Exodus - Lesson 12

Dr. Carmen Imes 
Exodus 
OT605-12 
Passover 
Lesson Transcript

Okay, so in the last session we talked about the death of the firstborn and we saw how each of the signs and wonders get more and more intense and build up to this climax of the death of the first born and then the people of Israel leaving Egypt, which is this epic narrative and it's so captivating, such a captivating story, but then when you turn the page to chapter 12, we suddenly have an entire chapter of ritual instructions, which seems very anticlimactic, if you ask me. So why interrupt an epic narrative with a ritual text? The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, this month is to be for you the first month, the month of your year. We're talking about the calendar.

Tell the whole community of Israel that on the 10th of this month, each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household, etc. It's fascinating how it comes to a screeching halt and we get instructions for a dinner party that lasts an entire chapter and a half. So why interrupt this narrative? What is this ritual doing here? It could have been stuck in the book of Leviticus with the other ritual.

It could have waited until Sinai. Why is it here? Terence Fredheim makes a really good case that this belongs here for the very powerful reason that God wants every generation of Israelites to see the Exodus as their story. This is not something that happened to their grandparents or their great-great grandparents.

This is something that happened to them and so it's really important to pause right here and to make a way for every future generation to participate in God's redemptive work. So it's a performative ritual. It's going to involve smells and tastes and sights and sounds and it's going to be really memorable.

Children are going to grow up with every year participating in this really interesting ritual where they kill an animal and they paint blood on the doorpost and they eat a special meal and they eat it wearing their traveling clothes and their bread is different and they're telling the story of how God saved them from Egypt. So by doing this ritual every year and allowing their children to grow up with this as a key part of what defines them as a nation, it allows every generation to participate in the Exodus and to make it part of their own story. So as Fred Heim explains, the historical event is at one and the same time a liturgical event.

So yes, this actually happened in Egypt. People actually did paint blood on their doorposts and go through this ceremony in order to save their firstborn and now they don't have to save their firstborn each year by going through this ritual but by participating in the Passover meal their children understand what a big deal it is that God rescued them from Egypt and they they get to participate in it and have the sense that this is their story. Notice that the Passover initiates a brand new calendar.

They don't just leave Egypt, they leave behind the way of keeping time that marked their lives in Egypt, which was probably a mixture of an agricultural and civil calendar, but God says starting today it's a new year for you. This is the first month of a new year. I want you to actually reshape your calendar around my deliverance and this is part of what shows us that God bringing the people out of Egypt is a work of new creation because they have a new calendar and a new nation that's being formed.

Passover also fulfills God's promise to Abraham in Genesis 15. I'll read that for you in a moment or just for just a moment here. Passover also fulfills God's promise to Abraham in Genesis 15 starting in verse 13.

This is the scene in which God ratifies the covenant with Abraham by cutting animals in half and then he has this vision of a torch and a fire pot passing between the pieces. It's this solemn ceremony where God is participating in a in a cultural ritual. This is a ritual that we would we would have seen practiced in a Hittite context, for example, in which two parties who make an agreement cut the animals in half and separate them and walk through the pieces together and it's a way of saying, may this be done to me if I break my promise to you.

And yet when Abraham enters into this covenant with God, they cut the pieces together and Abraham doesn't walk between the pieces because God himself is the only one who is binding himself to these promises to Abraham. They do not depend on Abraham's own faithfulness. So we're told, as the sun was setting, Abraham fell into a deep sleep and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him.

And then Yahweh said to him, know for certain that for 400 years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves and afterward they will come out with great possessions. You, however, will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age.

In the fourth generation, your descendants will come back here for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure. Already in Genesis, God gives Abraham a clear idea that the slavery in Egypt is going to happen and that God will bring them out, that God will bring them out with great possessions. We'll see that as well as they leave with gifts from their neighbors in Egypt.

So Passover is the fulfillment of God's promise to Abraham. That bloody ritual in Genesis 15 is being mirrored in some sense by the bloody ritual in Exodus chapter 12. And even more, what Abraham sees passing through the pieces, we're told that when the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking fire pot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces.

My friend Michael Morales, in his book called Exodus Old and New, argues that these two things, these two items are a symbol of what we see in God's splitting of the Sea of Reeds and leading them through with a pillar of cloud and a pillar of fire. So if you can imagine a smoking fire pot, the smoke would look like a pillar of cloud coming up from the pot and a torch would have a pillar of fire coming up out of it. And God is going to lead his people through the wilderness with a pillar of cloud and a pillar of fire.

