Exodus 12:1-13

TONIGHT is our last All-Church Bible Study before Easter. 6:30-8:00 PM. Livestream available.

12 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, 2 “This month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you. 3 Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers' houses, a lamb for a household. 4 And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons; according to what each can eat you shall make your count for the lamb. 5 Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, 6 and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight.
7 “Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. 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. 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.

Since Moses and Aaron confront Pharaoh in chapter 5, the account moves along and the plagues have fallen thick and fast. But without warning in chapter 12 the action is paused for as the Lord gives detailed instructions about the Passover. Why? Why are these details important?

Remember, the Lord’s objective is not merely to get His people out of Egypt, but also to get Egypt out of His people. That is, the purpose of their liberation is for the Lord to commission the Israelites to be His covenant people—His representatives to the nations—and the vehicle by which blessing would come to the entire world.

The first step is for Israel to learn to mark time by the Lord’s calendar and not their own. Note that the Lord tells Moses and Aaron that from then on, the Passover would mark the beginning of each new year.

As Christians, we believe that the exodus from Egypt was a sign of the greater exodus that Jesus would accomplish through His death and resurrection. Just as the lamb’s blood protects the people in Egypt, so the blood of the Lamb protects God’s people from the eternal consequences of sin.

I always imagine, therefore, that the Israelites marked their doorways with the sign of the cross.

P.S. Verse 12 makes explicit what has been implicit up to this point: this is a spiritual battle between the Lord and the so-called gods of Egypt. “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” [12:12].