I: THE ORIGINAL PASSOVER
FROM THE EXODUS OR WE'ELLEH SHEMOT
The Hebrew people in Egypt were tired of being slaves. Their numbers had multiplied greatly since the time when Joseph was a high ruler who saved the kingdom and his own people from starvation by storing grain before famine. (Ex. 1:8)
JOSEPH'S TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT
The people upon whom God's hand rested, were weary of being worked to death mercilessly, dying in the dust beneath the hot feet of Egypt's half-built monuments.
Being given clay but no straw, told to make bricks regardless, though the straw is what held the bricks together, they struggled relentlessly under the blazing sun. Their cries reached to Heaven as heavy whips struck them daily if they didn't move fast enough. (Exodus 5:7)
They cried out for a deliverer, but barely recognized him when he arrived on the scene.
How could Pharaoh's own (perhaps adopted) son, lead them out of their miserable dilemma?
They watched as the supposed son of the empire's leader killed a slave driver for whipping one of them. Why would a member of Pharaoh's own family have any regard for a mere slave?
It turned out that during the call for killing all Hebrew male babies many years ago, his mother had put him in a reed basket, sealed so it wouldn't leak, and floated it on the River Nile. The infant was found passing down the waters by Pharaoh's own sister, who was childless and longing for a son to love. She took him into the palace household and raised him as her own.
When the puzzle pieces finally came together, it turned out he was the son of Miriam and Amram, two Hebrew slaves. As Moses grew, he realized he didn't truly belong to the household of Pharaoh. Although trained in all the Egyptian arts and schooling, trained to be a leader...he didn't feel part of the Egyptian culture. He recognized there was something different about himself. Felt as though he should serve another God than the one dictated by Egyptian lore.
Finally he faced the inevitable. He and his brother Aaron were to become God's spokespersons, and lead the people of the Living God out of slavery. So the Lord told him to decree various plagues over the land, using his hand and sometimes a wooden rod.
When plague after plague fell upon the sandstorm-ridden land Moses went before Pharaoh's throne again and again - demanding that Pharaoh "Let my people go."
Pharaoh probably would have agreed much sooner, after all the horrendous outbreaks that kept raining upon Egypt, but the Bible says God hardened Pharaoh's heart.
First, all the water in Egypt turned to blood. So there was nothing to drink, and no clean water to bathe in. If they bathed, they literally had to wash in blood.
(Strangely enough we are seeing this happen again in our modern era, according to Bible prophecy speaking about the end times in Revelation 16, when water would turn to blood.)
Then came the frogs. Frogs leapt everywhere - in their beds, ovens and even the bowls they were trying to make bread in. Frogs are symbolic of evil spirits.
Next came the lice. Mothers, remember when your schoolchildren came home from school with lice, and all you had to go through to get rid of them? Washing bed clothes, pillows, putting medicine on the children's hair, combing for nits? Now imagine everyone in your entire country having to deal with that without the benefit of clothes washers, laundry soap, or modern pharmaceuticals or even water, since the Egyptian waters had turned to blood.
Then came the flies. They swarmed inside and outside of buildings, houses and covered the ground in swarms. Imagine that everywhere you walk your shoes crunch flies. Then imagine you are wearing only open sandals, not closed shoes like we wear nowadays. Flies carry disease.
Next all the livestock died. Remember this was their food source. They didn't go to the grocery store like we do. They also depended on their horses, camels and donkeys for transportation, carrying goods to market, and for business trading.
Then came boils all over their skin. What few animals were left also got them too.
After that came thunder and hail. They didn't have cars to run into for protection. Probably didn't even have umbrellas. One can only imagine how they walked from place to place during the hail. All movement must have stopped.
If there were any crops left after the water had turned to blood, and flies had descended, then here came the locusts to finish off what stubble of vegetation was left in the fields, if the hail spared anything at all.
So at this point the Egyptians couldn't drink or water crops because their water was fouled and they were by now probably dying of thirst. They had little to eat after the frogs, flies, hail and locusts, and their livestock had died. They were all writhing in pain due to boils all over their bodies, trying to salvage what few animals were left...who also had boils.
Hungry, thirsty and in pain they were now pelleted with hail. If those boils hadn't hurt before, surely the hail plummeting down opening their wounds should have finished them off. At least they had oil lamps in their homes to tend to their sores.
But no! The sub-finale was darkness all over the land for three days. Dark so dark that light couldn't penetrate. (Symbolic of the darkness that filled the earth after Christ's crucifixion.)
Then comes the Grand Finale! The first born of every Egyptian family dies, even the firstborn of the animals and livestock. (Remind anyone of how God's First and Only Born Son died for the sake of the entire Earth?) Yet some were spared. Who were the lucky ones?
God made a way of escape from that plague. Just as He provided His Only Begotten Son as a spotless Lamb, He required the Hebrew people to do something that would act as a symbol and a sign for the rest of eternity.
"But you, O Bethlehem Eprathah, are only a small village among all the people of Judah. Yet a ruler of Israel will come from you, one whose origins are from the distant past."
This is where the name PASSOVER comes from. Yahweh, God of Israel, and the God whom I serve, instructed the Hebrews to kill a spotless lamb from their own flock, and paint its blood upon the doorposts of their homes.
Why would anyone kill a lamb? It was part of the Hebrew ritual of sacrificial offerings to their God. Why did it have to be a pure lamb, free of disease, lameness or spots, instead of one they could have easily culled from the herd? BECAUSE THE LAMB WOULD SERVE AS A SYMBOL ACROSS MILLENNIA OF A GREATER, PURER SACRIFICE TO COME.
Those who believed and served Yahweh, who feared and obeyed Him, did as instructed, painting the lambs' blood over the exterior doors of their houses.
What happened that night?
An angel of death PASSED OVER and did not stop at any home on which the blood was painted, as a sign of their faith in God.
But for every household not recognizing the precious blood of the little sacrificial lamb, the Angel of Death took the eldest child, including Pharaoh's own son.
Distraught over the death of his child, Pharaoh finally told Moses he could take his people and depart.
(Bible scholars differ as to which Pharaoh they think it was. Some say Ramses. If Moses lived and Exodus occurred in 1440 B.C., that would have been during Egypt's 19th dynasty, which puts it around the time of several Ramses.)
According to Bible History.net:
"The Bible says the Israelites built Ramses, and since Ramesses II, who began his rule around 1290 B.C., built a royal city named Pi-Ramsses, many assume him to be the pharaoh of Exodus."
Other Bible scholars like Alfred Edersheim believed the pharaoh was Thutmose the II. Others think it was Amenemhet III.
Nonetheless, Moses quickly gathered his people, instructing them to hurry before Pharaoh once again changed his mind as he had before. They quickly baked bread, not even stopping to let it rise, loaded up their donkeys and camels, and headed out...away from what they considered a cursed and bloody land that had cost many lives.
After all that, Pharaoh, in his terrible anger, took his soldiers and chariots and chased after them.
When the Hebrews got to the Red sea (or Sea of Reeds), Moses stood at the head of his million-fold flock and asked God what to do. The group was trapped between the water and the army behind them.
God told Moses to lift his wooden rod, and that the Lord Himself would exert power to part the waters, so the former slaves - NOW FREED could pass.
God's chosen people, upon whom rested God's Spirit (Ruach Ha Kodesh), fled to safety, while Pharaoh and his troops and horses drowned. The high waters retracted upon the soldiers' heads. (Exodus 14.)
Archaeological Evidence For Israel's Red Sea Crossing.
No comments:
Post a Comment