Scholars differ in their opinions as to when Israel actually became a nation. Many have made a strong case for commencing national existence with the institution of the Passover that this section records.196
". . . properly understood, the Exodus also is precisely the event and the moment that coincides with the historical expression of God's election of Israel. The choice of Israel as the special people of Yahweh occurred not at Sinai but in the land of Goshen. The Exodus was the elective event; Sinai was its covenant formalization."197
God gave the Israelites a national calendar that set them apart from other nations (v. 2). They also received instructions for two national feasts that they were to perpetuate forever thereafter (vv. 14, 17, 24). Also Moses revealed and explained the event that resulted in their separation from Egypt here.
"The account of the final proof of Yahweh's Presence in Egypt has been expanded by a series of instructions related to cultic requirements designed to commemorate that proof and the freedom it purchased."198
The angel struck the Egyptians at midnight, the symbolic hour of judgment (v. 29; cf. Matt. 25:5-6), when they were asleep ". . . to startle the king and his subjects out of their sleep of sin."216Pharaoh had originally met Moses' demands with contemptuous insult (5:4). Then he tried a series of compromises (8:25, 28; 10:8-11, 24). All of these maneuvers were unacceptable to God.
There is evidence from Egyptology that the man who succeeded Amenhotep II, the pharaoh of the plagues, was not his first-born son.217His successor was Thutmose IV (1425-1417 B.C.), a son of Amenhotep II but evidently not his first-born. Thutmose IV went to some pains to legitimatize his right to the throne. This would not have been necessary if he had been the first-born. So far scholars have found no Egyptian records of the death of Amenhotep II's first-born son.
"Thutmose IV claimed that when he was still a prince he had a dream in which the sun god promised him the throne; this implies that he was not the one who would be expected to succeed to the throne under normal circumstances."218
We need to understand "no home"in its context (v. 30). There was no Egyptian home in which there was a first-born son, who was not a father himself, that escaped God's judgment of physical death.
"This series of five imperative verbs [in v. 31], three meaning go' (dlhis used twice) and one meaning take,' coupled with five usages of the emphatic particle mgalso' . . ., marvelously depicts a Pharaoh whose reserve of pride is gone, who must do everything necessary to have done with Moses and Israel and the Yahweh who wants them for his own."219
Pharaoh's request that Moses would bless him is shocking since the Egyptians regarded Pharaoh as a god (v. 32; cf. Gen. 47:7).
The reader sees God in two roles in this section representing the two parts of Israel's redemption. He appears as Judge satisfied by the blood of the innocent sin-bearer, and He is the Deliverer of Israel who liberated the nation from its slavery.
Redemption involves the payment of a price. What was the price of Israel's redemption? It was the lives of the lambs that God provided as the substitutes for Israel's first-born sons who would have died otherwise (cf. Isaac in Gen. 22, and Jesus Christ, the only-begotten of the Father). The first-born sons remained God's special portion (Num. 8:17-18). The Egyptian first-born sons died as a punishment on the Egyptians. The Egyptians had enslaved God's people and had not let them go, and they had executed male Israelite babies (1:15-22) possibly for the last 80 years.220God owns all life. He just leases it to His creatures. God paid the price of Israel's redemption to Himself. He purchased the nation to be a special treasure for Himself and for a special purpose (19:5).
12:37-39 The record of Israel's sojourn in the wilderness really begins here.
Rameses is probably the same city as Raamses, also called Avaris (v. 37; cf. 1:11). It was the city from which the Israelites left Egypt, and it lay somewhere east of the Nile delta in the land of Goshen.
Archaeologists have not identified Succoth certainly either. However from the context it seems that Succoth was only a few miles from Rameses. It may have been a district rather than a town.221Perhaps Cassuto was right when he wrote the following.
"Succoth was a border town named in Egyptian Tkw. Here the name appears in a Hebrew or Hebraized form. Apparently it was situated at the tellcalled by the Egyptians today Tell el-Maskhuta."222
Many commentators conclude that since there were about 600,000 Israelite males the total number of Israelites must have been about two million. Though the Hebrew word translated "thousand"(eleph) can also mean "clan"or "military unit,"most translators have preferred "thousand"(cf. Exod. 38:26; Num. 1:45-47).223
Moses referred to the "mixed multitude"often in the account of the wilderness wanderings that follows. This group probably included Egyptian pagans and God-fearers (v. 38; cf. 9:20) and an assortment of other people including other enslaved Semites. For one reason or another these people took this opportunity to leave or escape from Egypt with the Israelites. This group proved to be a source of trouble in Israel and led the Israelites in complaining and opposing Moses (e.g., Num. 11:4).
