Exodus
13
SANCTIFICATION OF THE FIRSTBORN
In
connection with the deliverance from death of the Israelite first-born by the
blood of
the lamb, and still further to fix the remembrance of the
historical facts in the mind of
the nation, Moses was commissioned to declare all the firstborn
of
and all the firstborn of their domesticated animals “holy to the Lord.” There was, perhaps,
already in the minds of men a feeling that peculiar
dignity attached to the first-born in each
family; and this feeling was now strengthened by the
assignment to them of a sacred character.
God claimed
them, and also the first-born of beasts, as His own. The clean beasts became
His by
sacrifice; but the unclean ones could not be similarly treated, and therefore
had to be
“redeemed” (v.13) by
the sacrifice of clean animals in their place. The first-born of men
became at the first institution of the new ordinance
God’s ministers; but as this system was
not intended to continue, it was announced that they too would
have to be “redeemed”
(vs. 13,15). The exact mode of redeeming them was left to be
settled afterwards, and
will be found in Numbers 3:40-51; 18:16.
vs. 1-16 – “And the LORD spake unto Moses,
saying, Sanctify unto me all the
firstborn” - The Hebrew word used is
masculine, and by its proper force limits the
command to the first-born males, who
alone had been in danger from the tenth plague.
“whatsoever
openeth the womb” - This clause added definiteness, showing
that
“firstborn” did
not contain any reference to any later birth, and that it applied to
every case where a woman’s first child was a
male – “among the children of
both of man and of beast: it is mine. And Moses said unto the people, Remember
this day, in which ye came
out from
strength of
hand the LORD brought you out from this place:
there shall no
leavened bread be eaten.” - “by His
powerful protection
has God brought you on
your way thus far.” Therefore, “Remember this day, and
remember that nothing
leavened is to be eaten on it” (see ch.12:15-20). “This
day came ye out in the
month Abib.
And it shall be when the LORD shall bring thee into the land of
the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the
Amorites, and the Hivites, and the
Jebusites, which He swear unto thy fathers
to give thee, a land flowing with
milk and honey, that thou shalt keep this
service in this month” – The Israelites
were to keep this ordinance when they came into
the land and were living in prosperity.
The
discipline of adversity is apt to draw men nearer to God than that of
prosperity. Many
are very careful and regular attendants on
Church ordinances when they are afflicted, or in
poor circumstances, or suffering from a
bereavement; but, if the world smiles upon them,
if they grow rich and respected, if men court
and flatter them, they grow careless and
irregular in such matters. They
think that they cease to have the time for them; but in
reality they cease
to relish them. “The cares of the world and the
deceitfulness
of riches,” choke the good seed
that was in them, and “they become
unfruitful.”
(Matthew
13:22) - They forget God, and the marvelous things that He hath done
for them.
Hence a
warning is required. We must not let the “milk and honey” of
our hearts from
God, or make us less zealous in His service, or less constant attendants
upon His ordinances. The higher we are lifted
up the more we need His grace; the greater
attraction that the world offers to us, the more helpful
to us are those holy rites and usages,
which draw our thoughts away
from earthly things, and fix them upon things Divine and
heavenly. “Seven days thou shalt eat unleavened bread,
and in the seventh day
shall be a feast to the LORD. Unleavened
bread shall be eaten seven days; and
there shall no leavened bread be seen with thee,
neither shall there be leaven seen
with thee in all thy quarters. And thou shalt shew thy son in that day,
saying, This
is done because of that which the LORD did
unto me when I came forth out of
And it shall be for a sign unto thee upon
thine hand, and for a memorial between thine
eyes, that the LORD’s law may be in thy mouth”
- The Israelites are instructed from the
first, that the tephillin are to be
a means to an end; and that the end is to be the retention
of God’s law in their
recollection — “ in their mouth,” and therefore in their heart,
since “out
of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.” (Matthew 12:34) - for
with a strong hand hath the LORD brought thee
out of
keep this ordinance in his season from year to year. And it shall be when the LORD
shall bring thee into the land of the Canaanites, as He swear unto thee and to
thy
fathers, and shall give it thee, That thou shalt set apart unto the LORD” - The
expression is especially appropriate to the case of
first-born animals, which would
have to be separated off from the rest of the
flock, or of the herd, and “put aside” for
Jehovah, so as not to be mixed up
and confounded with the other lambs, kids, and
calves. “all that openeth the matrix, and every firstling that cometh of a beast
which thou hast; the males shall be the LORD’s. And
every firstling of an ass
thou shalt redeem with a lamb; and if thou wilt not redeem it, then thou shalt
break his neck: and all the firstborn of man among thy children shalt
thou
redeem”. Later on, the amount of the redemption money was
fixed at five shekels of
the sanctuary for each. (Numbers 3:47) – “And it shall be when thy son asketh thee
in time to come, saying, What is this? that
thou shalt say unto him, By strength of
hand the LORD brought us out from
came to pass, when Pharaoh would hardly let us
go, that the LORD
slew all the
firstborn in the
beast: therefore I sacrifice to the LORD all that openeth the matrix, being
males;
but all the firstborn of my children I redeem. And it shall be for a token upon
thine hand, and for frontlets between thine eyes” - It is the
custom among the Jews
to write this entire passage —
vs.1-16 — on two of the four strips of parchment
contained in the tephillin.
