Exodus Chapter 12

1  The LORD said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, 2  “This month  shall

be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you. 3  Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household. 4  And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons; according to what each can eat you shall make your count for the lamb. 5  Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, 6  and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight. 7  “Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. 8 Then they shall eat the flesh on that night; roasted in fire, with unleavened bread and with bitter herbs they shall eat it.9 Do not eat it raw, nor boiled at all with water, but roasted in fire — its head with its legs and its entrails.10 You shall let none of it remain until morning, and what remains of it until morning you shall burn with fire.11 And thus you shall eat it: with a belt on your waist, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. So you shall eat it in haste. It is the LORD’s Passover.

1. What meanings can we deduce from these instructions?

A. There must be no delay, there is a since of urgency. This was a new beginning, a new month and calendar, they would be leaving and going to a new land, they would have a new king (Yahweh), they would be a new nation and people.

Today is the day of salvation. 2Cor. 6:2

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 2 Cor. 5:17

 B.

Roasted in fire. Fire speaks of judgment. Fire burns up impurity. We are judged as guilty. All have sinned and fall short, none righteous, no not one. Romans 3

C. The entire animal must be consumed, speaks to the total sufficiency of  the sacrifice. Jesus gave all he had.

But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins,For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. Heb. 10:12-14  

Nothing was to be left over. No salvation

leftovers. You have only one guaranteed time to receive Christ. Today. There is no guarantee of tomorrow.

D. Unleavened bread…. bread made without yeast. Reflecting the haste with which the people left Egypt.

Matthew 16:6Jesus said to them, “Watch and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”

In Matthew 16:12, leaven is defined as “the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” The doctrine was pridefull, they were puffed up and decided that their traditions were more important than the laws of God

 Leaven or yeast is used metaphorically in the Bible of an influence that can permeate whatever it touches.  

Yeast causes things to get puffed up.

E. bitter herbs… Endive, chicory and other bitter-tasting plants are indigenous to Egypt. Eating them would recall the bitter years of servitude there   

F. Eat it in haste with belt and sandals and staff….this speaks to our readiness to leave our bondage to sin. When we come to Christ we need to be ready to move away from our old world view and move into a new life. Things have to change and change quickly.

G. It is the LORD’S Passover…this is God’s plan of redemption it is totally initiated by him, he provides the sacrifice, he provides the judgment, he provides the gift of life. It is all Him, there is nothing we can add to it. You  can’t just “cut down” on sin, you have to get out of there.

          

 ‘For I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the LORD.13 Now the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you; and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.

2. Why kill the firstborn animals?

The tenth plague was a judgment against all Egyptian deities. The loss of the firstborn of men and beasts had far-reaching theological implications, namely, the impotence of the pagan deities, many of whom were represented by animals, to protect their devotees from such nationwide tragedies. The great cry of grief  may also have bemoaned the incapability of the nation’s gods. MSBN

3. How did the blood protect them from death?

A. Execute judgment…on man, beast and gods. Many of the Egyptian gods were animals, none would be spared, the Pharaoh’s son was not spared, from the richest to the poorest, bad people, good people, all the first born would die.  Nothing mattered but the blood.  The Egyptians gods were shown to be absolutely useless. Total 100% victory.

B. When I see the blood…  this illustrates the doctrine of substitution. I can  substitute my life for my wife’s life and take upon myself the penalty of death for her sin, but wait a minute I have my own sin to account for so I an not an acceptable substitute: again

 2 Corinthians 5 21 For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

The acceptable sacrifice:

It must be someone who has lived as a person, it can’t be an angel or a spirit or even God himself, but it must be a real living person, someone who has lived life, suffered temptation and never sinned.

Phil 2:7 but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men;

It must be innocent blood. The lamb without spot or blemish is just the down payment until the Jesus, the real Lamb of God comes and takes away the sin of the world. This goes back to the garden. Leaves: the first act of religion. Religion is a system of laws which if I perform them properly I will viewed as acceptable before God and If I don’t, I won’t.

Isaiah 38:17  For You have cast all my sins behind Your back.

When He sees the blood He cannot see my sin.

Yeah but He remembers what I did. No, Jeremiah 31:34 I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

Isaiah 1:18“Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.

You are viewed as 100% perfect. Just like that lamb….without spot or blemish.

Romans 10:13 whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

     So this day shall be to you a memorial; and you shall keep it as a feast to the LORD throughout your generations. You shall keep it as a feast by an everlasting ordinance.15 Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses. For whoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel.16 On the first day there shall be a holy convocation, and on the seventh day there shall be a holy convocation for you. No manner of work shall be done on them; but that which everyone must eat — that only may be prepared by you.17 So you shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this same day I will have brought your armies out of the land of Egypt. Therefore you shall observe this day throughout your generations as an everlasting ordinance.18 In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat

unleavened bread, until the twenty-first day of the month at evening.19 For seven days no leaven shall be found in  your houses, since whoever eats what is leavened, that same person shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is a stranger or a native of the land.20 You shall eat nothing leavened; in all your dwellings you shall eat unleavened bread.’ “

4. What is important about a memorial? Whywould God continue to stress remembering?

The word “remember is used 160 times in the bible”

….because we forget!

