Exodus 13:1-22

Hey everybody, happy Monday.
Thanks for being back with us as we continue through Exodus.
We are going to move just slightly ahead in this story.
We’re grabbing verse 11 of chapter 13 today.
We have done a lot with the Passover and the Unleavened Bread.
We kind of moved to the end
of that story, but we did want to pick up this part of it because this is kind of a new voice
and an interesting development here.
Verse 11, chapter 13,
“When the Lord has brought you into
the land of the Canaanites as he swore to you and your ancestors and has given it to you,
you shall set apart to the Lord the first that opens the womb.
All the firstborn of your livestock
that are male shall be the Lord’s.
But every firstborn donkey you shall redeem with a sheep.
If you do not redeem it,
you must break its neck.
Every firstborn male among you,
your children you shall redeem.
When in the future your child asks,
‘What does this mean?’
you will answer by the strength of hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt,
out of the house of slavery.
When the Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go,
the Lord killed the firstborn in the land of Egypt,
from human firstborn to the firstborn of animals.
Therefore, I sacrifice to the Lord
every male that first opens the womb.
But every firstborn of my sons I redeem.
It shall serve as
a sign on your hand and as an emblem on your forehead,
that by the strength of the hand of
the Lord you were brought out
of Egypt.”
So,
just an interesting – we’ve said,
we’ve looked at this in regard to the Passover,
that the Passover was going to institute a practice
by which Israel continued to remember and celebrate God’s actions.
Here we have another aspect of that
as they take the language of the firstborn and the destruction of the firstborn as that final
plague and as they turn it in to a
sacrificial ritual where every firstborn animal will be
sacrificed with the exception of donkey,
which are not sacrificial animals.
The sheep will be
substituted for the donkey and the sacrifice will be made on behalf of every firstborn male.
I think the clear idea here,
Michael, is just a reminder.
The Old Testament,
this part of the
story is big on the idea of remembering,
the idea of calling the mind,
and the idea of intentional
practices that – well,
it even says it here – that when practiced before people will lead them to
ask why do you do that,
another opportunity to share the story and to tell what God has done again and again.
Right, and I think we need to repeat something that we’ve said earlier here, Clint,
and that’s namely that we need to remember that we have
some future religious practice being
rooted in the story here that is directly related to the deliverance from Egypt.
We’re going to in Leviticus in particular,
but even as the story goes on,
we’re going to get more and more of this
idea of what is appropriate and what isn’t.
Of course, we’ll have the giving of the Ten
Commandments and that begins to set this broader rule,
but as the Israelites really flesh out
the sacrificial worship system and as they begin to build this whole system of meaning around
what a redeemed animal would look like,
right, what a sacrificed animal would look like and
how that should be done.
And what we’re seeing here is a very limited and sort of initial view
of what will in the future,
Clint, be a substantially fleshed out religious practice.
Here though,
the clear intention I think is just to make the point to us that
that later system, which will be robust and mature,
has its roots all the way back in the deliverance story that
brought the people out.
There was this kind of judgment action against the Egyptians,
but that that is going to actually be in some way constructively formed into a worshiping
practice of the people as they move forward.
Yeah, and I think, you know,
we just yesterday, those of you who were in church here,
we celebrated communion and that’s not
the full idea of communion,
but it’s not terribly different.
Why do you use bread?
Why do you use
cup?
Why do we come to this table?
What’s the point?
What’s the meaning?
What’s the story?
So the idea here is that Israel will continue to remember that the idea of forgetting
looms large over this story,
particularly as we continue to move through.
And so this is just one of those episodes where we see God already begin planting in the collective
mind and practice of the people a way to honor that memory and continue to live in it.
Then we get to a really interesting part of the story.
It’s kind of couched in a part that may
not seem interesting, but verse 17 here,
“When Pharaoh let the people go,
God did not lead them
by the way of the land of the Philistines,
although that was nearer.
For God thought, if the people face war,
they may change their minds and return to Egypt.
So God led the people
by the roundabout way of the wilderness toward the Red Sea.
The Israelites went up
out of the land of Egypt
prepared for battle.” Let’s stop there, Michael.
So this is a fascinating verse.
We now pretty clearly in the story transition.
