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What the Bible says about Exodus
(From Forerunner Commentary)

Genesis 17:23

Comparing Genesis 17:23; Exodus 12:41; and Galatians 3:16-18, we have evidence of a significant Genesis event that later became a festival date, and thus it is important to Christianity. Exodus 12:2-6 dates the Passover on the fourteenth of Abib. Israel left Egypt on the next day, the fifteenth. Verse 41 strongly suggests that the Exodus was 430 years to the very day from when Abraham made the covenant with God which was sealed by the patriarch's circumcision. Galatians 3 reinforces the link between the events of the Exodus (Paul sums them up in the term "the law," which was given about two months after leaving Egypt), the 430 years and God's covenant with Abraham. These verses confirm that the Abrahamic covenant, the introduction of circumcision, and Israel's going out of Egypt took place on Abib 15, the First Day of Unleavened Bread.

John W. Ritenbaugh
God's Promises Are Sure!

Exodus 12:37-38

Exodus 12:38 tells us the "mixed multitude went up with" the children of Israel. These folk fell in step with God's army as it marched out of Egypt under the leadership of Moses. For how long? Their presence during the quail incident, cited above, indicates that these peoples were still with the Israelites at least one year after the first Passover. That means that the mixed multitude was present at Mount Sinai, some fifty days after the Red Sea crossing.This means they were present at the giving of the Law!

Whoever they were, the peoples of the mixed multitude were much more than just witnesses of God's strength. Even the unbelieving Egyptians witnessed that! The mixed multitude partook of God's grace, experienced it with the children of Israel. Whoever they were, these people were fellow-travelers with Israel for a time, experiencing with them the power of God as He pulled them "out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt" (Deuteronomy 4:20; see also I Kings 8:51; Jeremiah 11:4).

Both Israel and the mixed multitude experienced His might as He destroyed the most powerful nation on earth at that time. They both experienced deliverance from the Egyptians at the Red Sea. They both experienced the shaking of Sinai as God thundered the Ten Commandments. They both ate the manna and drank water from the Rock! They both were baptized in the Red Sea (see I Corinthians 10:1-4). The folk God calls the "mixed multitude" were partakers with Israel!

Charles Whitaker
The Mixed Multitude

Exodus 12:40-42

Exodus 12:40-42 is describing the Night To Be Much Observed, not the Passover night. There is a reason why God established two different festivals. The first, Passover, on the 14th of Nisan, begins in the evening, that is, at the beginning of the day with the killing of the lamb.

The killing of the lamb has a specific focus, the death of the Savior, showing that we have a part in His death. The second part of the ritual, the eating of the lamb, emphasizes the more important continuance of the relationship. When a person ingests food, he receives energy, and his life is sustained. This is the symbolic meaning of eating the lamb.

Nisan 15—the First Day of Unleavened Bread, when the exodus occurred—emphasizes the action required to keep the relationship going and growing. That is our part. We have to get up and do something; we have to leave Egypt, a type of leaving sin.

We are dealing with two different festivals with two altogether different focuses.

John W. Ritenbaugh
The Night to be Much Observed

Exodus 12:40-42

Israel was to keep the Night to Be Much Observed in part as a night of watchful vigil to commemorate the reason they could leave Egypt so easily: God watched over them as His plan unfolded.

Reading Genesis 15 with the story in Exodus, we can see how God watched over them. Israel's bondage in Egypt had disciplined Israel, preparing them to go through the wilderness, and afterwards, take the Promised Land. This was God's plan for them, and He watched it brought to completion. His greater plan is not completed even now, because we are a part of it! Genesis 17 shows that it has eternal consequences and is still in operation.

The Night to be Much Observed is a significant event in God's plan. Will anyone deny that God watched out for Israel, seeing the blood on the doorposts and lintels and passing over them? Can anyone deny that He watched over them as they finished spoiling the Egyptians during the daylight portion of Nisan 14, watching as they gathered to meet in Rameses?

“Watch" does not mean that God passively observed them as they left. Instead, it means that He actively "guarded" them. "Watched" comes from the Hebrew shamar, used often and translated as “keep.” Whenever one desires to keep something, he guards and protects it. In like manner, God watched, kept, guarded, and protected Israel. Exodus 11:7 shows just how closely God watched, not allowing even a single dog to bark.

Can anyone deny that God watched as the Israelites walked out that night of Nisan 15 in the very sight of the Egyptians who were burying their dead? Most likely, the Egyptians would want to blame the Israelites for the death of their children and animals. They would be enraged. They could not see God, nor blame Him directly, as it were; but they would take it out on His people. But they stood by numbly instead of resisting or fighting.

