The Big Deal - Exodus 12:14-20

12:14-20 - There are multiple purposes for God to come through Egypt and take the lives of the first born in households that don’t have blood painted on their door posts. The first is so as a punishment to Pharaoh and all the Egyptian people who would not accept the Hebrew God’s commands and forced Him to do all these things to them like the plagues. The second reason for this event is to confront Pharaoh so violently with the power of God that he will have no choice but to let the Hebrews go. A third reason, however, is to make this event so memorable in the Hebrew culture that it will play a large part of in who they are for the rest of time. A fourth reason is to teach the Hebrew people principles of the plan of salvation and prepare them to accept the Messiah when He comes some 1400 year later, although this seems to be a purpose that is only realized in hindsight far down the road.

God has told M&A what He will be doing during the event, but not he gets into the instruction of how this is to be memorialized culturally throughout Israel, “and this day shall be unto you for a memorial; and ye shall keep it a feast to the Lord throughout your generations; ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance for ever.”

The lead up will last seven days where they will remove all leaven from their houses and only eat unleavened bread during that time. The consequences for breaking this rule are severe, in that the person who breaks is “that soul shall be cut off from Israel.” TB notes that the word used here is karet “and, it means to cut off, or eliminate, a body part, or to cut something down, like cutting down a tree. It can mean permanent separation, or most often in the Bible indicate divine destruction and death. So, this being ‘cut-off’ is not akin to a time out for a rebellious child. Not is it like a jail sentence with a set amount of time for punishment, or being temporarily separated from society.” He notes that it probably didn’t mean execution, but “it did mean the ‘cut-ff’ person was banished from Israel, from his own tribe, from his family, and most seriously, from the Lord.” Pretty serious.

There are several verses in which God talks about what days of the month certain things can be eaten and certain work can be done, and who can do it, and the consequences. I’m not going to go over that because I don’t want to and because we go into it later, but here it where God makes note of the significance of what’s going to happen that night. It’s one of those thing where, when it’s happening at the moment, you don’t necessarily know just how important that event is, but afterward you get it. Like 9/11, I didn’t understand the significance of that until I ended up in Iraq asking myself how I got there. God’s saying, “this is a big deal and is going to be a big part of your lives from now on.”