We’re not
100% done with Egypt,
with Pharaoh,
but we’re close.
The people are leaving,
but there is already now we see this first inkling of what is going to be a kind of tumultuous relationship
between God and the people.
There’s this balance beam between God and the people,
and God asking them things they’re not willing to do,
them complaining,
and we see it here.
You know, what an amazing verse.
“For God thought they may not be ready,
and if they face war,
they may change their minds.” So they don’t go – what it’s telling us is that they don’t go
directly to the Promised Land,
but what’s interesting is the reason they don’t go
is God’s not sure that he can count on them yet,
and I think that introduces a really
interesting part of the story, Michael.
Correct me if I’m wrong here,
Clint.
Of course, we’ve had Moses leaving Egypt and for some time
growing a family in the wilderness,
but beyond that, Exodus has been very confined to Israel
and to Egypt.
Here now, for the first time,
we are confronted with this idea that there’s a threat
outside the walls of Egypt,
that now as the people are going into the wilderness to be faithful in their worship,
the culmination of plague upon plague,
ten in total, now as they make their
way out, they have the Philistines out on the edge,
and I think that number one that reminds us
that while we see God delivering them,
God’s not delivering them from all problems,
that God is not
taking them directly to the Promised Land where everything is handled and everything is easy.
There are many challenges in front of them still,
and as readers,
we know that as the story continues, Clint,
the challenges are going to be extreme,
severe.
I mean, there’s a lot of
challenge ahead, and that balance beam that you talk about is,
I think, a helpful teaching frame,
maybe for ourselves.
I mean, this is not a spiritual teaching text in a devotional sense.
This isn’t a thing you read in the morning and you feel encouraged and you move on.
It is a teaching text,
though.
This reminder in the first section today where we talked about
how we pass on the faith and what God has done,
how that becomes a model for us of how we teach the next generation.
Here,
I think there’s a real lesson in the faith when we take seriously the
fact that God may deliver you from a thing,
but God is going to go with you on a journey that
surely will have other challenges.
I mean, the Philistines are there,
and we know that in future
books, the Philistines are going to be a great problem for the people.
They’re going to remain
a problem for a long,
long time, and I may be overdoing it,
but I just think there’s something
deeply true, not only in this reality that we’re hearing God’s thoughts,
the people face war,
they may change their minds.
There’s also this reality happening here, I think,
that if the people face war,
God has this awareness that they may not be ready to trust
God into the next challenge.
As we’re going to find out as the story goes on,
that’s really well-founded,
Clint. Well, I think what’s interesting,
Michael, is you’d be tempted to read
this part of the Old Testament and think it’s as simple as God tells the people what to do
and they do it or not,
but this is an interesting reminder that this is a relationship,
and relationships are more complex than that.
So, already in this very first instance,
we have God making a concession for the people.
God is concerned about their mental well-being.
God is worried about whether this is a moment that they could live up to,
and this kind of
concession-making is going to be a part of the rest of this story when they’re hungry,
when they’re thirsty,
when they’re afraid,
when they’re disobedient.
There is this,
between God and the people,
there is this ground that is not easy for them to connect on.
And it’s easy to think of the people of being part of that,
but I think, fascinatingly,
this says that God is involved in some of that give and take as well,
and I just think that makes it very interesting.
We continue on from there then.
And Moses, this is 19,
and Moses took with him
the bones of Joseph.
If you were with us in the Genesis study,
you remember this part.
“Joseph had required a solemn oath of the Israelites,
saying, ‘God will surely take notice of you,
then you must carry my bones with you from here.’ They set out from Succoth,
they camped at Ethan
on the edge of the wilderness.
The Lord went in front of them in a pillar of cloud by day to lead
them along the way,
and in a pillar of fire at night to give them light,
so they might travel
by day or by night.
Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its
place in front of the people.” So,
interestingly,
tying this back to the story of Genesis and Joseph,
and then telling us,
and again, I think if you did Sunday school,
if you’ve been through these
stories in the classroom when you were young,
if you grew up in church,
you know this, the dramatic story of the cloud and the fire that lead the people,
so that by day and by night,
they can follow the way that God leads them.
