Death of the Firstborn
Death of the Firstborn
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A New Beginning
Yahweh told Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, “This month will be the first month for you. It will be the beginning of your year. Tell the entire assembly of Israel that on the tenth day of this month, every man must choose an animal from the flock for his father’s household, an animal per household. But if his family is too small for the animal, he and a close neighbor will share one according to the number of people. You must determine how much of the animal each will eat.”
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With the conflict coming to an end, Yahweh prepared his people for the last wonder and their departure from Egypt. From then on, the month of their release would become the first month of the year. The exodus occurred in the month of Aviv, in March or April.1 The Egyptian new year started in midsummer.2
On the tenth of Aviv, the men of Israel would select animals from the flock, which consisted of both sheep and goats. Each household would select one animal large enough to feed all members of the family. A small family could share an animal with another small family living nearby. They had to determine how much their households needed—no more, no less. Everyone should have enough to eat with none left over.
The sufficiency of the animal to feed the family represented the sufficiency of Yahweh’s provision for his people. They had done nothing to contribute to their release from Egypt. Even Moses and Aaron had merely set the stage for Yahweh to act. In the final wonder, they would play no role at all. Yahweh alone would save his people.
The Protecting Sacrifice
“Choose a one-year-old male with no flaws from either the sheep or the goats and guard it until the fourteenth day of this month. Then the entire fellowship of the assembly of Israel must kill the animals in the afternoon. Take some of the blood and put it on both doorposts and on the lintel on the houses where they’re eaten.
“Roast the meat over the fire and eat it that night with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. Don’t eat any of it raw or boiled. Roast it over the fire with its head, legs, and internal organs. Don’t leave any of it until morning. You must burn anything remaining in the morning in the fire. This is the way you must eat it: with your cloak tucked in, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. Eat it quickly. It is a protecting sacrifice to Yahweh.”
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Yahweh decreed strict regulations for choosing and preparing the animal each household would consume. The Israelites could choose a sheep or a goat, but it had to be a one-year-old male. The animal had to be flawless, with no wounds or defects. To make sure it remained flawless, the family would keep it separate from the rest of the flock from the tenth of Aviv until the afternoon of the fourteenth.3
During the afternoon of the fourteenth, all the Israelites would kill their animals, slitting their throats and draining the blood as they always did.4 Yahweh commanded them to apply some of the blood to the doorposts and lintel, surrounding the entryway of the house where the family would eat the meal and spend the night. The animal had to be roasted whole, a unique requirement since the Israelites usually cut up sacrifices.5 During the night, the family would eat all the meat, and in the morning, they had to burn the bones and other inedible parts.
The “protecting sacrifice” represented Yahweh’s protection over the family.6 Alongside the meat, Yahweh commanded the Israelites to eat bitter herbs, representing their bitter servitude in Egypt, and unleavened bread, representing their hasty departure. They had to eat quickly while dressed for travel. Their time in Egypt had come to an end, and they needed to be prepared to leave at a moment’s notice.
The Blood
“That night, I will pass through the land of Egypt and strike down every firstborn son, human or animal. I will punish all the gods of Egypt. I am Yahweh. But the blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are. When I see the blood, I will protect you. No destructive plague will harm you when I strike the land of Egypt. Commemorate this day and celebrate it as a festival to Yahweh. You must celebrate it throughout your generations as a permanent decree.”
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After giving the regulations for the protecting sacrifice, Yahweh explained the purpose of the ceremony. On the night the Israelites ate the protecting sacrifice, Yahweh would punish the gods of Egypt by sending a plague to kill every firstborn son in the land. He had humiliated all of Egypt’s false gods save one—the pharaoh. After this final wonder, he who refused to humble himself would submit in utter defeat.
Yahweh’s decree of destruction put the firstborn sons of the Israelites in danger. So he provided the protecting sacrifice to save them. The animal would die as a substitute for the firstborn of each family. Then as Yahweh passed through Egypt, he would protect any doorframe covered in the blood. With Yahweh blocking the door, the plague could not enter. Yahweh didn’t “pass over” the Israelites. He protected them from the destroyer of Egypt’s firstborn.
Unlike previous wonders, Yahweh didn’t globally spare Israel or Goshen. The Israelites had to act in faith because if Yahweh didn’t see the blood on the doorway, he wouldn’t protect it.7 Salvation would come only through the blood of the protecting sacrifice. To commemorate Yahweh’s protection, Israel would celebrate a festival every year on the fourteenth of Aviv, when once again every household would sacrifice and eat the protecting sacrifice.
