [good and bad], is impossible in cities, nations and empires. Political justice is rarely personally just.
  6. The whole nation is an extension of the will of one man, acting like a god [or tyrant]. Thus, Pharaoh is responsible for everything that happens to the Egyptians. Though the plagues are divinely sent, responsibility for their arrival rests mainly with Pharaoh. The Egyptian masses suffer more than they individually deserve only because Pharaoh refuses to bend to the Lord’s demands. Because he remains stubbornly and fully Pharaoh, he exposes his people to the deep meaning of his tyranny: their suffering is both his doing and his punishment. There is no justice under tyranny, only the rule of the strong, as the people suffered under Pharaoh.
  7. The injustice of Pharaoh’s rule is deadly to the very people for whose welfare he is responsible. To rule like Pharaoh, without any “fear of God” or respect for human dignity, means that the people whom he rules count for nothing. A man who would kill newborn babies is himself a lethal plague upon all his people. God intervenes in Egypt in part to show the Egyptians, the Israelites, and the world the deadly meaning of Pharaonic–despotic—rule. Ultimately, the death of the firstborns is finally on Pharaoh’s head, not God’s–not only because he refused to let the Israelites go when warned in advance. But also his hostility to childbirth, to those who will take one’s place: he commanded all his people to drown their boys, forgetting to specify “Hebrew” (Exo 1:23). In the end he was the cause of destroying his nation’s future, even in his own house. God’s ultimate and fitting punishment of Egypt consists in exposing the truth about despotic rule: despotic rule means a blighted future and, ultimately, death to a civilization.

7 succinct reports that read like news bulletins (Exo 12:29-30, 31-32, 33-34, 35-36, 37-38, 39, 40-41; Gen 15:13). 6 quick imperatives by Pharaoh (Exo 12:31-32). “plunder” (Exo 12:36) means “delivered.” Israel deliverd the Egyptians of their wealth, their slaves, and their guilt for the years of slavery (Exo 11:2-3). The slaves were delivered with material goods to begin their new lives (Dt 15:12-15) and to buiild the tabernacle (Exo 38:24-31).

7 instructions for keeping the Passover (12:43-51) and for becoming members of their community. As the Israelites set off on their journey to independent nationhood, how porous should the boundaries be between them and their neighbors. It is striking how open to accepting strangers and how generous are the criteria for allowing outsiders to join their ranks. The critical requirement for membership is NOT the blood tie of birth and ethnicity (or the ability to contribute money), but commitment and dedication to their covenantal purposes. You don’t need to be a natural child of Israel to become a covenantal child in Israel. What is required is only circumcision, the voluntary acceptance of the (nature-altering) sign of God’s covenant with Abraham and all his future descendants, a covenant intended to establish, perpetuate and transmit a way of life devoted to righteousness and justice (Gen 18:19)–and to holiness (Exo 19:6). Thus, only people who willingly enter the covenant with God to do righteousness and justice can become full members of the nation that has been liberated from bondage in order to build a rightoues and just political community–one where strangers will be welcomed and justly treated.

Next, No Way Out But God (Exo 14-15) is Exodus’ most spectacular and action packed passage.

  • Do your children belong to you or to God (Exo 13:2,12)?
  • Why did Moses carry Joseph’s bones from Egypt for the exodus (Exo 13:19; Gen 50:25)?

[Birth and Bones] Consecration of the firstborn (Exo 13:1-2, 11-13). The law prescribing future Passover observance immediately preceded the Exodus, and the law prescribing the redemption of the firstborn immediately follow it. The firstborn, the preferred one, both human and animal is to be consecrated–set aside, dedicated, made holy unto Him. Why? Because they are all His. God demands that He be inserted into the relationship between a father and son, and between a landowner and his animals. Against the natural belief that my son and my calf and lamb are mine, God insists that they are His. Why and what’s the context? It comprises memory and the education of children (Exo 13:8-10, 14-16) to:

  1. counter parental pride in producing and possessing offspring,
  2. counter paternal (and cultural) impulses toward child sacrifice,
  3. commemorate the sparing of Isreal‘s firstborn [my life], purchased by the killing of Egypt’s firstborn [God’s Son],
  4. overturn the widespread presumption that what is naturally first should be humanly first (primogeniture),
  5. teach that children are a gift, NOT of nature but of the Lord.