Dt 4:9 Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seenor let them slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them.

Josiah the king 2 Chron. 34   temple had fallen into disrepair… restoration…found the book of the law, the bible. Read it to the king,,, he rent his clothes…remembered who they were and what they should be doing…. A period of revival. That’s why I feel this type of bible study is so important because we so easily forget. We live in a world of leaven.

A period of national remembrance. Like the national day of prayer. Bill O’Reilly “ you could pray to a tree” how is that endorsing a religion.

For 7 days the “feast of unleavened bread” is to be a time of remembrance and fellowship and community. Every year as long as there’s a nation of Israel.

 It’s important for us Americans to read over the writing of our founding

fathers, because we start to forget what America is all about. Liberal historians are rewriting history. George Washington was not a deist. He repeatedly refered in his writings to how God intervened in situation after situation. The constitution itself he described as a miracle from God. People want to pretend we are France, God Forbid! We came here to get away from that crap. If it wasn’t for us there wouldn’t be any France, they would all be speaking German.

Again leaven represents sin, corruption pride. It doesn’t taste as good as bread made with yeast, but it has all the value that one needs to live, and it’s portable. British navy: Hard tack lasts for months.

Once a year a week with no leaven, no corruption. No media, no sports, no work related stress, no mail, no bills, etc. nothing but reflection on what God had done for you in the past. To sit around telling stories of your deliverance.

          Then Moses called for all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Pick out and take lambs for yourselves according to your families, and kill the Passover lamb.22 And you shall take a bunch of hyssop, dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and strike the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood that is in the basin. And none of you shall go out of the door of his house until morning.23 For the LORD will pass through to strike the Egyptians; and when He sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the LORD will pass over the door and not allow the destroyer to come into your houses to strike you.24 And you shall observe this thing as an ordinance for you and your sons forever.25 It will come to pass when you come to the land which the LORD will give you, just as He promised, that you shall keep this service.26 And it shall be,

when your children say to you, ‘What do you mean by this service?’27 that you shall say, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice of the LORD, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt when He struck the Egyptians and delivered our households.’ ” So the people bowed their heads and worshiped.28 Then the children of Israel went away and did so; just as the LORD had commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did And it came to pass at midnight that the LORD struck all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of livestock.30 So Pharaoh rose in the night, he, all his servants, and all the Egyptians; and there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where there was not one dead.

 5.     “It will come to pass when you come to the land which the LORD will give you, just as He promised, that you shall keep this service”….I thought they were just going to go three days journey and sacrifice to their God.

That plan is over. The Pharaoh refused that offer, so God is “upping the anti.”

12:25 The promise of entering the land again received emphasis. Israel was not to think of the Exodus as merely a departure from Egypt, but rather as a departure from one land in order to enter another land, which would be their own, in strict accordance with the specifics of the Abrahamic Covenant for his descendants through Isaac and Jacob (cf. Ge 17:7, 8).

12:26, 27 In the annual commemoration of the Passover, parents were obligated to teach their children its meaning. It became customary for the youngest child of a Jewish family to elicit the father’s formal explanation of what happened in connection with the original observance of the meal in Egypt.

We are not focus so much on where we have come from, but where we are going.

            Then he called for Moses and Aaron by night, and said, “Rise, go out from among my people, both you and the children of Israel. And go, serve the LORD as you have said.32 Also take your flocks and your herds, as you have said, and be gone; and bless me also.”

6.”And bless me also”? What does he mean?

12:32 bless me also. Undoubtedly, this final request from Pharaoh, whose heart was certainly not repentant (14:8), temporarily conceded defeat and acknowledged Moses and his God as the victors and as those who had the power and resources to bless him.

This was probably the only time in his life he had ever asked for blessing from any person. After all he was the divine Pharaoh, who alone had the power to bless or withhold blessing to all men in his kingdom. Now for the moment he is asking from blessing from two lowly sheep herders.

            And the Egyptians urged the people, that they might send them Exodus 12: 33 – 13:16

