Exodus 12

INTRODUCTORY.

The long travail has now ended, and the birth-hour of Israel has come. Every thing in the style of the narrative now shows that momentous events impend. The institution of the passover, which was the national birthday festival, is minutely related: first, the divine command being given at length, (Exodus 12:1-20,) and then the fulfilment of the command being detailed, (Exodus 12:21-28,) which involves a repetition of essential matters, though there are some additional particulars; then follows the last and most awful judgment stroke, and the Exode itself, from which the book derives its name; (Exodus 12:29-42;) and finally, at Succoth, the first camping place, Moses gives Israel a further ordinance concerning the participants of the passover. Every thing here shows the supreme importance of this passover institution It is interwoven into the very substance of the history, and, including the further repetition of the next chapter, is described, ordained, and enforced in four different forms, each bringing out special and important features, yet all involving the essentials of the ordinance. This, the great memorial feast of the Old Covenant, fore-shadowing the one memorial feast of the New, typifies to the Christian consciousness the whole history of redemption, the sacrifice of the “Lamb without blemish,” “slain from the foundation of the world,” and the exodus of a redeemed race from the bondage of sin. The passover, which is the oldest of the Jewish festivals, has out-lasted all the rest; and this alone has passed from the Old to the New Covenant, and, as the Supper of the Lord, commemorates now, how “Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.” See notes on Matthew 26:2; Matthew 26:20-25.

The passover was also to Israel a sacrifice, an act of solemn consecration. The sprinkled blood set forth the desert of sin. The outward deliverance was fitly preceded by this inward consecration of the whole people to Jehovah. We are here carried back to the time when the temple had not yet been reared, nor the tabernacle set up, nor the priesthood consecrated; when each house was made a temple, each doorway an altar, and each father a priest. True national worship must ever begin at home.