Week 40, Day 4: Israel’s departing

Today’s Reading:  Exodus 13:1-22

Some thoughts from the reading…

Chapter 13 introduces a concept that will come up in more detail later but states it now.  Since God spared all of the firstborn of Israel in Egypt, they belong to Him.  The firstborn of Israel, both man and beast, would have to be redeemed.  A price was to be given to redeem them from the Lord.  We will see later, in Num 3:11-13 & 3:40-48, that the Levites were taken to be the Lord’s instead of a redemption price having to be paid for all of the firstborn of Israel at the time of exiting Egypt.  But from this time forward the practice of redeeming the firstborn was to be practiced.  The firstborn of the people and of unclean animals would be redeemed with money but the firstborn of the clean animals were to be sacrificed to God (Num 18:14-17). 

I think this aspect of redeeming the firstborn is interesting.  They were now expected to redeem their firstborn from here on out.  This does not appear to be some scheme on God’s part to gain money or to guilt Israel into feeling like they owed Him something.  Rather we are told that it would serve as a reminder from this time forth to their children of what God had done for them (Exo 13:1416).  This powerful deliverance would be brought to their remembrance from this time on through this practice.

Question:  What practices do we have as Christians that is to call to our memory something that God has done for us?  What actions come to your mind?  Is there only one thing you can think of?

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