And Jehovah spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying,
The Passover chapter opens with a word from God, not with an escape plan. He speaks to Moses and Aaron while Israel is still in Egypt and still in slavery — and where He speaks shapes everything that follows.
God does not wait until Israel is safe before He speaks to them.
It is worth noting, and very significant, that Israel had to keep the Passover in Egypt. The first verse of chapter 12 points to this: "The LORD said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt." God has been moving steadily forward to accomplish His purposes for their deliverance. But to the children of Israel, as to us, "sinners of the Gentiles," the mercy of God reaches us where we are, in our state of darkness and of death. … All our efforts only confirm this: we can make no progress in our relationship with God until we reach and know the shelter of the Cross.
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God gave this word before anything in their situation had changed.
God spoke to them while they were still in Egypt — the place of death and judgment, the place of nature or of the flesh.
The plague about to fall was different from the ones before it. Earlier God had shielded Israel from the plagues. This last one raised the question of where Israel themselves stood before Him.
In this last plague Israel was made to realize their own solemn position before God. They were subject, naturally, to His judgment as much as the Egyptians. They had to meet death itself, not a lesser punishment than the Egyptians. Death is God's sentence upon all men, and the picture of the final doom beyond this life. They must meet death, pass through it, and leave it behind them. Only then can they be freed from Egyptian bondage; only then can their feet leave Egyptian soil.
This plague also changed what Israel had to admit about themselves.
In those earlier plagues God had sheltered them without raising any question about their own relation to Him. Now, though sheltered, they must know their shelter as a refuge — a refuge they must flee to as people in danger, themselves justly liable to what falls on the Egyptians. Here, then, is a total change in God's ways with them, and a change of the deepest significance. Until they own what they are and what they deserve, there can be no deliverance, despite all that has been done for them.
God's word came to two men, and through them it reached every household.
God gave Moses and Aaron these instructions in the land of Egypt: "Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it" (Ex. 12:7). … God made every step clear for His people. The dullest among them could not well misunderstand what was so essential to his salvation. First they were to choose the lamb for sacrifice. Then they were to bring it into the house. Four days later they were to kill it. Finally they were to sprinkle the blood on the lintel and side-posts of the house of every man of Israel. It was not enough to kill the lamb, or even to keep the blood in a basin. They had to sprinkle it, obeying the word of the LORD.
God's next word changes the calendar. The month He names already had its place in Israel's year, and He moves it.
The month in question was Abib, otherwise Nisan (Ex. 13:4), and corresponded to our March–April. Until then it had been the seventh month in their reckoning. From the time of Israel's deliverance from Egypt it was to count as the first. So redemption gave the people a new start with God. The same is true now. A man admits he is a sinner in God's sight, exposed to eternal wrath. In simple faith he takes refuge under the blood of the Lamb. Then he begins life anew. God wipes out his past of sin and guilt.
The years before that point are not counted as a smaller total; they are counted as nothing.
Before God, time counts for nothing as long as the sinner is in his sins. Until we are sheltered under the blood of Christ we have not begun to live in His sight. We may have lived thirty, forty, or fifty years; but if we have not been born again it is all wasted time. … So with the Israelites. They had been until then the servants of Pharaoh, slaves of Satan; they had not yet begun to serve the Lord, and so the month of their redemption was to be the first month of the year to them. From this point their true life's history began.
- Where — God speaks in Egypt. His word finds His people in darkness, slavery and coming judgment, not after they escape it.
- Who — God speaks to Moses and Aaron. Through them the steps reach every household, so clearly that no one could miss what was essential to his safety.
- What — Israel was as liable to judgment as Egypt. They had to meet death, own what they deserved, and take shelter as a refuge before a single step out was possible.
- When — God resets the calendar. The month that had been seventh became first, so redemption, not birth or history, dates the start of real life.
- So what — God wipes out the past of sin and guilt. Life begins new the moment a person takes refuge under the blood of the Lamb.
This month shall be unto you the beginning of months it shall be the first month of the year to you.
God speaks to Moses and Aaron while they are still in Egypt. His first act is to move the calendar. The month of the Passover becomes month one. Everything before it drops off the record. Why date a nation's history, or a person's life, from the death of a lamb?
This change reorders a year already running.
The Passover chapter opens in a way that says much. "And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, This month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you" (Ex. 12:1-2). The month in question was Abib, otherwise Nisan (Ex. 13:4), and corresponded to our March-April. Until then it had been the seventh month in their reckoning. From the time God delivered Israel out of Egypt, they were to count it the first. Redemption gave the people a new start with God.
The old years do not move down the list. They stop counting.