12:40-42 The text is very clear that Israel was in Egypt 430 years "to the very day"(v. 41). This probably refers to the time between when Jacob entered Egypt with his family (1876 B.C.) to the day of the Exodus (1446 B.C.). Galatians 3:17 also refers to 430 years. This figure probably represents the time from God's last reconfirmation of the Abrahamic covenant to Jacob at Beer-sheba (1875 B.C.; Gen. 46:2-4) to the giving of the Mosaic Law at Sinai (1446 B.C.; Exod. 19). Genesis 15:13, 16 and Acts 7:6 give the time of the Israelites' enslavement in Egypt as 400 years (1846-1446 B.C.). The "about 450 years"spoken of in Acts 13:19 includes the 400 year sojourn in Egypt, the 40 years of wilderness wanderings, and the seven year conquest of the land (1875-1395 B.C.).224
Scholars have debated hotly and still argue about the date of the Exodus. Many conservatives hold a date very close to 1446 B.C. Their preference for this date rests first on 1 Kings 6:1 that states that the Exodus took place 480 years before the fourth year of Solomon's reign. That year was quite certainly 967 B.C. Second, this view harmonizes with Judges 11:26 that says 300 years elapsed between Israel's entrance into Canaan and the commencement of Jephthah's rule as a judge.225Most liberals and many evangelicals hold to a date for the Exodus about 1280 B.C.226This opinion rests on the belief that the existence of the city of Raamses (1:11; et al.) presupposes the existence of Pharaoh Ramses II (ca. 1300-1234 B.C.).227Also followers of this view point to supposed similarities between the times of Pharaoh Ramses II and the Exodus period. A mediating view has also been popularized that places the Exodus about 1470 B.C.228
Before any male could eat the Passover he had to undergo circumcision. Moses stressed this stipulation strongly in this section. The rationale behind this rule was that before anyone could observe the memorial of redemption he first had to exercise faith in the promises God had given to Abraham. Furthermore he had to demonstrate that faith by submitting to the rite of circumcision, the sign of the Abrahamic Covenant. This requirement should have reminded the Israelites and all other believers who partook of the Passover that the Passover rite did not make a person acceptable to God. Faith in the promises of God did that. Foreigners who were non-Israelites could and did become members of the nation by faith in the Abrahamic Covenant promises and participation in the rite of circumcision. There were both circumcised and uncircumcised foreigners who lived among the Israelites during the wilderness march.
Here Moses revealed the requirement that the Passover host was not to break a bone of the paschal lamb (v. 46; cf. vv. 3-9). Not a bone of the Lamb of God was broken either (John 19:36).
This section is somewhat repetitive, but the emphasis is on the Lord's right to the first-born in Israel and how the Israelites were to acknowledge that right. The repetition stresses its importance.
13:1-2 "Every"refers to the first-born males only (v. 2). This is clear from the Hebrew word used and the context (vv. 12, 13).
13:3-10 The Passover ("it,"cf. v. 3) was to be a sign to the Israelites of God's powerful work for them.
13:11-16 The dedication of every first-born Israelite male baby was to take place after the nation had entered the Promised Land (vv. 5, 11-12). This was to be a memorial of God's redemption from Egyptian slavery, as were the feasts of Passover and Unleavened Bread (cf. 12:14). However, God took the Levites for His special possession in place of the first-born. This happened at Mt. Sinai (Num. 3:12-13). Consequently this dedication never took place, but the Israelites did circumcise their sons and observe the Passover when they first entered the Promised Land (Josh. 5:4-7).
God may or may not have intended that the Jews should literally wear the "phylacteries"(lit. frontlet-bands, or head-bands, v. 16).
"The line of thought referred to merely expresses the idea, that the Israelites were not only to retain the commands of God in their hearts, and to confess them with the mouth, but to fulfil them with the hand, or in act and deed, and thus to show themselves in their whole bearing as the guardians and observers of the law. As the hand is the medium of action, and carrying in the hand represents handling, so the space between the eyes, or the forehead, is that part of the body which is generally visible, and what is worn there is worn to be seen. This figurative interpretation is confirmed and placed beyond doubt by such parallel passages as Prov. iii. 3, Bind them (the commandments) about thy neck; write them upon the tables of thine heart' (cf. vers. 21, 22, iv. 21, vi. 21, 22, vii. 3)."229
"For two thousand years and more, observant Jews have taken those passages literally. The paragraphs that form their contexts (Exod. 13:1-10; 13:11-16; Deut. 6:4-9; 11:13-21) are written on four strips of parchment and placed in two small leather boxes, one of which the pious Jewish man straps on his forehead and the other on his left arm before he says his morning prayers. The practice may have originated as early as the period following the exile to Babylon in 586 B.C.
"It hardly needs to be said that there is nothing inherently wrong with such a custom. The boxes, called phylacteries' are mentioned in Matthew 23:5, where Jesus criticizes a certain group of Pharisees and teachers of the law for wearing them. Our Lord, however, condemns not the practice as such but the ostentatious use of wide' phylacteries as part of a general statement about those who flaunt their religiosity in public: Everything they do is done for men to see.'
"But although the proper and modest use of phylacteries might be spiritually legitimate, it is probably best to understand the references from Exodus and Deuteronomy as figures of speech, since similar statements are found elsewhere in the Old Testament."230
