Exodus 12:31-42 Click here for Bible Verses
Hi GAMErs!
Today’s passage is Exodus 12:31-42. Let’s go!
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.
Exodus 12:33-34 (NIV)
33 The Egyptians urged the people to hurry and leave the country. “For otherwise,” they said, “we will all die!”
34 So the people took their dough before the yeast was added, and carried it on their shoulders in kneading troughs wrapped in clothing.
On verses 33-34: Not only did Pharaoh tell the Israelites to go, but the Egyptians also urge the Israelites to leave as well. The Egyptians are motivated by a fear of seeing more lives lost: “For otherwise, we will all die!” (v33). Before fear caused Pharaoh to turn the Israelites into slaves. Now fear was causing the Egyptians to send the Israelites away.
In the rush of leaving Egypt the Israelites do not have time to add yeast to their dough, so they just take their unleavened dough and carry it with them in kneading troughs wrapped in clothing (v34). We’ll unpack this more in verse 39.
Exodus 12:35-36 (NIV)
35 The Israelites did as Moses instructed and asked the Egyptians for articles of silver and gold and for clothing.
36 The LORD had made the Egyptians favorably disposed toward the people, and they gave them what they asked for; so they plundered the Egyptians.
On verses 35-36: Earlier in Exodus 11:2-3 God instructed Moses to tell the Israelites to ask their Egyptian neighbours for silver and gold (see Exodus 11:2-3). As the Egyptians are urging the Israelites to leave, I could imagine the conversation between an Egyptian and an Israelite go like this:
Egyptian: “Please, go. Leave us. Don’t let anything else bad happen us.”
Israelite: “But we don’t have any money. We’re slaves remember? How can we survive out there? We have no money, no clothes.”
Egyptian (handing the Israelite bags of silver and gold and any other silver and gold articles as well as various clothes they have in the home): “Here. Take this. Take all of this. And don’t come back. But please pray to your God that nothing bad will happen to us going forward.”
Israelite: “Okay.”
Without raising a single weapon, the Israelites plundered the Egyptians, leaving Egypt with much of the Egyptians’ wealth. God’s ways are amazing. In this case God did all the work and all the fighting for the Israelites. All the Israelites had to do was trust God to do it.
Similarly, when it comes to our own salvation (being saved from our sins) as well as our inheritance in heaven, it’s not about how we must work and fight to earn it. It’s simply trusting that God has done all the work for us through Jesus Christ’s death on the cross and His subsequent resurrection.
Exodus 12:37 (NIV)
37 The Israelites journeyed from Rameses to Succoth. There were about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children.
On verse 37: With about 600,000 men leaving on foot, some surmise that there may have been as many as 2 million Israelites who left Egypt that day. The New American Commentary has an alternative take on this, suggesting that the Hebrew word “eleph”, which is translated in the NIV as “thousand”, is better translated “platoon”, i.e. 600 platoons of foot soldiers, and based on this the editors of the New American Commentary argue that the number of Israelites who left Egypt was not in the millions but more in the tens of thousands (Stuart, Douglas K. New American Commentary – Volume 2: Exodus. Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman, 2006. WORDsearch CROSS e-book). In any event, whether it was tens of thousands or 2 million, it would certainly be a mass exodus.
Exodus 12:38 (NIV)
38 Many other people went up with them, as well as large droves of livestock, both flocks and herds.
On verse 38: Last Sunday at Thrive Church Online I shared a message called “Too Much to Pass Over: Understanding Passover”. In that message I talked about verse 38, how verse 38 suggests to me that over the course of the first 9 plagues, the softer hearted among the non-Israelite Egyptians began turning to the Lord, such that when the Israelites left Egypt, they decided to leave with the Israelites as well. If other groups in Egypt were being oppressed or were simply tired of life under Pharaoh, they would have been inclined to leave too, having seen the way the Lord favoured the Israelites. It goes to show that the Lord is not just for one nation or one group, but for every nation, every race, every colour, every people group.
Exodus 12:39 (NIV)
39 With the dough they had brought from Egypt, they baked cakes of unleavened bread. The dough was without yeast because they had been driven out of Egypt and did not have time to prepare food for themselves.
On verse 39: Just as the Israelites did not have time to prepare food for themselves before they left Egypt, when it comes to major life decisions I find that following God’s leading often means that you step forward even when you don’t have everything all prepared the way you like. It’s about going in faith and trusting that God will provide in His time.
Exodus 12:40-41 (NIV)
40 Now the length of time the Israelite people lived in Egypt was 430 years.
41 At the end of the 430 years, to the very day, all the LORD’s divisions left Egypt.
On verses 40-41: Over 500 years before this, long before Israel was even born, God promised Abraham that his descendants would be strangers in a country not their own and that they would be enslaved and mistreated 400 years, but that God would punish the nation they served as slaves and afterward they would come out with great riches (Genesis 15:13-14). Here we see God fulfilling His promises. Once again, God is faithful to His promises.
Also, notice the word that verse 41 uses to describe Israel. Verse 41 calls them “the LORD’s divisions”. That’s a military term, and God uses it repeatedly in Exodus (Exodus 6:26; 7:4; 12:17). These were slaves but God calls them an army. This speaks to God’s visionary way of thinking and speaking. God calls His people what they are not until they actually become it.
Exodus 12:42 (NIV)
42 Because the LORD kept vigil that night to bring them out of Egypt, on this night all the Israelites are to keep vigil to honor the LORD for the generations to come.
On verse 42: To keep vigil means to watch over something during the night. It’s beautiful image of the Lord watching over the Israelites all throughout the night as they left Egypt. As a way to commemorate how the Lord watched over the Israelites that historic night, future Israelites were expected to “keep vigil”, that is, to stay up and watch the Lord in the coming generations. Thus some churches will occasionally hold a “watch night”, a time of worship and praise late into the night.
Heavenly Father, thank You for so many lessons we can learn from this passage. Since humility is the first step to seeing You work in our lives, I pray I would go about this day with a humble heart. Thank You for calling us Your army, even when all we knew before we knew You was how to be slaves. Thank You for keeping vigil and watching over us every day. May my eyes be open and my mind alert watching for what You’re doing. In Jesus’ name, AMEN!
