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EXODUS 12:29-51

29 At midnight the Lord struck down all the firstborn in Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on the throne, to the firstborn of the prisoner, who was in the dungeon, and the firstborn of all the livestock as well. 30 Pharaoh and all his officials and all the Egyptians got up during the night, and there was loud wailing in Egypt, for there was not a house without someone dead. 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.” 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. 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. 37 The Israelites journeyed from Rameses to Sukkoth. There were about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children. 38 Many other people went up with them, and also large droves of livestock, both flocks and herds. 39 With the dough the Israelites had brought from Egypt, they baked loaves 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. 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. 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. 43 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “These are the regulations for the Passover meal: “No foreigner may eat it. 44 Any slave you have bought may eat it after you have circumcised  him, 45 but a temporary resident or a hired worker may not eat it. 46 It must be eaten inside the 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 A foreigner residing 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 it. 49 The same law applies both to the native-born and to the foreigner residing 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.

The first-born sons of Egypt are slain as recorded in verses 29, 30, “At midnight the Lord struck down all the firstborn in Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on the throne, to the firstborn of the prisoner, who was in the dungeon, and the firstborn of all the livestock as well. Pharaoh and all his officials and all the Egyptians got up during the night, and there was loud wailing in Egypt, for there was not a house without someone dead.” If Pharaoh would have taken the warning he had received about this plague, and released Israel, what a great many dear and valuable lives might have been preserved! See what obstinate unbelief brings to people. This happened at midnight which may have had the effect of adding an additional terror. The three preceding nights were made dreadful by the plague of darkness which might be felt. Surely that disturbed their rest and now, when they hoped for a quiet night’s rest, at midnight a great alarm was given. In David’s time when the destroying angel drew his sword against Jerusalem, it was in the day-time as 2 Samuel 24:15 says, “So the Lord sent a plague on Israel from that morning until the end of the time designated, and seventy thousand of the people from Dan to Beersheba died.” That was terrible, but the destruction in Egypt was worse. Egypt had just suffered a horrible darkness, but now they experience a far greater, invasive, comprehensive and complete alarm and cry at midnight. The plague came on all their first-born, the joy and hope of each family. They had slain the Hebrews’ children, and now God slew theirs. It reached from the throne to the dungeon. Prince and peasant stand on the same level before God’s judgments; there is no respect of persons with him. Job 34:19, 20 asks, isn’t He is a God, “. . . who shows no partiality to princes and does not favor the rich over the poor, for they are all the work of his hands? They die in an instant, in the middle of the night; the people are shaken and they pass away; the mighty are removed without human hand.” Understandably, there was a great cry in Egypt, universal weeping and wailing for their only son if they had only one and every family lost its first-born. If this happens to a single family, they may call on relatives or neighbors for help or comfort, but in this case all relatives and neighbors were occupied with their own same grief. Humans’ reasonable reaction to this is two-part. One, To tremble before God, and to be afraid of His judgments as Psalm 119:120 says, “My flesh trembles in fear of you; I stand in awe of your laws.” Who is able to stand before Him, or dares resist Him? Two, to be thankful to God for the daily preservation of ourselves and our families. We have many reasons to say that it is only the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed.