Jesus and the Lamb
When John the Baptist first introduced Jesus to the Israelites, he called him “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.”8 Paul also associated Jesus with the protecting sacrifice of Exodus.9 As the Lamb of God, Jesus is the sacrifice God provided to protect his people from the curse of death brought on by sin.10 The protecting sacrifice had to be sufficient for the household, and Jesus’s sacrifice is sufficient for us. The Israelites didn’t contribute to their redemption, and we don’t contribute to ours.
Numerous parallels exist between the protecting sacrifice in Exodus and the crucifixion of Jesus, starting with the timing. On the tenth of Aviv, when the Israelites chose the sacrificial animal, Jesus traveled to Jerusalem from Bethany. On the way, the Israelites declared him the King of Israel.11 The people chose Jesus as their King on the tenth. On fourteenth, he died as their Savior.12 He died around 3:00 p.m. (“the ninth hour” after sunrise), at the same time the animals were being sacrificed in the temple.13
Other characteristics of the sacrificial deaths provide striking parallels. Like the one-year-old animals, Jesus was killed in the prime of life. He was sinless, and they were flawless. The Israelites roasted the animals whole without breaking their bones, and Jesus died with no broken bones.14 The removal of leaven on the same day also parallels the removal of sin through the sacrifice of Jesus.15
But most importantly, their deaths served the same purpose: to save others. The protecting sacrifices died in place of the firstborn sons of the Israelites. Because of the blood covering the doorway, God kept them safe from the destroying plague. Jesus died in place of sinful humanity. Because of his blood covering us, God will keep us safe from destruction on the day of judgment.16
Unleavened Bread
“For seven days, you must eat unleavened bread. On the first day, remove leaven from your houses. If anyone eats anything leavened, from the first day to the seventh day, that person must be cut off from Israel. On the first day, hold a sacred assembly. On the seventh day, hold a sacred assembly. No work will be done on those days. You may only prepare what everyone will eat.
“Observe the Festival of Unleavened Bread because on this day I brought your companies out from the land of Egypt. Observe this day throughout your generations as a permanent decree. Eat unleavened bread from the evening of the fourteenth day of the first month until the evening of the twenty-first day. For seven days, let no leaven be found in your houses. If anyone eats anything leavened, whether a resident alien or a native of the land, that person must be cut off from the assembly of Israel. Don’t eat anything leavened. In all your homes, eat unleavened bread.”
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Immediately following the death of Egypt’s firstborn, the pharaoh would drive the Israelites out from Egypt. Yahweh commanded his people to celebrate this event in the future with the seven-day Festival of Unleavened Bread. From the fifteenth to the twenty-first of Aviv, the Israelites had to eat unleavened bread and abstain from anything made with leaven. Anyone who ate anything made with leaven had to be exiled from the covenant community.
Since the Israelite day began at sunset, the fifteenth began on “the evening of the fourteenth,” when they ate the protecting sacrifice. They also removed leaven from their homes at this time. They could eat leavened bread on the fourteenth but had to get rid of any leftovers and leavening agents as the fifteenth started, before eating the meal.
The fifteenth and twenty-first were also days of rest, except for preparing food. On those two days, the Israelites would gather for communal worship. As Yahweh freed them from serving the pharaoh, he simultaneously brought them into his service. But his service doesn’t consist of hard labor. It consists of worship and rest. The two rest days of Unleavened Bread serve as a reminder of the great blessing of serving Yahweh instead of the world.
Passing down Faith
So Moses summoned all the elders of Israel. “Separate for yourselves animals from the flock according to your families. Then kill the protecting sacrifice. Take a bunch of hyssop and dip it in the blood in the basin. Apply some of the blood from the basin to the lintel and both doorposts. Then make sure no one goes out of the door of the house until morning. When Yahweh passes through to strike the Egyptians, he will see the blood on the lintel and both doorposts. Yahweh will protect the doorway and not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike.
“Keep these instructions as a decree for you and your children forever. When you enter the land Yahweh will give you, just as he said, perform this service. Then your children will ask you, ‘What does this service mean to you?’ Tell them, ‘This is a protecting sacrifice to Yahweh, who protected the houses of the Israelites in Egypt when he struck the Egyptians. But he delivered our houses.’”
The people bowed down low. Then the Israelites went and did just as Yahweh commanded Moses and Aaron.
