Exodus 13:11-16 (NIV)
11 “After the LORD brings you into the land of the Canaanites and gives it to you, as he promised on oath to you and your forefathers,
12 you are to give over to the LORD the first offspring of every womb. All the firstborn males of your livestock belong to the LORD.
13 Redeem with a lamb every firstborn donkey, but if you do not redeem it, break its neck. Redeem every firstborn among your sons.
14 “In days to come, when your son asks you, ‘What does this mean?’ say to him, ‘With a mighty hand the LORD brought us out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
15 When Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the LORD killed every firstborn in Egypt, both man and animal. This is why I sacrifice to the LORD the first male offspring of every womb and redeem each of my firstborn sons.’
16 And it will be like a sign on your hand and a symbol on your forehead that the LORD brought us out of Egypt with his mighty hand.”
On verses 11-16: Here the LORD reiterates that every firstborn belongs to Him, whether it’s a firstborn child or the firstborn male among one’s livestock. To get that firstborn back, an Israelite would need to redeem (i.e. buy back) that firstborn by sacrificing something in the firstborn’s place. This system of redeeming (buying back) the firstborn was to be an obvious reminder (“like a sign on your hand and a symbol on your forehead”) of how the Lord saved the Israelites from slavery in Egypt with the death of Egypt’s firstborn. But this system of redeeming (buying back) the firstborn with the life of something else was also pointing forward to the day that God would redeem us by giving up His Son Jesus Christ. That is why Paul would later say to the Christians in Corinth: “you are not your own; were bought at a price” (1 Corinthians 6:19b-20a). It is because you and I have been redeemed by the blood of the lamb.
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Exodus 13:1-2 (NIV)
1 The LORD said to Moses,
2 “Consecrate to me every firstborn male. The first offspring of every womb among the Israelites belongs to me, whether man or animal.”
On verses 1-2: To consecrate means to declare that something belongs to God. The Israelites were expected to consecrate their firstborn child and even the firstborn from among their livestock. The idea that the first fruits belong to God comes up over and over again in Exodus through Deuteronomy, whether we’re talking about children, livestock, or crops.
When you see the first fruits of what you produce as belonging to God, it changes the way you look at the people and things God has given to you. You start seeing yourself as a trustee and a steward, rather than as the centre of your own universe.
Exodus 13:3-8 (NIV)
3 Then Moses said to the people, “Commemorate this day, the day you came out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery, because the LORD brought you out of it with a mighty hand. Eat nothing containing yeast.
4 Today, in the month of Abib, you are leaving.
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Exodus 12:43-51 (NIV)
43 The LORD said to Moses and Aaron, “These are the regulations for the Passover: “No foreigner is to eat of it.
44 Any slave you have bought may eat of it after you have circumcised him,
45 but a temporary resident and a hired worker may not eat of it.
46 “It must be eaten inside one house; take none of the meat outside the house. Do not break any of the bones.
47 The whole community of Israel must celebrate it.
48 “An alien living among you who wants to celebrate the LORD’s Passover must have all the males in his household circumcised; then he may take part like one born in the land. No uncircumcised male may eat of it.
49 The same law applies to the native-born and to the alien living among you.”
50 All the Israelites did just what the LORD had commanded Moses and Aaron.
51 And on that very day the LORD brought the Israelites out of Egypt by their divisions.
On verses 43-51: In these verses the LORD makes certain distinctions concerning who may eat the Passover meal and who may not. The distinction goes like this: if you have placed your faith in the LORD, as evidenced by circumcision (in the case of males) (v48), then you may, in fact you must, partake of the Passover meal. If your faith is not in Yahweh, you were not to eat the Passover meal; instead, eat something else. This principle applied regardless of your social status and whether the person was an Israelite by birth or a foreigner who became an Israelite later on in life.
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Exodus 12:31-32 (NIV)
31 During the night Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, “Up! Leave my people, you and the Israelites! Go, worship the LORD as you have requested.
32 Take your flocks and herds, as you have said, and go. And also bless me.”
On verses 31-32: Pharaoh kept playing games with God and lost. He lost his firstborn son. He lost his pride. Coming to an end to himself, at least for a moment, Pharaoh finally gives Moses and Aaron the go ahead to take the Israelites and their flocks and herds and leave Egypt as they had requested all along. Then Pharaoh also says a startling thing: “And also bless me” (v32). The last time the Bible recorded an Israelite blessing Pharaoh, it was 430 years earlier in Genesis 47:7, 10 when Jacob (Israel himself) blessed Pharaoh. This was a generation before the enslavement of the Israelites had started in Egypt. Now that the enslavement of the Israelites in Egypt has officially and suddenly ended, Pharaoh asks Moses to bless him.
