Exodus 13

Exodus 13  •  3 min. read  •  grade level: 10
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But the subject is so familiar to us that we need not enlarge upon the minute details of this feast. I will only add, that in Exodus 13 we find another thing – a character stamped on the firstborn brought into connection with the Passover.1 They belonged to God henceforth after a special sort as the consequence of deliverance from Egypt. But besides this complete devotedness we see also the ordinance of the unleavened bread in this connection, that is, unfeigned purity of heart by faith.2 The two things are here put together as flowing from the sense of a divinely wrought deliverance. This is remarkably evinced in the character now given them, as well as their preciousness with God. He who delivered them claimed them as His own. If the firstborn of an animal could not be sacrificed, it must like man’s firstborn be redeemed. “Sanctify unto Me all the firstborn.” This, as well as the connected eating of unleavened bread, is founded on the Passover.
 
1. It is a fair question, which has perplexed translators and commentators in ancient as well as modern times, what is meant by the Hebrew word translated “harnessed” (with the marginal alternative “five in a rank”) in verse 18. Bishop Colenso (part 1, chap. 9) will have it to mean “armed,” in flagrant inconsistency with the context, because it is so taken elsewhere; and this in order to urge the impossibility of 600,000 “warriors.” But even Gesenius and Knobel take the word otherwise, and so do Onkelos and Aben Ezra, as Dr. Mc Caul has shown. It is unwarrantable, therefore, to reason on what is so precarious. The men might be “girt” or “in regular order” without all being armed, and very far indeed from being all “warriors.”
2. It is alleged by Dr. Davidson (Introduction to the Old Testament, 1:65) that “according to Exodus 12:15, and so forth, the feast of unleavened bread was introduced before the exodus; but from Exodus 13:3, and so forth, we learn that it was instituted after that event at Succoth.” The latter statement is perfectly fictitious. Not a word implies that the feast was instituted in Succoth, the mention of which is severed by three important verses (17-19) from the close of all that refers to the feast. It is evident that there is an addition of consequence in Exodus 13 to what Jehovah had prescribed in Exodus 12. No date or place is named. It may have been, and probably was, after the sons of Israel left Egypt, as it throughout supposes the feast already instituted. Here too there is no excuse for a different author or document, as the codicil of Exodus 13 is Jehovistic equally with Exodus 12, and adds the fresh thought of the sanctification to Jehovah of all the first-born in Israel, whether of man or of beast. The males were to be His, and must be either sacrificed or redeemed. The tenor of Dr. Davidson’s statement is the more remarkable, because the reference to Succoth occurs in a distinct clause that follows where is only Elohim, after which we have Jehovah once more as before.