Exod 12 · Read 10 min · think and write 15 min
In the last lesson, God said to Moses from the bush, “Certainly I will be with you” (Exod 3:12).
Moses went back to Egypt to see Pharaoh. Pharaoh said, “Who is the LORD, that I should listen to his voice to let Israel go? I don’t know the LORD” (Exod 5:2). Then God sent one plague after another (Exod 7–11). Before the last one, God told Moses, “I will bring yet one more plague on Pharaoh, and on Egypt; afterwards he will let you go” (Exod 11:1).
This lesson is that night.
The LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron in Egypt and told them this month would be the first month of the year for them. (vv. 1–2)
3Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying, ‘On the tenth day of this month, they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household;
A household too small for a whole lamb could share one with the nearest neighbor. (v. 4)
5Your lamb shall be without defect, a male a year old. You shall take it from the sheep or from the goats.
6You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month; and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at evening.
7They shall take some of the blood, and put it on the two door posts and on the lintel, on the houses in which they shall eat it.
8They shall eat the meat in that night, roasted with fire, with unleavened bread. They shall eat it with bitter herbs.
The lamb was to be roasted, and nothing was to be left until morning. (vv. 9–10)
11This is how you shall eat it: with your belt on your waist, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it in haste: it is the LORD’s Passover.
12For I will go through the land of Egypt in that night, and will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and animal. I will execute judgments against all the gods of Egypt. I am the LORD.
13The blood shall be to you for a token on the houses where you are. When I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.
14This day shall be a memorial for you. You shall keep it as a feast to the LORD. You shall keep it as a feast throughout your generations by an ordinance forever.
They were to eat unleavened bread for seven days. Moses called the elders and told them to put the lamb’s blood on the lintel and door posts, and that no one was to go out of the house until morning; they were to keep this service in the promised land too. (vv. 15–25)
26It will happen, when your children ask you, ‘What do you mean by this service?’
27that you shall say, ‘It is the sacrifice of the LORD’s Passover, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when he struck the Egyptians, and spared our houses.’” The people bowed their heads and worshiped.
The people of Israel did as the LORD had commanded. (v. 28)
29At midnight, 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.
30Pharaoh rose up in the night, he, and 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.
31He called for Moses and Aaron by night, and said, “Rise up, get out from among my people, both you and the children of Israel; and go, serve the LORD, as you have said!
32Take both your flocks and your herds, as you have said, and be gone; and bless me also!”
33The Egyptians were urgent with the people, to send them out of the land in haste, for they said, “We are all dead men.”
The people took their dough before it was leavened, carried it on their shoulders, and set out from Rameses. (vv. 34–37)
38A mixed multitude went up also with them, with flocks, herds, and even very much livestock.
They baked unleavened cakes from the dough. That night was a night to be kept for the LORD. A foreigner who wanted to keep the Passover could do so once his males were circumcised. (vv. 39–48)
49One law shall be to him who is born at home, and to the stranger who lives as a foreigner among you.”
That same day, the LORD brought the people of Israel out of Egypt. (vv. 50–51)
To read the whole chapter: Exodus 12, 51 verses.
A lamb for a household. God said, “They shall take to them every man a lamb, according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household” (v. 3), and the lamb was to be “without defect, a male a year old” (v. 5). This was not a ceremony in a public square. It happened in every home, around every table.
Blood on the door. “They shall take some of the blood, and put it on the two door posts and on the lintel” (v. 7). God said, “The blood shall be to you for a token on the houses where you are. When I see the blood, I will pass over you” (v. 13). That night, what marked one house off from another was not which family was better. It was whether there was blood on the door.
Eating with sandals on. “With your belt on your waist, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it in haste” (v. 11). They were still in Egypt, but they ate like people about to leave. The passage gives the meal a name: “it is the LORD’s Passover” (v. 11).
The cry in the night. “At midnight, the LORD struck all the firstborn in the land of Egypt” (v. 29); “there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where there was not one dead” (v. 30). This was the last plague; before it, Pharaoh had refused again and again to let the people go (Exod 7–11). The passage does not pass over this night lightly, and it does not stop here to explain it. As we read, we do not pass over it lightly either, and we do not say more than the passage says.
Pharaoh says, ‘Rise up.’ The Pharaoh who had said “I don’t know the LORD” (Exod 5:2) called for Moses and Aaron in the night and said, “Rise up, get out from among my people, both you and the children of Israel” (v. 31). He even added, “and bless me also!” (v. 32).
The children will ask. God said ahead of time, “when your children ask you, ‘What do you mean by this service?’” (v. 26). The answer is something that happened: “he struck the Egyptians, and spared our houses” (v. 27). What is passed on to the next generation is not only a set of rules, but the story of ‘he saved us.’
The door was open. It was not only Israelites who left Egypt: “A mixed multitude went up also with them” (v. 38). A foreigner who wanted to keep the Passover, once circumcised, “shall be as one who is born in the land” (v. 48); “One law shall be to him who is born at home, and to the stranger who lives as a foreigner among you” (v. 49). On this night of rescue, the door was open.
God had said, “The Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD when I stretch out my hand on Egypt, and bring the children of Israel out from among them” (Exod 7:5). The LORD whom Pharaoh said he did not know was known that night in every house in Egypt.
For Israel, this night was a new beginning. God told them, “This month shall be to you the beginning of months” (v. 2). They were to count from this night. Every year they would tell the story again around the table.
What saved people that night was not who was braver or more devout. It was the blood on the door. You may feel you are not good enough, that you do not deserve to be saved. The Passover story is not about who deserves it. God saw the blood, and passed over.
This week: Think of one time God rescued you. This week, tell it to a child or a young person, the way Israelite parents told the Passover story around the table.
Paul wrote to the church in Corinth: “For indeed Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed in our place” (1 Cor 5:7). Then he went on: “Therefore let’s keep the feast … with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (1 Cor 5:8).
Paul puts the Passover and Christ in the same sentence. He does not explain here how each detail of the lamb matches Christ, and we do not spell it out for him. Readers can read Exodus 12 and these two verses side by side.
Scripture: World English Bible.