Deliver Us from Egypt: Exodus 1-12

Catching Up on the Exodus
To say that I’m behind in my reading plan is a gross understatement, somehow I got off track and since the last month has been a blur I won’t attempt an explanation. Somewhere in the last few weeks I started reading Exodus. Exodus tells the story of Moses, the Israelites being delivered out of Egypt from the hands and Pharaoh, the parting of the red sea, wandering in the desert and other such fun stories. If you’ve seen the movie Prince of Egypt, then you are somewhat familiar with the some of the stories in Exodus. The origin of Passover is also in this story.

Too many Israelites in Pharaoh’s opinion & how he dealt with it
In the First chapter of Exodus we are told that a king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph. we are also told that this king decided to enslave the people of Israel so that they would not join with their enemies and fight against them. He was basically scared because the Israelites were more numerous than the Egyptians at this point. Interestingly, the more they afflicted them the more they multiplied and spread out and the Egyptians became even more fearful. Things got so bad that the King ordered the midwives to kill all the male children born to the Hebrews. The midwives however feared God and did not do such a thing but the king commanded the people to cast all sons born to them into the nile. Bottom line is that things went from bad to worse for the Israelites who kept multiplying. In chapter 2 we have the famous story of Moses being born, his mother placing him into a basket and putting him in the Nile, his sister watching him as he went down the nile and Pharaoh’s daughter finding the basket, opening it and taking the child for her own. His own mother ended up nursing him. How convenient. Not much to say here except I’ve always wondered how that basket kept afloat. having just read a story some months ago about a little baby being found in a plastic bag in a river somewhere in Brazil, this has always fascinated me. I throw in something here about God’s providence and protection. In the rest of Exodus 2 we are told how Moses grew up, saw and Egyptian beating one of his friends and killed the Egyptian, later he saw two hebrews fighting with one another and when he tried to break things up they asked him if he would kill them as he did the Egyptian.
Word reached Pharaoh who tried to kill Moses but Moses fled to Midian.

Moses rescues the seven sisters, met the Priest of Midian & Got married all in one day
Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters who came to draw water so they could water their father’s flock, some shepherds came and drove them away but Moses stood up and helped them and watered their fathers flock. When they came to their father he asked them how come they were back so early and they told their father how Moses helped them. next thing we know Moses is invited to eat with them and he gets married to Zipporah one of the seven presumably the eldest. Zipporah bore Moses a son and the next thing we are told is that the King of Egypt died. We are told at the end of that chapter that the sons of Israel cried out to God so much so that God took notice of them.

The Burning Bush
In chapter 3 we have the story of the burning bush. The end result of which God sends Moses to Pharaoh to deliver the people of Israel. I find the little excuses that Moses makes about him not being eloquent of speech in chapter 4 pretty interesting. God realizes this though and sends his brother Aaron with him. It is also interesting that God gives him a staff with which he could perform miracles here. Moses obeys the Lord and took his wife and children back to Egypt with him. In verse 24 of Chapter 4 24 we are told that at the lodging place on the way that the LORD met Moses and sought to put him to death. I was puzzled about this passage until I realized that it had something to do with circumcision, apparently he hadn’t circumcised his firstborn son according to the Law. Apparently, his wife realized this and saved him by taking a flint and cutting off her son’s foreskin and throwing it at Moses’ feet. This is still puzzling here is God about to use Moses to deliver his people yet he was about to kill him for his apparent memory loss. I wonder if Moses even knew about the law having grown up in the house of Pharaoh. Thank goodness his wife did.

Going back to Egypt
In chapters 5-6 Moses goes to Pharaoh and inform him that the God of Israel said to let his people go so that they may celebrate a feast to him in the wilderness the King of course declined and made their labors even more arduous commanding them to gather their own straw to make bricks but meet the same daily quota, they of course could not and thus they were mistreated even more severely than before. In Chapter 6 God promises to take action and the chapter ends with a genealogy of the heads of Israel.