And here we have God leading through or passing between the pieces of these cut animals. So already anticipating the provision of God's guidance in the wilderness, such a cool connection. So what is the Passover? I'm convinced actually that the word Passover has been mistranslated because when we hear Passover, we think it's about they painted blood on their doorposts so that Yahweh or the destroying angel would pass over their houses.

But I don't think that's actually the right way to understand the Hebrew word that describes it. So according to the Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, the word Pasach, which is the one we translate as Passover, can either mean maybe Passover, but it's uncertain where it would mean that. Or it can mean limp or leap or protect.

So there's question marks behind number one and number three because there's debate about what's the best way to translate this. But the third meaning, protect, seems most appropriate in these contexts. So Exodus 12, 23 reads, and Yahweh will pass through to strike the Egyptians.

That's not the same word, pass through is a totally different Hebrew word. And we'll see the blood upon the lintel and the two doorposts and Yahweh will Pasach the doorway and will not allow the destroyer to enter your house to strike you. So it seems like what's happening is Yahweh is covering the doorway, he's protecting it so that the destroyer can't enter and has to go around or go somewhere else.

So what Yahweh is doing when he Pasachs it is protecting it rather than passing by it. We see the same word used in Isaiah 31.5, like swooping birds, thus will Yahweh of hosts protect Jerusalem. He will protect and deliver Pasach and rescue.

Now those other two words that are translated protect are a different word. I've kept Pasach untranslated. And you can see that Passover doesn't seem to fit this context quite as well as protect.

The big idea is that God is protecting and rescuing his people. And so it seems to me that the name of this ceremony, the name of this ritual that they go through and the name of this festival going forward is commemorating not God avoiding them, but God coming to them and offering his protection, which I think is beautiful. We don't tend to gravitate as evangelicals toward the ritual texts in the Bible.

They don't seem all that relevant to us because we're not in most cases doing the things that the ritual text explains that we need to do. And so sometimes we just skim over, if you're doing a Bible read through, you just skim through a chapter such as Exodus 12 or 13. But I spent some time slowing down and trying to understand the logic of this chapter.

And I want to share with you a chart that is my attempt to picture how it's organized. You'll see the shaded boxes here are describing, those are indicating places where there's ritual instructions. And then the narrative is in white.

And what I find really interesting is how these are all structured to relate to each other. So we have the plague of darkness or the sign of darkness that provides kind of an outer framing for this entire sequence because the darkness doesn't really lift until the end of chapter 13, verse 22, when finally it's the next morning and they can see God's guidance in the wilderness. Everything else that happens in chapters 12 and 13 happens at night in the dark.

So we have the death of the firstborn announced and then we have a sequence of three ritual texts. First, Yahweh instructing about the Passover, then Yahweh instructing about the Feast of Flatbread, and then Moses instructing the elders about the Passover. Then we have some narrative sections that explain the death of the firstborn and the baking of the flatbread.

Then we have Exodus 12, 40 to 42, which reads, now the length of the time the Israelite people lived in Egypt was 430 years. At the end of the 430 years to the very day, all Yahweh's divisions left Egypt because Yahweh kept vigil that night to bring them out of Egypt. On this night, all the Israelites are to keep vigil to honor Yahweh for the generations to come.

So it's a summary text saying about the timing, clarifying the timing of leaving Egypt, and then explaining why they're going to do this ritual over and over again because they're remembering and honoring God for what he's done. Then we have more Passover restrictions, which might seem a little random, like why do we need more here and why weren't these earlier? You'll notice if you look at chapter 12, verses 43 to 49, these particular restrictions have to do with whether or not foreigners can participate in the Passover. We're told no foreigner may eat it.

Any contracted worker who's a permanent household member, that's how I would translate slave here or understand slave, any slave you have bought, that would be someone who's contracted to work for you, who's become a member of your household, may eat it after you have circumcised him. But a temporary resident or hired worker may not eat it. So these instructions are particularly about the inclusion of foreigners.

Why are we told this now? Well, if we back up to verse 37, we're told the Israelites journeyed from Ramses to Succoth. There were about 600,000 men on foot besides women and children. Many other people went up with them, and also large droves of livestock and flocks and herds.

So this is the many other people that went with them. That's the question mark. In Egypt, only those who celebrated Passover avoided the death of the firstborn.

But as they're leaving Egypt, other people are like, I think I'm getting out of here while I have the chance. I want to be on your team. I want to worship your God because he's clearly more powerful than the gods of Egypt and more powerful than Pharaoh.