The everyday calendar year was rolling on in its usual course when the Lord interrupted it for His people. In this way He taught them, in principle, that they were to begin a new era in His company. From then on they were to regard their earlier history as a blank. Redemption was to be the first step in real life. A man's life is of no account until he begins to walk with God, knowing full salvation and settled peace through the precious blood of the Lamb. Before this, in the judgement of God and in the language of Scripture, he is "dead in trespasses and sins," "alienated from the life of God." His whole history is a complete blank, even though in man's account it may have been one unbroken scene of busy activity. Think of all that holds the attention of the man of this world: the honours, the riches, the pleasures, the attractions of so-called life. In the light of God's judgement it must all be counted a dismal blank, a worthless void.
Wiping out a record sounds like loss. Here it is the kindest thing God can do.
God blots out the earlier months of the year, as it were, and begins afresh for them with the Passover month. Grace gives them this new beginning; and it can do nothing kinder than to blot out the past... When God says, "I will remember no more," it has a very different meaning. He cannot really forget, any more than He can change His mind. Yet both words are used of Him in a relative sense. He does not remember our sins and wrongdoings when He treats us as if these had never happened. In the way He acts toward us we can find no sign at all that He remembers them.
The new date does more than mark a rescue. It fixes who Israel now is.
God changed the beginning of the year to let Israel know this: their life was now not the life of creatures but of ransomed sinners. They will spend eternity with God in that character. The Passover was the moment in their history when they entered on that character. Blood sprinkled on their doorposts sheltered them from destruction. So God made that moment the beginning of the year for them.
Israel dated its whole history from the Passover. The verse sets a rule wider than Israel.
The truth recorded in Exodus 12 declares that Israel had no real standing with the Lord until then. Indeed, only from this memorable Passover did they date their history... Since Israel started with God in this way, the message to every person is unmistakable. Nothing can give any soul a recognised beginning with God except what that unforgettable time set forth. Whatever their earlier life had been, this clear statement shut the door on it. It all went for nothing until God raised the question of sin and Himself provided for its settlement.
A first month implies the months that follow.
Notice in Exodus 12 - 13 that the feast of unleavened bread stands in close connection with the Passover... The apostle Paul explains what this means for us. "For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth." (1 Cor. 5:7-8.) In one word, God claims holy lives from His redeemed; holiness is to mark them during the whole of their stay in the wilderness.
- Month. Abib was the seventh month. God makes it the first, dating Israel from the blood of the lamb.
- Blank. God writes off everything before the Passover. A life full of activity is still an empty page with Him.
- Kindness. The blotting out is grace, not loss. God treats the past as though it never happened.
- Character. The new date fixes who they now are: not simply creatures, but ransomed people. That is the character they keep forever.
- Continuation. A first month opens a year. The Passover leads straight into unleavened bread, so the new beginning runs on into a holy life.
Speak unto all the assembly of Israel, saying, On the tenth of this month let them take themselves each a lamb, for a father's house, a lamb for a house.
God speaks to the whole nation at once, yet He asks for something small: one lamb, on a fixed day, house by house. Why a date ten days early, why a lamb per household, and why does Scripture keep saying "the lamb" and not "lambs"?
One writer draws out three lessons from this way of counting.
Notice here three matters of spiritual importance. First, every individual needs the lamb. Second, every house needs the lamb. Third, the lamb is large enough for others to share. Israel would sacrifice many lambs that night. Yet Scripture does not use the plural, "lambs," but only the singular — "the lamb" or "your lamb" (vv. 4-5). For the lamb above all speaks of Christ.
Verse 4 allows for a household too small to finish the lamb. Scripture never mentions the opposite case, and one writer presses that silence.
If the household was too small for the lamb, then he and his nearest neighbour were to take it together. Please notice there was no question that the lamb might be too little for the house. The Lamb of God is enough for all — even for the worst sinner.
Because God counts the lamb "according to their fathers' houses," salvation that night came to each family through the act of one man.
Israel clearly kept the Passover family by family, on the principle of a lamb for each household. The blood sprinkled on their homes sheltered them, family by family. So the father's act — his obedience of faith — secured his household from the stroke of judgment that fell on the land of Egypt… The state of the household did not come into the question. The essential point was the sprinkling of the blood.
The two circles hold together, not against each other. God addresses the congregation as one body, and inside it each home stands apart:
Every household had its own lamb, for every family had to be specifically under its shelter. On the other hand, "the assembly of the congregation" is seen as one whole. These two unities were always preserved… the families apart, and the congregation as a whole.
A new calendar might have opened with the sacrifice itself. It did not.
It is remarkable that God did not appoint the lamb to be killed on the first day of that month. From now on, this month was to be the first in Israel's year. One might almost have supposed that the LORD would begin the new reckoning with the great fact of redemption… Ten days had to run their course before the victim was taken from the flock for death.
The same writer reads the number itself as carrying weight.
