Exodus: The Lord and His PilgrimsSample

The ultimate danger; a divine provision

The final plague will be unique in its effectiveness (11:1). It is important to ask and answer the question, ‘Why?’ The answer (v. 4) is that it is unique in its infliction: the other plagues were imposed, but this time God himself is coming into the heart of Egypt (v. 4). This is the significance of Exodus 11– 12. These chapters raise the ultimate question: ‘How are we to stand before God when he comes in judgment (12:12); when probation is at an end; when every opportunity of repentance and obedience has been frittered away; and when there is no hiding place?’ 

Once before, when death threatened, the Lord himself provided a lamb to die instead of Isaac (Gen. 22:7–8, 13). Maybe, therefore, Israel in Egypt does not find it strange that their recourse when death threatens is to ‘take … a lamb’ (Ex. 12:3). The same basic principle ‘instead of’ is to apply, that is, the principle of equivalence or substitution. First, there is a lamb for each household (v. 3); then there is the need to count the number of individuals for whom the lamb will cater (v. 4a); and finally an assessment is made of each person’s ‘need’ (literally, ‘eating’ or appetite, v. 4b). This, I think, is the reason for choosing the lamb four days ahead of its death (vv. 3, 6), so that the choice might be leisurely, thoughtful and exact. It is also the reason for the burning of any surplus (v. 10). The lamb is for only one thing: to be a substitute for those for whom it is to die, and the burning of what remains makes it exactly so! 

We will read tomorrow that there is a death in every house (12:30). In the Egyptian houses it is the dreadful death of the firstborn; in Israel’s houses it is the lamb that dies. And it dies not just for Israel’s ‘firstborn’. No, the Lord had said, ‘Israel is My son, My firstborn’ (4:22). The lamb is the substitute equivalent for ‘the Israel of God’ (Gal. 6:16), the whole people whom the Lord intends to save.

Reflection

As one hymn puts it, ‘Dear dying Lamb, thy precious blood will never lose its power.’ (William Cowper, ‘There is a fountain filled with blood’.) Consider this and also John 1:29–36; 1 Peter 1:18–19 and Revelation 5:9–12; 7:13–17.