So other people from other ethnic groups join the Israelites to leave Egypt. And that's why we suddenly need instructions on how do we do this when we celebrate Passover next time? Do they get to celebrate with us, or is this only for Jews? And we're told that foreigners can't eat it unless they're circumcised. So verse 48 clarifies, a foreigner residing among you who wants to celebrate Yahweh's Passover must have all the males in his household circumcised, and then he may take part like one born in the land.

No uncircumcised male may eat it. This circles back to that conversation we had about the circumcision on the way back to Egypt. This is why Moses had to make sure his family was circumcised.

Because they're part foreigners, if they want to be included, they need to be circumcised. So this is so beautiful to me that the narrator is including these laws right here, right when we need the question, right when the question is raised. What do we do with foreigners? There's a clear invitation.

Come join us. You can be part of the people of God. You can celebrate too.

You just have to sign on to the covenant. You can't be kind of here today and gone tomorrow. You have to be in it for the long haul, and then you're welcome.

In chapter 12 verses 50 and 51, then just following these Passover restrictions, we have another summary sentence. All the Israelites did just what Yahweh had commanded Moses and Aaron, and on that very day Yahweh brought the Israelites out of Egypt by their divisions. So another narrative summary, and then chapter 13 introduces more ritual.

So we have another mini chiasm, where we go firstborn, flatbread, firstborn. This time Yahweh gives the first instructions, and then Moses delivers the next two sections of instructions, and then night turns to day. So when you're just kind of muscling your way through this, you might miss the artistry, but it seems clear to me that each of the sets of ritual instructions are inserted into the narrative right where one would need them if they are trying to figure out how to make this permanent, or how to become a permanent part of the people of God.

So the consecration of the firstborn in chapter 13 is important to talk about now, because just previously to this, the Egyptian firstborn have died, and God says, I took Egypt's firstborn, and they died, and now your firstborn belong to me. I could have killed them too, but I spared them, so now they belong to me. And so there's a special instruction to dedicate the firstborn to Yahweh.

So this is a taste of some of the literary patterning in these narratives. There's a couple of other layers to show you. One is in this section, and this is this first shaded section, the Passover, flatbread, Passover chiasm, the first one.

If we kind of drill down to get some more detail, we see another kind of symmetry here, where first God is addressing Moses and Aaron about the Passover in Egypt, and the Passover outside of Egypt. And then we have Moses addressing the Israelite elders about the Passover in Egypt, and about the Passover in future years outside of Egypt. So again, very well organized.

Another layer of patterning that becomes clear when you slow down is in Exodus chapter 13. So again, in the first diagram here, it's that last shaded box with firstborn, flatbread, and then firstborn. If we drill down for more detail there, we get two panels of instructions, verses 3 through 10, and verses 11 through 16, are about different topics.

3 through 10 is about flatbread, the feast of flatbread, and 11 through 16 is about the firstborn. What are these things doing side by side? Why are they included in the same chapter? Well, they mirror each other by walking through the same phrases. Both of them are to be done when Yahweh brings you to the land of the Canaanite.

Both of them, in both cases, were told which he swore to your ancestors. Both times there's a specific cultic observance that involves the instruction of children and an external reminder on hands and eyes. So this is what Jews practice as binding of phylacteries on their bodies, the box on their arm and the box on their forehead that contains scrolls from scrolls of scripture.

That's how that's interpreted. Both of them talk about that, and then both of them give the same reason, because Yahweh brought you out of Egypt. And so what might seem kind of like a random juxtaposition of two things, consecrating the firstborn and eating flatbread, actually show an evidence of being intentionally crafted to sit side by side.

They're not just thrown together. The dedication of the firstborn to Yahweh is interesting, and I've already mentioned where it appears as interesting. But Yahweh's claim on the firstborn of Egypt extends to the Israelites as well.

Every firstborn belongs to him and must be sacrificed if it's an animal or redeemed if it's a child. In Numbers 18, we get the specific means for doing this. It's redeemed by giving five shekels to the sanctuary.

That is, God does not want Israelite children to be sacrificed. He wants a symbol that they belong to him, but they give an animal to God instead, instead of giving their children. So I thought it would be worth pausing here before we finish this session and just consider the impact of the book of Exodus on liberation theology.

If you're not familiar with liberation theology, it's a movement that has been very prominent, especially in Latin America, where people have been reading biblical texts and noticing that God seems to side with the poor. He seems to side with the oppressed and hear their cries. Exodus has been a huge source of inspiration for the movement of liberation theology, not only in Latin America, but also in the American South among African American readers.