    And the Egyptians urged the people, that they might send them out of the land in haste. For they said, “We shall all be dead.”34 So the people took their dough before it was leavened, having their kneading bowls bound up in their clothes on their shoulders.35 Now the children of Israel had done according to the word of Moses, and they had asked from the Egyptians articles of silver, articles of gold, and clothing.36 And the LORD had given the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they granted them what they requested. Thus they plundered the Egyptians. Then the children of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides children.38 A mixed multitude went up with them also, and flocks and herds — a great deal of livestock.39 And they baked unleavened cakes of the dough which they had brought out of Egypt; for it was not leavened, because they were driven out of Egypt and could not wait, nor had they prepared provisions for themselves. Now the sojourn of the children of Israel who lived in Egypt was four hundred and thirty years.41 And it came to pass at the end of the four hundred and thirty years — on that very same day — it came to pass that all the armies of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt.42 It is a night of solemn observance to the LORD for bringing them out of the land of Egypt. This is that night of the LORD, a solemn observance for all the children of Israel throughout their generations. And the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, “This is the ordinance of the Passover: No foreigner shall eat it.44 But every man’s servant who is bought for money, when you have circumcised him, then he may eat it.45 A sojourner and a hired servant shall not eat it.46 In one house it shall be eaten; you shall not carry any of the flesh outside the house, nor shall you break one of its bones.47 All the congregation of Israel shall keep it.48 And when a stranger dwells with you and wants to keep the Passover to the LORD, let all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near and keep it; and he shall be as a native of the land. For no uncircumcised person shall eat it.49 One law shall be for the native-born and for the stranger who dwells among you.” Thus all the children of Israel did; as the LORD commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did.51 And it came to pass, on that very same day, that the LORD brought the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt according to their armies.

7. What would a migration of this size look like?

Approx. 2.5 million people living in an area of 900 square miles. The  combined populations of Stanislaus , San Joaquin and Sacramento counties gone in one day. Imagine everybody in the northern central valley decides to up and move to Nevada tomorrow. Not one person left. How do you think they would cover that on CNN?   

  Rameses to Succoth  about 30 miles. 430 years a long time. 430 year

s ago a guy named  Shakespeare was thinking about writing some plays, Sir Francis Drake was thinking about sailing from England to the coast of California, in 32 years King James would authorize the translation of the bible into English, and in 40 years the Pilgrims would be landing at Plymouth Rock.

  8. “A mixed multitude went up with them also,” what would a mixed multitude consist of.

Some of the Egyptians probably went with them.

Ex 9:20 Then he who feared the word of the Lord among the servants of Pharaoh made his servants and his livestock flee into the houses and shelters

Then there were the mixed breeds. There had to have been some interracial marriages, and they would have to pick if they wanted to go or stay. There might have been some foreigners, slaves from other nations, diplomats, business people etc. 12:38 A mixed multitude. Other Semitic peoples, other races, and perhaps some native Egyptians accompanied the departing nation. They preferred to be identified with the victorious nation and Jehovah God. Later, some of these became the troublemakers with whom Moses had to deal (Nu 11:4).

11:4 The rabble. The word only occurs here in the OT. However, another word, “multitude,” was used in Ex 12:38. The “rabble” here are non-Israelites who left Egypt with Israel in the Exodus. meat. After over a year of eating manna in the wilderness, the mixed multitude wanted the spicy food of Egypt once again.

9. What did circumcision mean, and how did it apply to strangers?

Circumcision was identification that you were one of God’s people.

Romans 4:9-11  For we say that faith was accounted to Abraham for righteousness.10 How then was it accounted? While he was circumcised, or uncircumcised? Not while circumcised, but while uncircumcised.11 And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while still uncircumcised, that he might be the father of all those who believe, though they are uncircumcised, that righteousness might be imputed to them also,

Was it circumcision that saved the Hebrews, no it was the blood that saved them. The circumcision was the identification. Now it was possible to have been circumcised and then not go into the house to be protected by the blood and you would have died. Baptism doesn’t save a person, only faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ save you. Baptism is a public demonstration that you have received the gift of eternal life through faith  in Jesus.

The illustration I used to use is. If I get invited to be a SF 49er, I go to the 49er headquarters and sign a contract, I get introduced to the coach and the players and then I get to put on that 49er jersey that identifies me as a 49er. It really doesn’t mean much If I just walk around with a 49er jersey if I don’t have a contract. Anyone can wear a 49er jersey, but when you see me wear one and I’m on the field playing in a game, then it becomes meaningful. Strangers were invited to be on the team but they had to put on their jersey to play in this game.

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10. What is significant about not breaking any of the bones of the Passover lamb?

Jn 19:36 For these things took place, that the Scripture might be fulfilled (verified, carried out), Not one of His bones shall be broken.

• ESVN………….ESV Study Bible Notes

• MSBN…….MacArthur NASB Study Notes
• NIVSN…..NIV Study Notes.
• JVM ….J Vernon McGee,
• ACC …. Adam Clarke’s Commentary
• BN …..Barnes Notes
• WBC……   Wycliffe Bible Commentary
• CN …… Constables Notes
• IC……….Ironside Commentary
• NET………Net Bible Study Notes.
• JFB…………..Jamieson  Fausset  Brown Commentary
• VWS……………..Vincent Word Studies
• CMM………….Commentary on Matthew and Mark
• BDB………….. Barclay’s Daily Study Bible (NT)
• Darby………..John Darby’s Synopsis of the OT and NT
• Johnson………Johnson’s Notes on the New Testament.
• NTCMM…………..The New Testament Commentary:  Matthew and Mark.
• BKC………………….Bible Knowledge Commentary

        PCB…………………… Popular Commentary of the Bible,

         SSN…………………..Scofield’s Study Notes

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