Against primogeniture, in which the naturally first is automatically the heir of his father’s domain. The Bible, from the beginning, has been against the father’s prideful preference for his firstborn–favoring

  • Abel over Cain,
  • Isaac over Ishmael,
  • Jacob over Esau,
  • Ephraim over Manasseh

–and making clear that the naturally first is not the humanly best, especially if the standard is right, not might, especially if human affairs are not yet “set” according to God’s plan. By claiming the firstborn for Himself and by insisting that consecration and redemption are the result of a human decision (imperative: “you consecrate unto me,” “you shall redeem”), God is warning Israel

  • against the complacent view that things are permanently settled or that
  • mindless nature will properly order human affairs, and
  • against the prideful view that what we and nature produce suffices for human life.

Teach our children that

  • He wants only that our children be dedicated to His ways (Gen 18:19; Mic 6:8);
  • He wants only that we remember gratefully His beneficence (Exo 20:2; 29:46);
  • He wants only that we continue to tell the story of how the world came to know Him (Exo 12:26-27; 13:8).

Consecrating our children to the Lord is not only compatible with their remaining alive: it will be the basic condition fo their flourishing.

13:17-22 begins the next stage of the Exodus story, beginning with their first travels in the wilderness before crossing the sea.

Moses carries Joseph‘s bones in fulfilment of the deathbed promise Joseph made his brother’s promise hundreds of years earlier (Exo 13:19). This turns the Exodus into a funeral procession. This little gesture speaks volumes.

  1. Joseph’s bones are the only available link Israel has to the patriarchs, i.e. to the original sons of Jacob. [Joseph’s brothers are all buried–and lie rotting—in Egypt.]
  2. Moses’ act honors the importance of memory. Moses remembers Joseph. In doing so he pays tribute also to God’s remembering and keeping His promises–in sharp contrast to Pharaoh, whose words are written in water and who remembers nothing of what he has promised.
  3. It provides the ex-slaves an edifying connection to their glorious past. Joseph was both a beloved son of Israel and a political power in Egypt. Taking Joseph’s bones–in accord with his last request–shows the people Joseph‘s final preference: better to be buried in Israel than to be a mummy awaiting reanimation in Egypt. In the end Joseph chose Israel over Egypt.

Burying Joseph‘s bones is a repudiation of embalming and of Egypt altogether. Their deed of bringing Joseph home represents the undoing of Joseph the Egyptian and all that he had wroght.

  • It puts an end to the Egyptian diaspora, begun by Joseph, who was carried down to Egypt and sold into slavery owing to the [not undeserved] enmity of his brothers;
  • who rose to become prime minister;
  • who then introduced centralizing practices and indentured servitude in Egypt;
  • which led to the enslavement of the Israelites;
  • the end of which servitude in now marked when Moses and the Israelites redeem a promise made to Joseph, redeeming him for Israel and the Promised Land.

Moses is doing a kindness to Joseph and fulfilling his brothers’ promise to bury him in the Promised Land, just as Joseph did a kindness to his brothers by not avenging their mistreatment of him, and just as he fulfilled his own promise to bury his father in the cave at Machpelah. In political terms, Moses, the statesman and soon-to-be legislator, quasi-Egyptian-turned Israelite, prepares to bury the mortal remains of Joseph the administrator, Israelite-turned-Egyptian. In doing so, he rejects the Egyptian preoccupation with augmenting wealth and power.

No Way Out But God (Exoodus 14-15).

Reference:

  1. Leon R. Kass. Founding God’s Nation. Reading Exodus. 2021. Overview of Exodus by Leon Kass.
  2. James K. Bruckner. Exodus. New International Bible Commentary. 2008.
  3. John Goldingay. Exodus & Leviticus for Everyone. 2010.
  4. Robert Alter. The Hebrew Bible. A translation with commentary. The Five Books of Moses. 2019.
  5. Dennis Prager. Exodus. God, Slavery, and Freedom. The Rational Bible. 2018.

God delivers His people from slavery into His presence. “And they shall know that I am the LORD their God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt that I might dwell among them. I am the LORD their God.” (Exo 29:46). A KV of Exodus.

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