And when we read the Bible with communities that have experienced oppression, we notice different things. Different things stand out to us that we might have missed otherwise. One key thing is that salvation is not primarily spiritual or otherworldly.

God does not show up in Egypt, have Moses go tell the people, hey, just so you know, it's okay, in your hearts, I'm Lord, and someday when you die, you're going to come to heaven and be with me. There's not this sense of disembodied, in your next life, this is all going to work out. No, God is hearing the cries of the oppressed, and he's setting them free from those who abuse their earthly power.

So it's not only spiritual or otherworldly. It also has a very physical, political component to it. The other thing we notice when we read the Bible with the oppressed is that humans are invited to participate in the task of liberation here and now.

We talked about the women who participate in the first two chapters of Exodus, as they see wrong being done, and they decide not to act in concert with that, but instead work against it. So they participate. Moses is invited to participate.

All the people are invited to participate in obedience to God's purposes for liberating the oppressed. But there's a few more key things to notice. While these two things are true, sometimes liberation theology takes Scripture in a direction that Scripture itself doesn't go.

So we've already talked about how Exodus is not about liberation for the sake of freedom. It's not just a get-out-of-jail-free card, and now you can go be whoever you want to be and experience self-actualization. The people of Israel are liberated for the purpose of worshiping Yahweh.

They don't get to just go do whatever they want. They now serve Yahweh. They go from serving Pharaoh to serving Yahweh.

And that, I think, is really important to keep in mind. Sometimes people use Exodus as a springboard for political action that's focused just on setting people free to do whatever they want. That's not quite what this book is doing.

We should also keep in mind that the family of Abraham is the specific target of Yahweh's deliverance. That this is not, again, a get-out-of-jail-free card for everyone of all time, but it's a specific work of liberation. At the same time, we notice that the liberation of the Hebrews becomes the basis for the call, God's call, for them to treat others well in biblical law.

So when we come to Sinai and we begin to read the laws, we'll notice that God says, because you were slaves in Egypt, you need to treat others with dignity. You need to not oppress other people. In fact, let's go ahead and take a sneak peek at where that is going.

It's really clear in chapter 22. Exodus 22, this is at Sinai, verse 21. Do not mistreat or oppress a foreigner, for you were foreigners in Egypt.

You know what it's like to be oppressed when you're the outsider in a community, so you absolutely better not mistreat or oppress foreigners who are among you in the land of Canaan. Notice it's that same word, mistreat, that described what Sarah did to Hagar and what Pharaoh did to the Israelites. What God doesn't want is to liberate them so that now they're at the top of the heap and they become oppressors.

It's really important that they're set free and now must live differently than Pharaoh lived. And it goes on, do not take advantage of the widow or the fatherless. If you do and they cry out to me, I will certainly hear their cry.

My anger will be aroused and I will kill you with the sword. Your wives will become widows and your children fatherless. So again, God is taking very seriously their responsibility to care for the among them.

If they begin using their newfound freedom to oppress or enslave other people or take advantage of the vulnerable, God is not going to put up with that. So as we think about the way God liberated his people, we have to think about what is the end result. It's not just spiritual, it's physical, and it has to make a physical difference in the kind of community we are.

We're not just going to repeat the pattern of what we experienced in Egypt and now we're going to do this to other people. I think that's really profound. So that is a recap of the Passover and the preparation for the kind of society they're going to be.

Are there any questions before we move on to the next topic? When you talk about the Passover, do you think that God meant that as something that should be continually celebrated until like the second coming of Christ? And the second part of that, is there value in believers or disciples of Christ to still celebrate the Passover? That's such a good question. I've none of the church communities that I've been a part of have celebrated the Passover at all. It hasn't been.

I'm not in a messianic congregation and sometimes even non-messianic congregations kind of bring in some of the feasts and begin to celebrate them, but I haven't been part of a community that's done that. So it's not been part of my experience. However, when I read this text, it seems really clear that God means for every generation to keep remembering and keep participating.

And so I feel like we might be missing something if we're just ignoring this. On the other hand, it could be argued that the last supper that Jesus has with his disciples as they celebrate communion together, they're celebrating the Passover and Jesus is imbuing it with new significance. Just like God brought the Israelites out of Egypt, now Jesus is bringing people out of a life of slavery to sin and into new freedom in Christ, freedom to serve God wholeheartedly.

