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The First Passover
This chapter is based on Exodus 11; 12:1-32.
When Moses first presented the demand for Israel’s release to the
king of Egypt, he gave warning of the most terrible of the plagues.
“Thus says the Lord: ‘Israel is My son, My firstborn. So I say to
you, let My son go that he may serve Me. But if you refuse to let
him go, indeed I will kill your son, your firstborn’” (
Exodus 4:22,
23
).
God has a tender care for the beings formed in His image. If the
loss of their harvests and their flocks and herds had brought Egypt
to repentance, the children would not have been harmed. But the
nation had stubbornly resisted the divine command. Now the final
blow was about to fall.
Moses had been forbidden, on pain of death, to appear again
in Pharaoh’s presence; but again Moses came before him, with the
terrible announcement: “Thus says the Lord: ‘About midnight I
will go out into the midst of Egypt; and all the firstborn in the land
of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his
throne, even unto the firstborn of the female servant who is behind
the handmill, and all the firstborn of the animals. Then there shall
be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as was not like
it before, nor shall be like it again. But against none of the children
of Israel shall a dog move its tongue, against man or beast, that
you may know that the Lord does make a difference between the
Egyptians and Israel.’”
Before executing this sentence the Lord gave direction through
Moses to the children of Israel about leaving Egypt and how to be
preserved from the coming judgment. Each family, alone or with
others, was to slaughter a lamb or a kid “without blemish,” and with
a bundle of hyssop sprinkle its blood on “the two doorposts and
on the lintel” of the house, so that at midnight the destroying angel
would not enter that dwelling. They were to eat the roasted flesh
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