Chapter 24—The First Passover
This chapter is based on
Exodus 11
;
12:1-32
.
When the demand for Israel’s release had been first presented to
the king of Egypt, the warning of the most terrible of the plagues had
been given. “Thus saith the Lord, Israel is My son, even My firstborn:
And I say unto thee, Let My son go, that he may serve Me: and if thou
refuse to let him go, behold, I will slay thy son, even thy 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 smitten; 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 saith the Lord, About midnight will I go out
into the midst of Egypt: and all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall
die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sitteth upon his throne, even
unto the firstborn of the maidservant that is behind the mill; and all the
firstborn of beasts. And there shall be a great cry throughout all the
land of Egypt, such as there was none like it, nor shall be like it any
more. But against any of the children of Israel shall not a dog move
his tongue, against man or beast: that ye may know how that the Lord
doth put a difference between the Egyptians and Israel.”
Before the execution of this sentence the Lord through Moses gave
[190]
direction to the children of Israel concerning their departure from
Egypt and their preservation from the coming judgment. Each family,
alone or in connection with others, was to slay a lamb or a kid “without
blemish,” and with a bunch of hyssop sprinkle its blood on “the two
sideposts and on the upper doorpost” of the house, that the destroying
angel at midnight might not enter that dwelling. They were to eat
the flesh roasted, with unleavened bread and bitter herbs, at night, as
165