In Hebrew, tephillin means
"attachments." They were
originally prayer thongs worn by Jews
at morning prayer—one on the left arm
and another on the head. They
came to be regarded as talismans
and were used
in many traditional
ceremonies. The Talmud states: "Whoever has the tephillin
bound to his head and arm … is protected
from sin." The others have
inscribed on
them Deuteronomy 6:4-9, and Deuteronomy
11:13-21. – “for by
strength of hand the
LORD brought us forth out of Egypt.
THE
DIRECTION OF THE JOURNEY FROM
The
direct road from
dynasty — lay along the coast of the
Mediterranean, and conducted to
at the map, and observe the position of
of the
itself to any one wishing to proceed to the Holy
Land from
almost due east, from
Serbonis,
to Rhinocolura; and thence, following the course of the coast to
Ascalon, and
region intervenes between
the Egyptian remains show that, in the times
of the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties, this
obstacle was surmounted by means of an embankment
which was carried across it, and
that a direct road thus connected the two
cities. Moses, at this point of his narrative, being
about to trace the onward march of the
Israelites from Succoth to Etham, in the direction
of the
would naturally ask, Why was not the direct
route eastward taken and
the south-west after some half-dozen marches?
In vs. 17-18, he gives the reply:
Ø God
led them, they did not determine their own route; and
Ø God
would not lead them by the direct route, because it would have
conducted
them to the Philistine country, and the Philistines were
strong,
and would have resisted the invasion by force of arms. Hence
it
was that the southern or southeastern route was taken in preference to
the
northern one — and that the second stage in the journey was from
Succoth
to Etham (v. 20).
vs. 17-20 – “And it came to pass, when
Pharaoh had let the people go, that God
led them not through the way of the land of
the Philistines, although that was
near; for God said, Lest peradventure the
people repent when they see war, and
they return to
wilderness of the
circuitous route to
to fatigues and hardships by a long and
tiresome march in the desert” – to be trained
in military discipline and martial virtue by
occasional expeditions against the weaker
tribes of the desert. “and the children of
straitly sworn the children of
ye shall carry up my bones away hence with
you.” – See Genesis 50:25. Joseph,
firmly believing in the promise of God to give
had made them swear to take his body with them when they left
be laid in their native earth was common to most of the
nations of antiquity, and, in
the case of the Israelites, was intensified by
Jacob had
had the same feeling as Joseph, and had been buried by Joseph in the
cave of Math-pelah (Genesis 50:13). “And they took their journey from Succoth,
and encamped in Etham, in the edge of the
wilderness”.
THE
PILLAR OF THE CLOUD AND THE PILLAR OF FIRE
Having
stated, in v.17, that “God led
the Israelites,” and determined their route
for them, the writer here proceeds to explain how this leading
was accomplished.
With
extreme simplicity and directness he states, that the conduct was effected by
means of an appearance, which in the daytime was like
a column or pillar of smoke
ascending from earth to heaven, and in the night was like
a pillar of fire. He considers
the presence of God to have been in the pillar, which moved in
front of the host, and
showed them the way that they were to go. When it
halted, they halted when it
advanced, they advanced. Their journeys being made as
much in the night-time as in
the day, on account of the intense heat, the pillar took in the
night the appearance of a
column of fire, so as to be equally visible as by day.
All attempts to give a rational
explanation of the phenomenon are misplaced, since the
writer, from whom alone we
derive our information on the subject, clearly
regarded it as miraculous; and both here and
elsewhere (chps.14:19-20, 24; 33:9; Numbers
12:5; 14:14) speaks of it as a form under
which God was pleased to show Himself.. God thus constituted Himself the General
of the host.
vs. 21-22 – “And the LORD went before them by
day in a pillar of a cloud, to
lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of
fire” - The pillar was seen — the presence
of Jehovah, though unseen, was believed to be in it, and to
move it. – “to give
them light; to
go by day and night” - Or, “so that they might march
both by day and by night.”
Night
marches are generally preferred by Orientals on account of the great heat of
the days.
