Exodus 12

Summary

The Lord sets out various things that the Israelites are required to do from now on in connection with what is now known as Passover. This is the event, to be commemorated annually, in which God killed the first born male of man and animal in Egypt. To escape the same fate, Moses told the people to slaughter a lamb and spread its blood over their doorway. This way the Lord’s destroyer (or God himself?) would skip that house. Lots of stuff to do with bitter herbs, who can eat the slaughtered lamb and unleavened bread, which is either unleavened because God says so, or because they had to leave in a hurry, which is odd because they all knew what was coming.

So, God sets about to kill children, men and animals, including the Pharaoh’s own son. At this, Pharaoh tells Moses and Aaron to go. All the Egyptians finally want to rush the Israelites away. By coincidence they left 430 years, to the day, after they began living in Egypt. All 600,000 men (women and children apparently aren’t counted).

Commentary

This is an odd chapter. It’s a very momentous event, the killing of potentially thousands of people in the night. Yet, much of the chapter discusses who can eat the lamb and how anyone eating yeast during this time should be cut off from Israel.

One thing I note is that in Exo 12:44, it mentions that purchased slaves must be circumcised to eat the Passover lamb. Does this mean that slavery is not being done away with? After all that they are going through the Israelites will still have slaves. That’s a little disconcerting.