This judgment conquered Pharaoh and forced him to unconditional and total surrender to all of Moses’ conditions. Men may object as long as they want; they had better come up to God’s terms at first, for He will never come down to theirs. Now Pharaoh’s pride is abased, and he yields to all that Moses had insisted on, “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.” He even mentions specifically the flocks in verse 32, “Take your flocks and herds, as you have said, and go. And also bless me.” God’s word will stand, and we will get nothing by disputing it, or delaying to submit to it. To this point the Israelites were not permitted to leave Egypt, but now things had come to the last extremity. And what is the consequence? They are commanded to depart: Rise up, leave, go! Pharaoh had told Moses he would see his face no more; but now he sent for him. Those will seek God early in their distress who earlier had defied him. Such a fright he was now in that he gave orders by night for their release, fearing lest, if he delayed any longer, he himself would fall next. Curiously, we can see a hidden meaning in Pharaoh’s request for a blessing. That he feared Moses is plainly discovered by his humble request to them in verse 32, “Take your flocks and herds, as you have said, and go. And also bless me.” Bless me also; let me have your prayers, that I may not be plagued for what is past, when you are gone. Those who are enemies of God’s congregation are enemies to themselves, and, sooner or later, they will be made to see it. They are paid to depart by the Egyptians; they cried out, “We be all dead men.” in verse 32. When death comes into our houses, it is appropriate for us to think of our own mortality. Are our relations dead? It is easy to infer from that that we are dying, and, in effect, already dead men. With this in mind they were urgent with the Israelites to be gone, which gave great advantage to the Israelites in borrowing their valuables as verse 35, 36 say, “The Israelites did as Moses instructed and asked the Egyptians for articles of silver and gold and for clothing. The Lord had made the Egyptians favorably disposed toward the people, and they gave them what they asked for; so they plundered the Egyptians.” When the Egyptians urged them to leave, it was easy for them to say that the Egyptians had kept them poor and that they could not undertake such a journey with empty purses. It seemed they were saying in effect, “if you pay us we will go.” And in this we can see God working for them by evidently intentionally allowing things to come to this extremity, that the Israelites appearing to be a formidable host to the Egyptians, might have whatever they wanted just for asking. The Lord also, by the influence He has on the minds of people, inclined the hearts of the Egyptians to furnish them with what they wanted. Perhaps they intended by their gifts to make atonement, that the plagues might be stopped as later the Philistines, when they returned the ark of God in Samuel’s day, sent a present with it for a trespass-offering perhaps remembering this precedent. The Israelites might receive and keep what they “borrowed,” or should we rather say “required,” of the Egyptians. This was  (1.) As justly as servants receive wages from their masters for work done, and require it if it be detained. (2.) As justly as conquerors take the spoils of their enemies whom they have subdued since Pharaoh was in rebellion against the God of the Hebrews, by which all that he had was now forfeited. (3.) As justly as subjects receive the estates granted to them by their prince. God is the sovereign proprietor of the earth, and its fulness; and, if He takes from one and gives to another, who may say to Him, “What are you doing?” It was by God’s special order and appointment that the Israelites did what they did, which was sufficient to justify them, and give them adequate courage. But what they did will by no means authorize others who cannot make this claim to do the same. Let us remember that the King of kings can do no wrong and that He will do right to those whom men injure. As Psalm 146:7 says, “He upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets prisoners free,” This is how it is that the wealth of the sinner often proves to be laid up for the just as Proverbs 13:22 says, “. . . a sinner’s wealth is stored up for the righteous.” And Job 27: 16 - 17 adds, “Though he heaps up silver like dust and clothes like piles of clay, what he lays up the righteous will wear, and the innocent will divide his silver.”

Having obtained their dismissal the slaves loose no time. They set out without delay and did not wait for a more convenient season. Moses was a good, forward-thinking leader and had prepared this large crowd of people to be able to move quickly. Pharaoh was now in a good mind, but from experience the Israelites had reason to think he could again change his mind and therefore there was no time to linger. How many were there? Verse 37 answers that question, “There were about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children.” If every man had a wife and two children they would add 1,800,000 persons. Add that to the 600,000 men and you get a total of  2,400,000. That is just an estimate. However, that is far more than the 70 persons who just 200 years earlier traveled to Egypt in the time of Jacob and Joseph! The persecuted slaves grew in number. See the power and efficacy of that blessing, when God commands it, be fruitful and multiply. This was also typical of the multitudes that were brought by the gospel into the church when it was first founded; so mightily grew the Word of God and prevailed.


Next we consider the people who joined the Israelites as they left. According to verse 28, “Many other people went up with them.” These would have been hangers on to that great family, some perhaps willing to leave their country because it was laid waste by the plagues, others to seek their fortune, others went out of curiosity perhaps to watch the Israelis’ sacrifice to their God, who now must have had quite a reputation, some maybe expecting to see some glorious appearances of the Hebrew God to them in the wilderness, having seen such glorious appearances of their God for them in Egypt. Psalm 78:12 says, “He did miracles in the sight of their ancestors in the land of Egypt, in the region of Zoan.” I cannot blame them for wanting to see more. Some surely went for noble reasons such as Rahab who only heard of the miracles and feared the true God. Still others were but a rude and possibly crude unthinking mob, that did not know why they were following and later may have even proved to be a problem to them. Numbers 11:4 says, “The rabble with them began to crave other food, and again the Israelites started wailing and said, “If only we had meat to eat!” Where did that “rabble” come from if it was not some of these who joined the Israelites? When they learned that the travel schedule included forty years of wandering in the wilderness some probably returned to Egypt. There were always those among the Israelites that were not Israelites, and today there are still hypocrites in the church, who make a problem, but will be sorted out eventually. Christian leaders must be prepared for these possibilities and give each “convert” a chance. They had with them flocks and herds, even very much cattle. The cattle are noteworthy in view of the destruction of the animals in Egypt. The Israeli animals did better in the dessert than Egypt’s animals did in Egypt. If I were a cow I would want to belong to an Israelite!