And so I think when we gather as believers to eat the bread and drink the cup, whether it's grape juice or wine, that is a way of kind of adopting Passover themes and keeping that alive. So I don't think we've set it aside entirely. If we're participating in communion with our congregations, Exodus is the background to that, the original background, but I'm not sure we always fully appreciate that.

And we could probably bring that out more clearly, especially during Holy Week when Passover always ends up coinciding somewhere right around Holy Week. And it seems like we could kind of amplify that a bit more. I've heard some Christians say that the feasts and festivals of the Old Testament are not mandatory for believers in Jesus, but they are an invitation to us.

It's not like we're sinning if we don't do them, but we might be missing out on some of the story if we ignore them completely. So I would just say to people, you're invited to participate. I don't think it should be mandated or become a sort of litmus test for real faith, which in some communities, it starts to go that direction, where people are like, if you speak in Hebrew, you'll be closer to God.

And if you celebrate these feasts, and if you eat kosher, and if you know they're trying to resurrect the law and do all of it, I don't think that's helpful or necessary. But we will talk in a future session about why the law still matters, how it matters, and how we can continue to live faithfully in light of it. When you talk about liberation theology and the parts of it that are elements that are important for us to still consider as far as being aware of the oppressed and doing things physically and in community to help those groups, one of the things that comes up sometimes is the association of liberation theology with Marxism.

Have you noticed that? And how would you comment on that? Yeah. So I think what Marxism does is it sees the unequal power dynamic, and it turns it into a paradigm for everything, and everything becomes all about power, and everything is all about liberating the oppressed from those with power, but then the only way to really be liberated is to get power. And so there's this constant quest for power, and it becomes a zero-sum game where everybody's going to be vying for power all the time, and there's constant revolutions.

And I don't find that model helpful. I don't think it has explanatory power for everything, and I don't think it works to just map it onto Exodus. So yes, there has been a correlation or a joining of Marxism and liberation theology in some circles.

I have a commentary on my shelf that leans in that direction. I read it with interest because it kind of opens up new ways of thinking to me about power struggles in Egyptian society. He's noticing things I wouldn't notice, but I don't want to make it the blanket explanatory for everything.

And so I think the danger then, as Christians are worried about Marxism and worried about it's all about power, is that they go too far in the opposite direction and say, okay, if nothing's about power, and there is no such thing as power, and we don't have to think about politics, and that doesn't work either. To me, Exodus has a lot to say about politics, and a lot to say about power, particularly that God hears the cries of the oppressed, and that if you are someone who's taking advantage of other people, then you've put yourself on the wrong end of God's wrath, and it's only a matter of time before he removes you from power. But I don't think the solution to that is to then go power grabbing everywhere, right? Again, they're going from serving Pharaoh to serving Yahweh.

So I think if we can emphasize that there actually are dynamics in our world that are oppressive towards people, and that we need to be careful not to participate in exploiting other people. We're actually responsible for the vulnerable in our community, and should never be in a position where they're crying out to God because of something we've done. And that's the physical dimension of God's saving work that I think we sometimes ignore in the evangelical church, because we're so busy thinking about going to heaven when we die.

That we're not thinking as much about how do these dynamics work out in our world. So I want to keep them both. I want to keep the paying attention to the vulnerable without making it all about power.

Would you say that individuals and also church communities are a place that we should be seeing that more and not relying on government to solve those problems? There are different ways at getting at problems. And some ways, for some issues and some problems, the church does seem like a more effective vehicle. And for other issues, it seems like the church doesn't have enough reach to completely fix a problem.

For example, you and I were talking yesterday about the lack of public transportation in Los Angeles. And I've lived there for two years now, and I'm just stumped by the fact that public transportation is so broken in our city. With 18 million people, we should be able to get around.

I don't think we can relegate that problem to the churches. I don't think it's the job of the church to provide public transportation. We're going to make networks of taxi services or something.

No, we have other things to do. Our government needs to be thinking about mass transit in some way and relieving congestion on the freeways. So I don't want to say, let the church do everything.

That actually ends up being an issue of access where those in impoverished communities have little access to services they need because they don't have cars and don't have access to public transportation. So it is a justice issue in some sense, but I don't think it belongs just to the church to solve it. So I think there's a combination that we need.

For some things, we need the government to step in. And I hope Christians are involved in government to the extent that we can help shape policies that are wise and that will benefit those who need it, not benefit the contractors or the powerful people who, you know, they're going to line their pockets because they got this contract. So I think Christians need to step in in practical ways in government.

But then there are other things, other ways we can serve our community that don't need to be a government institution. So I want to say both.