It is just a year since the people of Israel passed under the protecting power of the blood of the lamb in the stricken land of Egypt. What changes had taken place in that year! Then they were slaves, now they were free; then they had questioned if God heard their groans, now they had found deliverance; had seen His power for them, and against their enemies; had heard His voice from Mount Sinai, and finally He Himself had taken up His home among them. Was the passover then to be forgotten, or be only a memory? No, indeed, for God takes the first anniversary of that solemn night when the angel went through the land in judgment, to tell His people, “Ye shall keep it in His appointed season,” and not only so, but “according to all the rites of it, and according to all the ceremonies thereof, shall ye keep it.”
The remembrance of the judgment of God falling on a substitute, the slain lamb, was never to be separated from the eating of the roasted victim, nor from the bitter herbs, nor from the character God gave His people, as travelers to a better land, with everything ready to go, shoes on, dressed and even the staff in their hands. All of this is closely in keeping with the wish of the Lord Jesus that His loved ones should be found gathered together according to the Word of God, to remember Him in His death, for them.
But some were hindered from carrying out God’s Word that day; they wished to keep the passover, and God took the occasion to say that contact with defilement, or a journey, should not interfere. Even a “stranger” sojourning among them, if he wished, should be allowed to join in the solemn feast. All this shows the believer that the foundation of his blessing is the precious atoning death of Jesus, and that he needs the reminder of it from week to week. The Lord’s desire must be carried out. Much more on this subject will be found in 1 Corinthians 11, where a state of soul is required for the Lord’s supper, but even there the word is “Let a man examine himself, and so let him eat.”
Verses 15-23. Day and night, God was among His people—their guard, their protector, their guide. If anything, we may say, that in the night His presence was more realized than in the day, because of the pillar of fire gleaming continuously through the hours of darkness and slumber. This is the night, as several scriptures tell us; the long, dark night of the Lord’s absence. Do we that love Him realize as we should the presence of God among us to cheer, to comfort, to bless and to guide? These people were to be guided by the cloud; if it moved, and where it moved, they went; if it stayed, they stayed. This is a word for Christians, too.