For our present purpose it is enough to say that "ten" represents the full measure of human responsibility. So we have ten commandments in Exodus 20, ten virgins in Matthew 25:1-13, and ten pounds in Luke 19:13. So the ten days of Exodus 12:3 speak to us of the ages of responsibility (or probation). They ran their course before God sent out His beloved Son to be the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.
Commentators differ over what the gap between the tenth day and the fourteenth pictures. One reading takes it back into eternity.
Israel took the lamb on the tenth day and kept it until the fourteenth. This shows us Christ foreordained by God from eternity, but revealed for us in time. God's eternal purpose in Christ becomes the foundation of the believer's peace… This carries us back far beyond creation, beyond the bounds of time, beyond the entrance of sin, and beyond everything that could affect the groundwork of our peace.
Another reading places both days inside history. The tenth day then marks the start of Jesus' public ministry:
On this view, the tenth day corresponds to Christ entering His public ministry. John the Baptist then marked Him out in a most striking way: "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!" (John 1:29). Ten is the number of responsibility Godward. So before our Lord was publicly owned as the Lamb of God, He had met every responsibility before God, and was proved without blemish — fit in Himself to be the sacrifice for sin.
The wording for the lamb changes across the opening verses.
The first few verses of Exodus 12 show a deepening and growing appreciation of the value of the "lamb" — "a lamb" (v. 3); "the lamb" (v. 4); "your lamb" (v. 5). As they kept the lamb in the intimacy of the home, their contemplation of it would grow during those four days from the tenth to the fourteenth.
- Appointed. Israel took the lamb four days before killing it. It pictures Christ, marked out by God — in eternity past, or at the start of His public ministry.
- Announced. The command goes to the whole congregation — one assembly, with every household inside it.
- Applied. Israel's unit of shelter was the household; the head of the house acted in faith, and his family was covered.
- Ample. A house could be too small for the lamb; the lamb was never too small for the house.
- Appreciated. "A lamb" becomes "the lamb" and then "your lamb" — the value of Christ grows on those who keep Him before their eyes.
And if the household be too small for a lamb, let him and his neighbour next unto his house take [it] according to the number of the souls; each according to [the measure] of his eating shall ye count for the lamb.
The instruction covers an ordinary problem: a small family could not eat a whole lamb in one night. God's answer was not to shrink the sacrifice. He widened the circle around it instead.
Many lambs died that night, yet the wording stays singular. The rule also moves outward: the person, then the house, then the neighbour.
On the tenth day of the month every man was to take a lamb, at least a lamb for a house. Yet if the house was too small to use the meat of a lamb, then it might be shared with a neighbouring house (vv. 2-3). Notice three matters of spiritual importance here. First, every individual needs the lamb. Second, every house needs the lamb. Third, the lamb is large enough for others to share. Israel would sacrifice many lambs that night. Yet Scripture does not use the plural, "lambs," but only the singular, "the lamb" or "your lamb" (vv. 4-5). For the lamb speaks above all of Christ.
Notice which way the shortfall runs in this verse.
The lamb is to be eaten — all of it. If the household were too little for the lamb — we read nothing of the lamb being too little for the house — then, says the Lord, let him and his neighbour next to his house take it. This blessed One is all-sufficient either as Saviour or as the Sustainer of His people.
That same silence in the text has a direct message for anyone who fears he is beyond help.
Please notice there was no question that the lamb might be too little for the house. The Lamb of God is enough for all — even for the worst sinner.
God counted each household by how much its members could eat. That measures appetite, not safety.
The feast was of a family character. All shared in it according to their appetites. Throughout Scripture we often have eating presented as a symbol of communion... The Israelites shared, according to their eating, in the lamb, whose blood was their common salvation. But their security lay not in their feeding on the lamb, their communion concerning the sacrifice, but in the blood outside their doors. Communion with God about Christ follows our salvation by God's Christ; we are not saved by spiritual capacity. Our salvation lies in the value of the sacrificial blood on which God rests, just as His eye rested on the blood outside the houses of Israel. The order is first the shelter of the blood, then the joy of feasting on the Lamb whose blood has been shed for us.
God's aim goes beyond rescue. He wants them to take the lamb in, and what they take in becomes part of them.
The lamb is theirs to feed on, and God is bent on their enjoying this provision of His love. The lamb too must all of it be eaten. God would have Christ grasped by us. He would have our souls sustained, and He would have Christ honoured. We are to eat — to make our own what Christ is; and what we make our own becomes, in fact, part and parcel of ourselves. This laying hold of Christ by faith makes Christ real sustenance to us, and makes Himself to be reproduced in us.
The lamb outsized the small household, so someone else had to come in. No one ate alone.
