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，伊莉莎白因闺蜜安娜的缘故认识了安娜的哥哥乔治·刘易斯·普伦蒂斯（George Lewis Prentiss）；两人结婚后定居在麻萨诸塞州的港口城市新贝德福德，乔治是那里南区的三一教堂牧师。成为师母后的伊莉莎白，一度放弃了自己的文学创作爱好，而把重心放在全力协助丈夫牧养教会上。她经常陪伴丈夫去探望会众中生病或失去亲人的家庭，给他们带来了特别的安慰，同时也参与了教会里的许多事工。
也许读者已经注意到以上作品名单中并没有出现《爱主更深》（More Love to Thee, O Christ）这首著名诗歌。然而其实它就是创作于上述时间段中的1856年，只不过伊莉莎白当时写下此诗的目的只是记录她那时的一段特殊心绪历程，并非是想将其发表，而且这首诗也只能算是一个“半成品”，并没有完全完稿。其这背后的原因又是与她的一个新生孩子有关。
这首诗歌的作者是十九世纪英国的女诗人莎拉.亚当斯（Sarah F. Adams 1805-1848）。她原本是伦敦一位杰出的莎士比亚剧演员，后来因不幸身体受伤而告别舞台，转向文学创作。有一天，她教会的牧师请莎拉写一首诗歌来配合他主日的讲道，题目与《圣经》「创世纪」28章的“雅各之梦”有关。这段经文说的是亚伯拉罕的孙子雅各因得罪了哥哥以扫有被其报复杀害的危险，因而被迫远走他乡去避难。在他最孤独无助的时刻，有一天主的使者在梦中向他显现；他听到了耶和华上帝在天梯之上亲口赐给他的美好应许，从此让他重新得力，有了盼望，坦然去面对前方未知的人生困境。莎拉把经文中的旷野、日落、夜深、枕石、做梦、天梯、天使、神的应许等各种场景与主耶稣的十字架救恩信仰融合在一起，写成了一首优美感人的诗句；全诗更是重复了16次「更加与主接近」（Nearer, My God To Thee）来烘托她要表达的诗歌主题。
这首圣诗深深地打动到伊莉莎白的心，并且让她再次想起几年前失去两个孩子后从神那里得到的安慰及自己所立下的心志，要以更加爱主来回报神的爱。于是她拿起笔步莎拉诗歌的原韵写下了这首《爱主更深》；在创作中她也反复用了14次的“更爱我主”（More Love to Thee）来突出自己的心愿。
直到1869年的某一天，伊莉莎白想起了多年前所写的这首诗歌，并将其找出来向丈夫展示，后者鼓励她以单页的形式印出来鼓励其他有相同经历的人；于是她完成了第四节，并把印好的诗歌发给了他们的几个朋友欣赏。不久其中的一份流传到著名的圣乐家威廉·H·多恩(William H.Doane)的手中，后者因曾因给著名盲人女诗人范妮·克罗斯比(Fanny Crosby)创作的许多经典诗歌配曲而大名鼎鼎。他因十分喜欢伊莉莎白的这首诗歌，专门为它写了曲谱，并将其收录在1870年出版的赞美诗《虔诚之歌》（Songs of Devotion）诗集之中。这首诗歌就此传开，成为又一首被无数人喜爱的一首经典诗歌。
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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