Exodus 13:1-16--Redemption of the Firstborn and The Feast of Unleavened Bread

Consecration of the Firstborn
13 The Lord said to Moses, 2 “Consecrate to me all the firstborn. Whatever is the first to open the womb among the people of Israel, both of man and of beast, is mine.”

The Feast of Unleavened Bread

3 Then Moses said to the people, “Remember this day in which you came out from Egypt, out of the house of slavery, for by a strong hand the Lord brought you out from this place. No leavened bread shall be eaten. 4 Today, in the month of Abib, you are going out. 5 And when the Lord brings you into the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, which he swore to your fathers to give you, a land flowing with milk and honey, you shall keep this service in this month. 6 Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there shall be a feast to the Lord. 7 Unleavened bread shall be eaten for seven days; no leavened bread shall be seen with you, and no leaven shall be seen with you in all your territory. 8 You shall tell your son on that day, ‘It is because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt.’ 9 And it shall be to you as a sign on your hand and as a memorial between your eyes, that the law of the Lord may be in your mouth. For with a strong hand the Lord has brought you out of Egypt. 10 You shall therefore keep this statute at its appointed time from year to year.

​11 “When the Lord brings you into the land of the Canaanites, as he swore to you and your fathers, and shall give it to you, 12 you shall set apart to the Lord all that first opens the womb. All the firstborn of your animals that are males shall be the Lord's. 13 Every firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb, or if you will not redeem it you shall break its neck. Every firstborn of man among your sons you shall redeem. 14 And when in time to come your son asks you, ‘What does this mean?’ you shall say to him, ‘By a strong hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt, from the house of slavery. 15 For when Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the Lord killed all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both the firstborn of man and the firstborn of animals. Therefore I sacrifice to the Lord all the males that first open the womb, but all the firstborn of my sons I redeem.’ 16 It shall be as a mark on your hand or frontlets between your eyes, for by a strong hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt.”

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After the 10th plague, all the firstborn were consecrated to the LORD.  The passage is split by additional instructions on the Feast of Unleavened Bread that would take place after Passover, and then returns to instructions on how exactly the firstborn that belong to the LORD are to be redeemed (or what is to happen if they are not redeemed).  We'll see more about the redemption of the firstborn in a few verses, but remember that Israel has been called God's firstborn son when you read this and that Jesus would stand in place of all of Israel ("true Israel") as the only begotten Son of God.

Back to the Feast of Unleavened Bread for now.  Once again the Feast is used to call people to "remember"--we'll see God give this command to His people quite often.  They are to remember the Exodus when the LORD brought them out of the land of Egypt and safely brought them back to the Promised Land of Canaan and gave them victory over the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.  They are also to remember the covenant of the LORD and the blessings they have received as the LORD made the land of Canaan "a land flowing with milk and honey" (a rich land) for His people.

They are to celebrate by eating unleavened bread for a full week and tell the story of the Exodus to remind each other of their history and the LORD's providence and provision.  This act will be a strong reminder to the people, but also a sign to all the other nations that there is something different about God's chosen people and it will be so obvious that they might as well have a message written on their hands and their foreheads for everyone to read.  People should be able to look at them and immediately recognize them as being part of God's family.

Another sign that was given to them to remember and differentiate them from everyone else was the consecration of the firstborn.  More details will be given about this later in the other books of the Law, but for now, let's give some broad strokes.  We don't get a lot of details here other than the fact that the firstborn donkey is supposed to be redeemed by a lamb and if the owner is unable or chooses not to do so, then that firstborn donkey must be killed in remembrance of the plague that killed all of the firstborn in Egypt.  It seems at this point like all the firstborn males among animals other than donkeys did not have instructions on how to be redeemed and they were always killed as sacrifices to the LORD.  It is not clear from this passage about if the firstborn was female other than it seems that any firstborn was special and consecrated to the LORD, but it appears only the males had to be redeemed.  Again, they are trying to make their way out of Egypt rather quickly now to escape from Pharaoh, so it's understandable that not many details are given at this point in the narrative and once the people of God are safe, there will be lots of time for God to instruct the people on all the laws that will serve as a reminder to them about His works and His nature (specifically His holiness) and to make them a people that are holy, separate, and called out from among the nations to belong to Him and Him alone.  All we need to gather at this point is that God put reminders in place for the people that should have forced them to continue to tell the story of the Exodus over and over again (like us giving our testimony), so that every generation would hear it and see it for themselves and would understand that this had to do with the God they served and why He deserved to be worshiped.

Next time we'll finish up Exodus 13 as we talk about another moment in the history of God's people that has a lot of parallels to our faith as Christians as the crossing at the Red Sea is a great image of how we make a decision that is impossible to make without God's assistance and in the process, God puts to death all the things that were keeping us captive and there is no returning to our old life once we have crossed over (this very much represents the point of "conversion" in our lives).  We don't immediately get to heaven though and like the Jews it may feel like we wander around as sojourners in the wilderness for 40 years, but there is another crossing that will come later in the book of Joshua when they crossed over the Jordan into the Promised Land, and this is like the passing from death into eternal life for the believer (or for some of us, we may experience this transformation in what is referred to as the "rapture").  We'll talk about all that later, but it seems like if we are to draw parallels here that this story that we tell of our redemption and salvation will not just be one that we tell in this life, but that we will continue to tell in the life to come--and this very much seems to be the case when we see the songs of praise we sing while gathered around the throne of God in the book of Revelation.