Why did Pharaoh ask Moses to bless him? Probably because he finally acknowledged that God was with Moses and that Pharaoh needed the Lord’s mercy and grace at least in some way. This is Pharaoh at his most humble and most humbled point in the story of Exodus. What can we learn from this? It’s when we are humble, or humbled, that we begin to be open to God working in our lives.
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1845年，伊莉莎白因閨蜜安娜的緣故認識了安娜的哥哥喬治·劉易斯·普倫蒂斯（George Lewis Prentiss）；兩人結婚後定居在麻薩諸塞州的港口城市新貝德福德，喬治是那裏南區的三一教堂牧師。成為師母後的伊莉莎白，一度放棄了自己的文學創作愛好，而把重心放在全力協助丈夫牧養教會上。她經常陪伴丈夫去探望會眾中生病或失去親人的家庭，給他們帶來了特別的安慰，同時也參與了教會裏的許多事工。
也許讀者已經注意到以上作品名單中並沒有出現《愛主更深》（More Love to Thee, O Christ）這首著名詩歌。然而其實它就是創作於上述時間段中的1856年，只不過伊莉莎白當時寫下此詩的目的只是記錄她那時的一段特殊心緒歷程，並非是想將其發表，而且這首詩也只能算是一個“半成品”，並沒有完全完稿。其這背後的原因又是與她的一個新生孩子有關。
這首詩歌的作者是十九世紀英國的女詩人莎拉.亞當斯（Sarah F. Adams 1805-1848）。她原本是倫敦一位傑出的莎士比亞劇演員，後來因不幸身體受傷而告別舞臺，轉向文學創作。有一天，她教會的牧師請莎拉寫一首詩歌來配合他主日的講道，題目與《聖經》「創世紀」28章的“雅各之夢”有關。這段經文說的是亞伯拉罕的孫子雅各因得罪了哥哥以掃有被其報復殺害的危險，因而被迫遠走他鄉去避難。在他最孤獨無助的時刻，有一天主的使者在夢中向他顯現；他聽到了耶和華上帝在天梯之上親口賜給他的美好應許，從此讓他重新得力，有了盼望，坦然去面對前方未知的人生困境。莎拉把經文中的曠野、日落、夜深、枕石、做夢、天梯、天使、神的應許等各種場景與主耶穌的十字架救恩信仰融合在一起，寫成了一首優美感人的詩句；全詩更是重複了16次「更加與主接近」（Nearer, My God To Thee）來烘托她要表達的詩歌主題。
這首聖詩深深地打動到伊莉莎白的心，並且讓她再次想起幾年前失去兩個孩子後從神那裏得到的安慰及自己所立下的心志，要以更加愛主來回報神的愛。於是她拿起筆步莎拉詩歌的原韻寫下了這首《愛主更深》；在創作中她也反復用了14次的“更愛我主”（More Love to Thee）來突出自己的心願。
直到1869年的某一天，伊莉莎白想起了多年前所寫的這首詩歌，並將其找出來向丈夫展示，後者鼓勵她以單頁的形式印出來鼓勵其他有相同經歷的人；於是她完成了第四節，並把印好的詩歌發給了他們的幾個朋友欣賞。不久其中的一份流傳到著名的聖樂家威廉·H·多恩(William H.Doane)的手中，後者因曾因給著名盲人女詩人範妮·克羅斯比(Fanny Crosby)創作的許多經典詩歌配曲而大名鼎鼎。他因十分喜歡伊莉莎白的這首詩歌，專門為它寫了曲譜，並將其收錄在1870年出版的讚美詩《虔誠之歌》（Songs of Devotion）詩集之中。這首詩歌就此傳開，成為又一首被無數人喜愛的一首經典詩歌。
Exodus 12:15-30 (NIV)
15 For seven days you are to eat bread made without yeast. On the first day remove the yeast from your houses, for whoever eats anything with yeast in it from the first day through the seventh must be cut off from Israel.
16 On the first day hold a sacred assembly, and another one on the seventh day. Do no work at all on these days, except to prepare food for everyone to eat–that is all you may do……
On verses 15-30: At THRIVE Church online yesterday, I shared a message called “Too Much To Pass Over: Understanding the Passover” where we looked at this passage together. If you missed the message or just want to see my painting skills, click HERE.
Wanna check how well you listened to the message this past Sunday as well as your understanding of this passage? Try to answer the following questions:
– Pastor JB shared two reasons why God require that the Israelites eat bread without yeast. What were those two reasons?
– What was yeast supposed to symbolize in this case? Does that mean that yeast is in fact bad and that we should avoid eating yeast all the time?
– In what way is Jesus our unleavened bread?
– In what way is Jesus our Passover lamb?
– Why did God tell the Israelites to observe the Passover not just on the week that they actually left Egypt but on every anniversary of that event as well?
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