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Ancient Hebrew narrative marks the climax of a story by slowing down the action and repeating important elements of the story. First, Yahweh warned Moses about the death of the firstborn sons in Egypt and gave him the instructions for the protecting sacrifice. Then, Moses passed those instructions on to the Israelite elders. The only new information in his speech is the use of hyssop to apply the blood to the doorway and the command to stay inside until morning.
Moses also instructed the Israelites to continue offering the protecting sacrifice every year as a “service” to Yahweh. After Yahweh kept his promise to give them the land of Canaan, generations would arise who never experienced Egypt. These children would naturally ask the purpose of the ritual. The parents would then explain how Yahweh had struck down the Egyptians but had protected “our houses.” This would bring the children in as beneficiaries of Yahweh’s deliverance even before they were born.
Serving Yahweh involves passing down our faith to future generations. Children are a vital part of the faith community, and their questions deserve honest answers.17 Rituals and holidays encourage them to ask questions and provide opportunities to teach them about the wondrous acts of our God.
Death Wail
At midnight, Yahweh struck down every firstborn son in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of the pharaoh sitting on his throne to the firstborn of the captive in prison, as well as all the firstborn animals. The pharaoh got up during the night, as did his servants and all Egypt. Then a great cry arose in Egypt because there was not a house where no one had died.
At midnight on the fifteenth of Aviv, Yahweh passed through the land of Egypt and struck down every firstborn son with a plague.18 His passage also caused the rest of the Egyptians to wake up in the middle of the night. As they discovered their tragic loss, a death wail arose throughout the land that could never be surpassed.19 Everyone mourned a family member.
In the ancient Near East, families lived in households consisting of a patriarch, his wives, sons, unmarried daughters, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.20 While Egypt certainly had couples without sons, the larger household would always include at least one firstborn, usually multiple. No house could escape the plague—except the ones covered in the blood of the protecting sacrifice.
Yahweh considers Israel his firstborn. The pharaoh’s refusal to release Yahweh’s son cost him his own.21 Despite all their wealth and power, the pharaoh, the priests, and the court magicians could do nothing to save their own sons. They could only wail along with the rest of the people. A nation already ravaged by the first nine wonders had now lost the leaders of the next generation, including the heir to the throne. Only such extreme measures would break the pharaoh’s obstinate will.
Leave!
So [the pharaoh] summoned Moses and Aaron during the night. “Get up and get out from among my people, you and the Israelites! Go serve Yahweh as you said. Take your flocks and herds as well, just as you said. Go and bless me too.”
The Egyptians urged the people to hurry so they could send them away from the land. They thought, “We’re all about to die!”
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The panicked pharaoh didn’t even wait until morning to summon Moses and Aaron. In the middle of the night, as soon as he realized the crisis he faced, the pharaoh called them in and demanded they leave Egypt. He had previously threatened Moses with death if he returned to ask for the release of the Israelites.22 But the tables had turned, and now the Egyptians feared for their own lives if the Israelites didn’t leave immediately.
As Yahweh promised, the pharaoh drove the Israelites out from his land.23 He placed no conditions on their departure. They could take their families and their livestock. He just wanted them gone! The pharaoh even asked for a blessing from the God he had so stubbornly refused to recognize. He might have received it had his change in attitude lasted. But sadly, he acted out of the fear of death, not the fear of Yahweh.
As the decree for the Israelites to leave went out, the Egyptian people urged them to hurry. The Egyptians knew only the departure of the Israelites would turn away Yahweh’s wrath. They feared they would all die if the Israelites didn’t leave fast enough, though Yahweh never said any such thing. Frightened and distressed, they desperately wanted the long period of repeated disasters to end.
Peaceful Plunder
So the people took their dough before it was leavened and carried it in their kneading bowls bound in their cloaks on their shoulders. The Israelites did as Moses said and asked the Egyptians for objects of silver and gold and for clothing. Yahweh made the Egyptians generous to the people so they gave them what they asked for. The Israelites plundered the Egyptians.
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In the early morning hours, the Israelite women mixed and kneaded the dough for the day’s bread. Normally, they would then leaven the dough and leave it to rise in the kneading bowl. But on the morning of the fifteenth of Aviv, the decree to leave Egypt interrupted the process. They had no time to add the leaven and allow the bread to rise. So they grabbed their kneading bowls with the unleavened dough, packed it along with whatever else they could carry, and left.
In obedience to Yahweh’s command through Moses, the Israelites had been asking Egyptians for clothing and objects of silver and gold. The Egyptians had given generously, and the Israelites took those items with them.24 This peaceful plundering of the Egyptians fulfilled God’s promise to Abraham that his offspring would leave the land of slavery “with great wealth.”25 They left in a hurry, but they left in triumph.