The night
marches of the Israelites are again mentioned in Numbers 9:21. “He took not
away the pillar of the cloud by day, nor the
pillar of fire by night, from before the
people”. The last
distinct mention of the cloud is in Numbers
16:42, after the destruction
of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram.
There is perhaps a later allusion to it in Numbers 20:6.
In Nehemiah
it is said that “the pillar of the cloud
departed not from them,” so long as
they were in the wilderness (Nehemiah 9:19); and the
same is implied, though not formally
stated, in Numbers 9:15-23. There is no mention of the
pillar of the cloud as still with the
Israelites
in the Book of Joshua.Probably it was last seen on the journey from
Beth-jesimoth
to Abel-Shittim in the rich
GOD’S
GUIDANCE OF HIS PEOPLE
The
Israelites had quitted
plunge into that wild waste of sand and rock which
separates Africa from
almost impassable barrier. If they took the northern line
of march, they would come
upon the sandy desert. Before them would stretch “endless
sands yielding nothing but
small stunted shrubs — broad plains — newly reared
hills — valleys dug out by the last
week’s storm; the hills, and the valleys, and the
plains, all sand, sand, sand, still sand,
and only sand, and sand, and sand again.” (Kinglake,
Eothen, p. 187.) If they turned
southward, they would find themselves in a labyrinth of
twisted wadys, amid huge mountains,
and in a region consisting chiefly of bare granite and sandstone
rocks — “the
(Henneker, Notes during a Visit to
Egypt, p. 214.) In either case they would sorely need
God’s guidance; and God’s guidance was vouchsafed to them. So it is
with Christians.
ALL THE INTRICACIES AND DESERT PLAINS OF LIFE. The Lord
leads
them. God Himself,
God the Holy Ghost, co-equal Person
with the Father
and the Son in the Triune Godhead, is their
guide and director, “a light to
their feet and a lantern to
their paths.” (Psalm 119:105) - Most necessary to
them such direction. Just escaped from
sin, how would they wander and go astray, unless His
right hand were
stretched out to help and guide! On the weary waste, the
dry, bare,
monotonous plain of an eventless life, where no sign showed
the way,
where hope
would fail and the heart grow faint, what could they do but for
Him? In the labyrinth of conflicting duties and uncertain devious
paths, how
could they
determine on their course but for Him? Alike in both he leads,
directs,
guides. He “will not leave them nor
forsake them.” (Hebrews 13:5)
“Lo,
I am with you always, even unto the end of the world” (Matthew
28:20)
was the promise
given us by our Lord. There is no part of life from which He
withdraws Himself
— not the darkest night of earthly
misery and
disappointment — not the
brightest day of worldly success and glory. And
in both alike He is needed — perhaps
most needed in the day. Then men
think they
can walk by themselves, choose their own course, direct their
own paths.
Then consequently they are most apt to go wrong, and “wander
out of the way in the
wilderness.” But He is ever at hand to
restrain,
correct, recover them. By internal
or external cheeks, by feeling and
conscience
on the one hand, by His Word, His ordinances, His ministers on
the other,
He interposes to save men from themselves, to keep them in the
right way,
or lead them back into the right way if they have departed from
it. Darkness
does not hide us from Him — darkness does not separate us
from him —
yea, “the darkness is no darkness with him — the night and
the day
with Him are both alike.’ (Psalm 139:12)
THE SOUL. Now by cloud and darkness, an overshadowing of the soul
by His
felt but unseen presence; now by the flashing in of intolerable
light into the
secret recesses of the heart and conscience, does the Holy
Spirit of God direct
and rule our lives. None can limit Him as to the means
which He shall employ.
Now He discomfits
our foes, directing His keen gaze upon them “through the
pillar of fire
and of the cloud”
(ch.14:24);
now He simply separates between
our foes and us by interposing an insurmountable barrier (ib. v.19); at
one time
He shines into our
hearts with a mild, gentle, and steady radiance; at another, he
gives us
rest, as under the shadow of a cloudy canopy. At all times He chooses
the means
most fit to accomplish His ends, shrinking from none that are potent
to effect His
gracious purposes. Clouds and darkness would seem to be the things
most
opposite to the ineffable brightness of his most glorious nature; but even
clouds and
darkness are pressed into His service, and made His ministers, when
they can be
ministers of good.
“The pillar of the cloud
departed not” from the Israelites “by day, neither the
pillar of fire by
night,” during the whole time of their long and weary journeying,
until they
reached
- They are given
for the whole period during which we need them. As the Israelites
required guidance until they trod the soil of the
plainly in sight, so do Christians need the Spirit’s gentle leading, until
the whole wilderness
of this life is past, and the true
HAVE! The Spirit’s aid is with them to the end!
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