Mass murder... mass revenge

seekeroftruth

Well-Known Member
Exodus 12:1 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, 2 “This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year. 3 Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household. 4 If any household is too small for a whole lamb, they must share one with their nearest neighbor, having taken into account the number of people there are. You are to determine the amount of lamb needed in accordance with what each person will eat. 5 The animals you choose must be year-old males without defect, and you may take them from the sheep or the goats. 6 Take care of them until the fourteenth day of the month, when all the members of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight. 7 Then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the doorframes of the houses where they eat the lambs. 8 That same night they are to eat the meat roasted over the fire, along with bitter herbs, and bread made without yeast. 9 Do not eat the meat raw or boiled in water, but roast it over a fire—with the head, legs and internal organs. 10 Do not leave any of it till morning; if some is left till morning, you must burn it. 11 This is how you are to eat it: with your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand. Eat it in haste; it is the Lord’s Passover.
12 “On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn of both people and animals, and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord. 13 The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.
14 “This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord—a lasting ordinance. 15 For seven days you are to eat bread made without yeast. On the first day remove the yeast from your houses, for whoever eats anything with yeast in it from the first day through the seventh must be cut off from Israel. 16 On the first day hold a sacred assembly, and another one on the seventh day. Do no work at all on these days, except to prepare food for everyone to eat; that is all you may do.
17 “Celebrate the Festival of Unleavened Bread, because it was on this very day that I brought your divisions out of Egypt. Celebrate this day as a lasting ordinance for the generations to come. 18 In the first month you are to eat bread made without yeast, from the evening of the fourteenth day until the evening of the twenty-first day. 19 For seven days no yeast is to be found in your houses. And anyone, whether foreigner or native-born, who eats anything with yeast in it must be cut off from the community of Israel. 20 Eat nothing made with yeast. Wherever you live, you must eat unleavened bread.”
21 Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go at once and select the animals for your families and slaughter the Passover lamb. 22 Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it into the blood in the basin and put some of the blood on the top and on both sides of the doorframe. None of you shall go out of the door of your house until morning. 23 When the Lord goes through the land to strike down the Egyptians, he will see the blood on the top and sides of the doorframe and will pass over that doorway, and he will not permit the destroyer to enter your houses and strike you down.
24 “Obey these instructions as a lasting ordinance for you and your descendants. 25 When you enter the land that the Lord will give you as he promised, observe this ceremony. 26 And when your children ask you, ‘What does this ceremony mean to you?’ 27 then tell them, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt and spared our homes when he struck down the Egyptians.’” Then the people bowed down and worshiped. 28 The Israelites did just what the Lord commanded Moses and Aaron.
29 At midnight the Lord struck down all the firstborn in Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on the throne, to the firstborn of the prisoner, who was in the dungeon, and the firstborn of all the livestock as well. 30 Pharaoh and all his officials and all the Egyptians got up during the night, and there was loud wailing in Egypt, for there was not a house without someone dead.
Here's the link to the commentary I use.

This month shall be your beginning of months: The coming deliverance from Egypt was such a significant act that God told the children of Israel to remake their calendar. The new year would now start with the month of their redemption from Egypt. It was a dramatic way of saying that everything was to change.​
So you shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this same day I will have brought your armies out of the land of Egypt: For the first Passover, the unleavened bread was a practical necessity — they left Egypt in such a hurry there was no time to allow for the dough to rise. After the first Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread was a testimony throughout your generations.​
All the firstborn in the land of Egypt: This plague was directed against two significant Egyptian gods. First, Osiris was the Egyptian god thought to be the giver of life. Second, this was against the supposed deity of Pharaoh himself, because his own household was touched (the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne).​
Everyone talks about the unblemished lamb.... but there's a story about the unblemished lambs. We read in Genesis:31-34 that Jacob talked Laban [Rachel's dad] into splitting the herds, Jacob took the blemished sheep... NOT the unblemished sheep. The wool was prized for its patterns. In this case, Jacob was "disposing" of the unblemished sheep. He was "sacrificing" the unblemished sheep.

Calling something "blemished" seems to devalue it. We've come to know "blemished" with undesirable. It's just a spot... just a freckle. Yet it was a way to distinguish mine from yours. Mine is freckled, yours is "plain".

Anyway, that history aside, God told Moses to instruct His people to slaughter an unblemished lamb, spread the blood over the door frame, and eat the lamb in one night. Check out verse 4. Some families wouldn't be big enough to devour a lamb completely in one night. So, they could share a lamb with another small family. They were to slaughter the lamb at twilight and then at dawn, they were to burn whatever was left.

That night.... the first Passover night.... Was the night the mass murder described in Exodus 11 took place.

Check out verse 30.

Exodus 12:30 Pharaoh and all his officials and all the Egyptians got up during the night, and there was loud wailing in Egypt, for there was not a house without someone dead.

I've heard it blamed on flour gone bad in the bins. I've heard it blamed on a plague that came from the bad meat from the fifth plague. I heard the oldest male was served first and when he died the others knew not to eat. I don't think any of those preachers had it right. God wanted revenge. Pharaoh thought he was god... and God just could not abide that.

Remember how Exodus began? Exodus 1:15-22 The king of Egypt told the midwives to murder all the male babies of the Israelites. That's how Moses wound up floating in a basket down the Nile.

Isn't it fitting that the male babies of Egypt should also pay?

Mass murder... mass revenge...

:coffee:
 
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