Wednesday, September 29
The Exodus and all that it entailed, from the blood on the doorpost in Egypt to the drama at the Red Sea — what an experience! No doubt it made an impression on those who lived through it. (And those who died, from the first-born children in Egypt to the soldiers at the bottom of the sea, God will judge them fairly.) As the Lord said: “Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles’ wings, and brought you unto myself.” (Exodus 19:4).
Why did the Lord do this stunning and dramatic rescue, actually taking one nation out of another nation, or, as Moses himself said to them: “Or hath God assayed to go and take him a nation from the midst of another nation, by temptations, by signs, and by wonders, and by war, and by a mighty hand, and by a stretched out arm, and by great terrors, according to all that the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?” (Deuteronomy 4:34)?
Read Exodus 19:4-8. Why did the Lord call the people out from Egypt?
It was as simple as that. God called them out, the seed, the descendants of the fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And with these descendants the Lord established His covenant, and they would be, indeed, “a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine” (Exodus 19:5). This relationship was central to the covenant.
This idea of a “special treasure” (segullah), however, could be (and it was, in fact) easily miSunderstood. Their specialness came not from anything inherently holy and righteous in and of themselves. Instead, it was because of God’s grace given to them and because of the wonderful truths that He had bestowed upon them — truths that they were to follow and, as a “kingdom of priests,” eventually spread to the world.
God then gave them some of the stipulations of the covenant, too (their end of the deal, so to speak), the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20), and then this covenant was ratified. Having sprinkled a newly constructed altar with the blood of the offerings, Moses “took the book of the covenant, and read in the audience of the people” (Exodus 24:7). The people again declared that they would obey.
“For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and of goats, with water, and scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book, and all the people, Saying, This is the blood of the testament which God hath enjoined unto you.” (Hebrews 9:19). What does the blood signify, and why is it so important, even to us today?