They brought some dough with them out of Egypt in their knapsacks. They had prepared to bake, the next day, in preparation for moving out, understanding it was very near; but, being hurried away sooner than they thought, they took the dough as it was, unleavened. When they came to Succoth, their first stop, they baked unleavened cakes, and, though these were, of course, plain and almost tasteless, yet the liberty and freedom they now enjoyed made this the most joyful meal they had ever eaten in their lives. The servants of God must not be slaves to their appetites, nor given to hungers that focus on just tasting delicious food. We should be willing to appreciate even dry or unleavened bread, rather than neglect or delay moving quickly with God.


Now let’s think about the calendar and the date of this great event. It was just 430 years from the promise made to Abraham recorded in Genesis 12:2 in which God said, “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.” Galatians 3:17 helps us see the timing of this event, “What I mean is this: The law, introduced 430 years later, does not set aside the covenant previously established by God and thus do away with the promise.” For 430 years God’s promise to Abraham lay dormant and unfulfilled, but now, finally, it revived, and things began to work towards its accomplishment. See how punctual God is in keeping His promise. Though not quickly, yet surely! They will be accomplished in their season.

What a memory they were making! Did they sing? Did they dance? The Bible does not say. It only records in verse 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.” How memorable was the destruction of the Egyptians, and the deliverance of the Israelites! The great things God does for His people are to be remembered, especially the work of our redemption by Christ. This first passover-night was a night to be remembered, but the last passover-night, in which Christ was betrayed, was a night much more to be observed by us, when a yoke heavier than that of Egypt was broken from off our necks and a land better than Canaan is set before us. That was a temporal deliverance to be celebrated in their generation, but ours is an eternal redemption to be celebrated in the praises of glorious saints for ever and ever.


According to verse 47, everyone was to celebrate. “The whole community of Israel must celebrate it.” Yet none might eat the Passover celebration meal but those that came in by the door just as now none may approach the Lord’s supper who have not first submitted to the initiating ordinance of baptism. People must be born again by the Word before they can be nourished by it. Neither will any receive the benefits of Christ’s sacrifice, or feast on it, who are not first circumcised in heart. Circumcision now is a spiritual matter as Colossians 2:11 makes clear. “In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ.”


On the other hand, the gate is wide. Any foreigner that was circumcised might be welcome to eat of the passover, even servants. Doesn’t verse 44 have this meaning? “Any slave you have bought may eat it after you have circumcised him,” If, by circumcision, they would submit themselves to God’s rules, they were welcome to share in the joy of its solemn feasts and not otherwise. It is intimated in verse 48, that those who were masters of families must not only be circumcised themselves, but also have all their males circumcised too. “A foreigner residing 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 it.” From this we may draw two import conclusions every Christian leader should keep in mind. The gospel is both inclusive, welcoming all, and exclusive, limited to those who are qualified by their correct response to God. Anyone, everyone, has the opportunity, but only those who accept God’s terms may enter the gate. The gate is wide, but there is a gate. There is One law for both the Israelite and the foreigner, as verse 49 says, “The same law applies both to the native-born and to the foreigner residing among you.” This taught the Jews it was their dedication to God, not their descent from Abraham, that entitled them to their privileges. And it taught the Gentiles that they too could enter if they accepted God’s authority and submitted to His requirements. A sincere convert was as welcome to the passover as a native Israelite. Many years later the prophet Isaiah taught this clearly in Isaiah 56:6, 7, “And foreigners who bind themselves to the Lord to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, and to be his servants, all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it and who hold fast to my covenant—these I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.”


The slaves were free at last and foreigners could join the party! Hallelujah!