The First Stage
The Israelites journeyed from Rameses to Succoth. The men numbered about six hundred thousand on foot, in addition to their families. A large and varied group went with them, as well as a great number of livestock, both flocks and herds. They baked the dough they brought from Egypt into cakes of unleavened bread. It was not leavened because they were driven from Egypt and couldn’t delay or prepare provisions for themselves.
The Israelites began their journey from Rameses, one of the cities they built while serving the Egyptians.26 They headed toward the border and camped at Succoth.27 Because they left in such a hurry, they had nothing to eat except the unleavened bread dough prepared that morning. This first day of travel fell on the first day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread, a Sabbath.
The count of about six hundred thousand men leaving Egypt comes from the military census in Numbers 1, which excluded women, boys under twenty, and the tribe of Levi.28 Even conservative scholars recognize that this is far too high a number for this point in history. It also doesn’t match the number of Levites and firstborn males recorded in Numbers 3.29 Ronald B. Allen suggests that each census number in Numbers 1 was multiplied by ten to glorify God.30 More likely, this intentional exaggeration reflects the Israelites’ aversion to counting God’s people, which could invoke a plague.31
A number of other people left Egypt along with the Israelites. As the foreigners in Abraham’s household followed him from Harran, these foreigners followed his descendants from Egypt.32 This “varied group” likely included other slaves taking advantage of the chance for freedom. But it also included Egyptians and others who wanted to serve Yahweh.33 They wanted to join his people and share in their blessing.
- Exodus 13:4.
- Encyclopaedia Britannica Online, s.v. “Egyptian Calendar,” last modified June 8, 2017, https://www.britannica.com/science/Egyptian-calendar.
- The Hebrew idiom ben haʿarbayim (“between the two evenings”) refers to the time when the sun is falling in the sky. It does not mean “twilight.” Killing the sacrifice at twilight would not allow for the hours of work required to skin and roast the animal. The Jews of Jesus’s day understood this time period as beginning shortly after noon. See Constable, Exodus, 109; Oswalt, “Exodus,” 366.
- See A New Reality.
- Leviticus 1:6.
- Though the protecting sacrifice is traditionally called the “Passover” lamb, the Hebrew verb pasah means “to protect,” not “to pass over.” See Harris, Archer, and Waltke, Wordbook, s.v. “פָסַח,” Barry Dov Walfish, “Why ‘Passover’? On the True Meaning of Pesaḥ-פסח,” TheTorah.com, accessed September 29, 2024, https://thetorah.com/article/why-passover-on-the-true-meaning-of-pesah; Walton, Matthews, and Chavalas, Bible Background Commentary, Exodus 12:11
- Hebrews 11:28.
- John 1:29.
- 1 Corinthians 5:7.
- See The Curse of Death.
- John 12:1, 12–13. Counting inclusively, as the Israelites did, the tenth is five days before the fourteenth.
- John 18:28.
- Luke 23:44–46. According to the Jewish Encyclopedia, the sacrifices began after the evening sacrifice around 2:00 p.m. Executive Committee of the Editorial Board and Jacob Zallel Lauterbach, “Passover Sacrifice: The Sacrifice,” Jewish Encyclopedia, accessed October 9, 2024, https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/11934-passover-sacrifice#.
- Exodus 12:46; John 19:31–33.
- Exodus 12:15; Luke 12:1; 1 Corinthians 5:6–8.
- Romans 5:9; 1 John 1:7; Revelation 5:9.
- Matthew 19:14.
- Exodus 12:13.
- Exodus 11:6.
- Genesis 46:26–27.
- Exodus 4:22–23.
- See Banished.
- Exodus 11:1.
- See Generous.
- Genesis 15:13–14.
- Exodus 1:11.
- In Hebrew, Succoth means “temporary shelters.” It may simply refer to the first place they camped instead of an Egyptian city. When Jacob returned to Canaan, he camped at a different Succoth east of the Jordan. Genesis 33:17.
- Numbers 1:44–47.
- Numbers 3:39, 43. The twenty-two thousand Levites over a month old (instead of twenty years old) would make them far smaller than any other tribe. The number of firstborn sons would mean the average family had twenty-seven boys.
- Allen, “Numbers,” 62–69.
- Exodus 30:12; 2 Samuel 24:1–15; see Hyperbole.
- See Abram’s Household.
- Exodus 7:5.