The Night to Be Much Observed is the official marking of God's watchful care. It is good and right that we celebrate what God did and continues to do. We can easily see that this portion of the first day of Unleavened Bread is of great significance, not just on the basis of its prior history in the life of Abraham, but also its significance to the Exodus. An entire nation of slaves just got up, and without lifting a hand to achieve their liberty, they walked away.

Most people, in order to win their liberty, must undergo bloody warfare, and many people lose their lives. Those who do not suffer the loss of life usually lose their material wealth. Israel did not lose any lives and came away rich! The captor nation was helpless to do anything to retain its slaves because God restrained the Egyptians.

John W. Ritenbaugh
The Night to be Much Observed

Exodus 13:17

As the Israelites were marching out of Egypt, God suddenly led the Israelites south, at a right angle from the most direct route to the Promised Land. God was very concerned that they were not ready to fight a war. As the books of Exodus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy clearly show, they were not ready for many other experiences they were soon to face. This turn south is the first indication that God had much more in mind than merely taking them to Canaan.

John W. Ritenbaugh
After Pentecost, Then What?

Deuteronomy 16:1

That "God brought you out of Egypt by night" ought to give us a clue as to what this context is about. It is about coming out, the Exodus from Egypt, not Passover night and the slaying of the firstborn. This is what we have called the Night To Be Much Observed (Exodus 12:40-42). Anyone who understands the context of Exodus 12 and similar places can understand that the instruction in Deuteronomy 16:1-8 does not contemplate Passover per se. It certainly speaking of the Passover season, but it is generally describing the Days of Unleavened Bread and specifically the Night To Be Much Observed.

John W. Ritenbaugh
The Night to be Much Observed

Isaiah 52:10-11

Looking at this in its context, we see that it is speaking first of the exodus of the Jews from their captivity in Babylon, but it is also a prophecy, speaking of a future exodus from a future captivity—from the Babylon that is now forming in this present age. This is very timely for us.

While the Jews were in their seventy years of captivity in ancient Babylon, they did not have the freedom or opportunity to maintain either ritual or spiritual cleanliness, as they would have had in their homeland. About 300 years later, the celebration of Hanukkah—meaning "dedication"—arose from the Jews' attempts to cleanse the worship of God following Antiochus Epiphanes and the Greek army's defilement of the Temple during warfare.

These verses are an urgent command, reminding them of their responsibility to cast off personal defilement of any paganism (or, as we would say today, any worldliness) picked up during their captivity. This had to be done to restore the true worship of the true God when they returned to Jerusalem.

The Living Bible translates verse 11 as follows:

Go now, leave your bonds and slavery. Put Babylon and all it represents far behind you—it is unclean to you. You are the holy people of the LORD; purify yourselves, all you who carry home the vessels of the LORD. (Emphasis ours.)

Their responsibility is clear. Who would be carrying the holy vessels? The priests. We need to note this inference since the whole church is a priesthood, and is so designated in I Peter.

John W. Ritenbaugh
New Covenant Priesthood (Part Two)

Ezekiel 18:24

God's experience with Israel (recorded from Exodus through Deuteronomy) is helpful in understanding this. Slavery in Egypt, where they faced certain, ignominious death, represents the world, and Pharaoh represents Satan. Leaving Egypt symbolizes what justification accomplishes in God's spiritual plan: It frees from bondage.

But God did not stop working with them at that point. He revealed His law to them, and then commanded them to choose to live by it. They had to endure a forty-year pilgrimage, enduring many trials along the way, before they finally were delivered into their inheritance, the Promised Land, which represented salvation. However, many perished along the way because they did not live by faith, as shown by their disobedience to His revealed law.

John W. Ritenbaugh
The Covenants, Grace, and Law (Part Twenty-Nine)

2 Peter 3:1-6

II Peter 3:1-6 contains vivid illustrations of God ruling and overruling to bring His purpose to a successful conclusion in spite of men. Because the Creator God truly is sovereign, He is constantly moving His creation, including us, toward the conclusion of the purpose He determined from the beginning. All things do not continue as they were. God is working and intervening, making adjustments in the course of international, national, and personal events, as the incidents of the Flood and the Tower of Babel vividly illustrate. Peter could have added many more examples, such as freeing Israel from Egypt, guiding Israel to power and destroying it, and scattering the Israelites over the face of the earth. God has done this so completely that most have no idea where Israel is or that they themselves might be Israelites.

John W. Ritenbaugh
The Sovereignty of God: Part Six


Find more Bible verses about Exodus:
Exodus {Nave's}
 




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