The Plagues
In chapters 7-10 of Exodus things started to heat up in front of Pharaoh. each time Pharaoh refused to let the people of Israel go another plague came. First Aaron throws down his rod in front of him and it became a snake. We are told that the magicians of Egypt did the same. Aaron’s staff however ate up their staff. Next the water of the Nile turned to blood first thing I thought was that must have been an awful smell. The fishes died and it was indeed foul. We are again told that the Egyptian magicians did the same with their secret arts and Pharaoh did not listen or let the people go. Next came the frogs, the magicians did the same as well to prove to Pharaoh that this wasn’t a big deal, next came flies interestingly the magicians could not reproduce this particular plague, then came the pestilence on the livestock and the livestock of the Egyptians dies, the livestock of the israelites did not die, next came boils, by this time the magicians ad given up hope coz they had boils all over them to contend with, next came hail, then locust, then darkness. You would have thought that Pharaoh would have given up by now but there is a passage in the text which have puzzled me to no end “But the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he was not willing to let them go.” what does this mean was Pharaoh’s heart ever soft in the first place? Was there a point where he had a choice in the matter or did God not intend to show these wonders before Moses & Aaron showed up in the palace the first time? In chapter 11 you have the last plague; the killing of the first born. In chapter 11 God tells Moses what he will do. I have one other comment about the story of the plagues. We saw in some of the earlier plagues how the magicians on egypt were able to re-produce them by their secret arts. This means that there are secret arts that can be used to mimic what God can do. There are more than a few examples of this in the Bible but often time we forget these things and is wowed when someone comes along that can do something supernatural. This passage remind us that not all things that are supernatural is from God or is good. Pharaoh should have let those people go instead his magicians were distracting him with their own sign and wonders thus helping Pharaoh not to trust what God was doing or listening to his requests.

The Passover & the Exodus Begins
In chapter 12, God we get a background on the story behind the Passover

“Now the LORD said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, This month shall be the beginning of months for you; it is to be the first month of the year to you. Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying, ‘On the tenth of this month they are each one to take a lamb for themselves, according to their fathers’ households, a lamb for each household. Now if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his neighbor nearest to his house are to take one according to the number of persons in them; according to what each man should eat, you are to divide the lamb. Your lamb shall be an unblemished male a year old; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats. You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month, then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel is to kill it at twilight. ‘Moreover, they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. They shall eat the flesh that same night, roasted with fire, and they shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. ‘Do not eat any of it raw or boiled at all with water, but rather roasted with fire, both its head and its legs along with its entrails. And you shall not leave any of it over until morning, but whatever is left of it until morning, you shall burn with fire. Now you shall eat it in this manner: with your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it in haste–it is the LORD’S Passover. For I will go through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments–I am the LORD. The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live; 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. Now this day will be a memorial to you, and you shall celebrate it as a feast to the LORD; throughout your generations you are to celebrate it as a permanent ordinance. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, but on the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses; for whoever eats anything leavened from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel. On the first day you shall have a holy assembly, and another holy assembly on the seventh day; no work at all shall be done on them, except what must be eaten by every person, that alone may be prepared by you.

You shall also observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this very day I brought your hosts out of the land of Egypt; therefore you shall observe this day throughout your generations as a permanent ordinance. In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread, until the twenty-first day of the month at evening. Seven days there shall be no leaven found in your houses; for whoever eats what is leavened, that person shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is an alien or a native of the land. You shall not eat anything leavened; in all your dwellings you shall eat unleavened bread. Then Moses called for all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go and take for yourselves lambs according to your families, and slay the Passover lamb. You shall take a bunch of hyssop and dip it in the blood which is in the basin, and apply some of the blood that is in the basin to the lintel and the two doorposts; and none of you shall go outside the door of his house until morning. For the LORD will pass through to smite the Egyptians; and when He sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the LORD will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to come in to your houses to smite you. And you shall observe this event as an ordinance for you and your children forever. When you enter the land which the LORD will give you, as He has promised, you shall observe this rite. And when your children say to you, ‘What does this rite mean to you?’ you shall say, ‘It is a Passover sacrifice to the LORD who passed over the houses of the sons of Israel in Egypt when He smote the Egyptians, but spared our homes And the people bowed low and worshiped.”

We are told in the passage that the sons of Israel did just as the Lord instructed and that at midnight the Lord struck down all the firstborn of the Egyptians and that Pharaoh called Moses and told him to take the Israelites and go. At the end of Chapter 12 we have the start of the Exodus and the observance requirements for Passover.