seekeroftruth
Well-Known Member
Exodus 12:31 During the night Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, “Up! Leave my people, you and the Israelites! Go, worship the Lord as you have requested. 32 Take your flocks and herds, as you have said, and go. And also bless me.”
33 The Egyptians urged the people to hurry and leave the country. “For otherwise,” they said, “we will all die!” 34 So the people took their dough before the yeast was added, and carried it on their shoulders in kneading troughs wrapped in clothing. 35 The Israelites did as Moses instructed and asked the Egyptians for articles of silver and gold and for clothing. 36 The Lord had made the Egyptians favorably disposed toward the people, and they gave them what they asked for; so they plundered the Egyptians.
37 The Israelites journeyed from Rameses to Sukkoth. There were about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children. 38 Many other people went up with them, and also large droves of livestock, both flocks and herds. 39 With the dough the Israelites had brought from Egypt, they baked loaves of unleavened bread. The dough was without yeast because they had been driven out of Egypt and did not have time to prepare food for themselves.
40 Now the length of time the Israelite people lived in Egypt was 430 years. 41 At the end of the 430 years, to the very day, all the Lord’s divisions left Egypt. 42 Because the Lord kept vigil that night to bring them out of Egypt, on this night all the Israelites are to keep vigil to honor the Lord for the generations to come.
Here's the link to the commentary.Bless me also: This shows that now, Pharaoh knew who the LORD was, the God who was greater than Pharaoh and whom Pharaoh must seek for blessing. Pharaoh only came to this knowledge through being broken.
Egyptians urged the people, that they might send them out of the land in haste… they plundered the Egyptians: The Egyptian people also agreed that the Israelites must go, to the extent that they essentially paid the Israelites to leave. Therefore, the children of Israel left in a hurry, so quickly that there was no time to let the bread rise. This is why they had to eat unleavened bread as the LORD had commanded.
The children of Israel journeyed: This was the moment all the previous chapters of Exodus anticipated. Israel was now free, and Pharaoh and his armies did not hold them back as they traveled from their center of Rameses to Succoth.
Since Succoth means shelters, it may not describe a temporary encampment instead of an existing Egyptian city. It’s easy to imagine the celebrations (and tension) at Succoth that night.
About six hundred thousand men on foot, besides children: Assembling together at Succoth, about 600,000 men (besides children or women) left Egypt. The count of six hundred thousand men makes for a total population of perhaps two million that left Egypt for the Promised Land.
I thought I read somewhere, there were a million people who left Egypt. Here it says there were 600,000 men. Well, that would make sense, since they didn't count the women or children. Truely that would make the number more like a million people. There were a lot of married and betrothed men in that 600,000, right?I hear a lot about protecting our borders these days. Can you imagine what the people in the neighboring areas thought when they learned this swarm of Israelites had been driven out of Egypt and they were heading their way?!
Do you remember when Hurricane Katrina hit the south? All those people were displaced and the surrounding areas had to absorb all the victims of that storm? People moved all over the US. Reba McEntire had a TV show and some homeless people from Katrina came to stay with her.
Now, in the United States, there is a limit to the number of people who can come over the Southern Border. Only so many can be processed in a day so the number of entries must be counted. A hurricane in Mexico, or a volcano eruption, or an earthquake could send hundreds of thousands [even a million?] people our way. Can you imagine looking across the Rio Grande and seeing 600,000 men leading their wives and children heading this way???? But that's for another Bible Study.
Pharaoh must have looked out at the mass exodus going on before him, and then remembered.... "There goes the labor force!"
When he reached for his breakfast, it wasn't there.... There was no labor force. There were lots of whips... but no one to use them on.
I guess it all worked out though... After ten plagues, there was nothing to eat anyway!
Pharaoh said
"Get out and stay out!"....