A pretty dramatic presentation of the idea of
God setting the direction.
Isn’t it interesting, Clint, that when we have the New Testament story that tells us of Jesus’
birth,
that there’s a star that guides the wise men.
You know, there is this very biblical,
supernatural understanding here that God is able to even use the natural world.
I think that harkens back all the way to Genesis 1,
and the idea that God who creates all things is the one
who’s creating a way for these people.
God’s using fire, God’s using cloud smoke,
and it’s this process that leads the people forward in their journey.
It also seems striking here that while
we get this image
here in Exodus,
it doesn’t factor a great deal in the stories to follow.
There is some, it’s going to pop up every now and then,
but I think it’s interesting that we have
this deliverance story from Egypt,
and now we have interspersed here some teachings
about what we, how we should understand what the people should do with their worship.
We have this recognition that God is negotiating this balance beam,
and he’s giving the people clear direction on where to go,
and the story is about to move into
a whole other act.
I mean, there’s a thing about to happen which is going to be,
it’d be hard to
underestimate, I think, how significant the Red Sea crossing story is,
not just to Exodus,
but to the entire Bible,
to the entire biblical witness, actually,
and so because of that,
Clint, there’s an interesting middling here happening,
this sort of worship,
this sort of God preparing the people
with what they need to know how to follow the paths out in front of them.
It’s an interesting,
it’s an interesting through line in the text.
Yeah, again, I think the overlap is really thought-provoking,
the idea that some of the
intervention that God is going to give for the people are miraculous.
We’re going to see that
in the next couple chapters,
miracles, literally,
the cloud of the pillar of fire,
the pillar of cloud.
I would have to say, certainly, that’s supernatural,
that’s along the lines of the miraculous.
Other times, the intervention that God gives is going to be leadership,
it’s going to be encouragement,
it’s going to be criticism,
it’s going to be punishment.
This is the start of a very dynamic and very interesting relationship between God and the people.
What’s going to be,
I think, really interesting from our story perspective is that
Moses is going to come back into the scene in a huge way,
and he is going to be that one who
sort of stands in the middle as God and the people kind of ping-pong back and forth in some areas.
Moses is going to be the one who has to try and mediate the whole thing.
I know that the last couple weeks may have felt slow as we’ve plugged our way through the plagues,
and I think things are really about to take off here,
and I think the story gets very, very interesting quickly.
One quick thing from me as we come to the end of today’s study here,
I want to look at verse 17 with
you where it says,
“God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines,
though that was nearer.” This is a theme we’ve actually seen pop up several times that I don’t know that I’ve explicitly named,
and that is how often in the story of Exodus God is leading the people,
but it’s not by the shortest possible route.
Think about those ten plagues and how many of those
it says that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart.
You would think, “Well, the most efficient path,
God, would be to get plague three,
and Pharaoh’s going to let us out of here.” But this is going
to happen even more in the book of Exodus where God takes them on circuitous paths,
and there’s actually some reasons given for that about the people’s faith or their grumbling,
the fact that there is this sort of give and pull in the people and their relationship with God.
But I think that
there’s actually a very real kind of embraceable,
understandable force to that in our own lives.
Clint, how many times have we,
anyone who’s been a person of faith of some time,
experienced the path that God takes us on is maybe not one that we would have liked to have taken because it was
circuitous.
It took time.
It took us down an alley that we would have rather not gone.
But
God is with us on those journeys,
and there’s a sense in which there’s wisdom in recognizing
it’s not the shortest path,
it’s the path that God leads you down that matters.
Yeah, absolutely.
You know, the people have been oppressed.
They’ve been in slavery.
They’ve been brutalized.
They’ve been small for 430 years.
And now, to paraphrase another pastor,
God has gotten the people out of Egypt.
Now,
God has to get Egypt out of the people.
And part of this journey is to do exactly that,
to change them, to transform them from what they
are or what they were into what God calls them to be.
And that is, for all of us, a challenging path.
Friends, we’re glad that you would join us here.
Be sure, keep going with us this week.
There’s some greats.
Good stuff.
Hugely influential text to come,
so we’d love to see you for that.
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Thanks for being with us,
and we will see you tomorrow.
Thanks, everybody.