The paschal feast was the first institution of divine fellowship in a corporate sense. The blood of atonement stood on that night between the Israelites and those who were outside their doors. Judgment was outside; but inside there was not peace only, but communion. No Israelite might eat the passover alone. Family association, founded on the divinely recognised unity of the house of Israel, was a marked feature of the ordinance.
The invitation starts at the nearest door and does not stop there.
Have we found the roast Lamb to be an inexhaustible feast, enough for me and my household, with unlimited supplies for my neighbour next to my house? Let us each share the roast Lamb with our neighbour in the house next to us. In time we may find, as our Lord pointed out to the lawyer, that "my neighbour" may be one of another nation. He may be one who for years has been despised and scorned and neglected.
- Enough — A house can be too small for the lamb. The lamb is never too small for the house. The shortfall is always on our side.
- Sheltered — The blood outside the door kept them safe. The feast inside was communion, not the ground of safety. Blood first, then the meal.
- Appetite — God counted each house by what its members could eat. Our hunger sets how much of Christ we take in.
- Absorbed — All of it was to be eaten. What we take in becomes part of us, and Christ is reproduced in the one who feeds on Him.
- Shared — The Lamb is bigger than any one household. Share Him — starting next door, and reaching even the despised outsider.
Your lamb shall be without blemish, a yearling male; ye shall take [it] from the sheep, or from the goats.
God's instructions for the Passover are exact: the animal, its age, its condition. Every detail matters, because everything rests on the character of the sacrifice God accepts.
The New Testament tells us what this animal stood for.
First, the lamb. As already pointed out, the whole value of this Passover lamb springs from its being a type of Christ. Paul says, "For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed" (1 Corinthians 5:7). So we have God's own authority for seeing the Lamb of God pictured in this type. That is why every detail of this chapter is so full of interest... He was God's Lamb, and it is a great comfort that God Himself supplied the lamb. Man could never have known what sacrifice would be acceptable. So in His mercy and grace God provided a lamb whose blood would be enough to take away the sin of the world. There can never be any other way of cleansing from sin, and no other shelter from the just judgment of God.
Jesus lived His public life in the open, where anyone could look for a flaw.
During His three and a half years of ministry the Saviour lived in the fierce glare of hostile criticism. He did not live cut off from people, as John the Baptist did; the desert was not His home; He moved freely in and out among the people. All the facts of His life were therefore fully known. If His foes could have discovered a single flaw in Him, how it would have delighted their evil hearts! But He was God's holy One. The Passover lamb was to be "without blemish." Only such a lamb could picture Him who was holy in nature and stainless in all His ways. At the end His judge had to say, "I find no guilt in him" (John 19:6).
Peter picks up this phrase and adds a second word to it, and the two describe different things.
Today God is calling men and women out from the world and bringing them to Himself. We must make sure we have a perfect Saviour, one who is inwardly without blemish — in whom was no sin! Peter adds another thing. He says that believers are redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, as of a Lamb. That Lamb is not only "without blemish" inwardly, but also "without spot" outwardly. Our Lord Jesus Christ lived and passed through this sin-defiled world, and yet He stayed unspotted.
The verse stacks three requirements in one line. Each answers to something the sacrifice had to be.
The lamb must be, first, "without blemish" — that is, the sacrifice must be pure enough to atone for sins... Secondly, it must be a male, the stronger of the sexes. The sacrifice must be strong enough. It is impossible that one mere creature, even if he had not sinned, could atone for the sins of countless numbers. But Christ is the eternal Son of God, in person infinite... Thirdly, the lamb must be "of the first year." This tells us of its tenderness.
Commentators read the age requirement differently. Where Grant hears tenderness, another writer hears full development:
Sentiment and imagination have combined to give us a completely wrong idea of this lamb. It was to be a mature animal. It was a type of that blessed One of whom we read, "Jesus, when he began his ministry, was about thirty years of age" (Luke 3:23).
God gave Israel a choice of animal, and the two carry different notes.
Exodus 12 records the first time God dealt with sin publicly. There the people of Israel could take either from the sheep or from the goats (v. 5). In the sheep we have the willingness of the Lord to die for sin, and in the goat we have the ability of the Lord to die for sin.
Notice who the verse says the lamb belongs to.
The lamb is not called God's Lamb there. It is spoken of as "your lamb." Our lamb — yet that lamb in type is the same Lamb, the same Person who is God's Lamb, and it has, we are told, to be "without blemish."
The four days between choosing and killing point to something far larger.
The precious blood of Christ has redeemed us out of our old manner of life. He is the One pictured as the unblemished and spotless lamb of Exodus 12:3-6. Only He was ordained not a mere four days before the sacrifice, but from before the foundation of the world. Our redemption, therefore, was according to the eternal counsels of God.
- Chosen — God provided this Lamb Himself, and marked Him out not four days ahead but before the world existed. Our redemption follows His eternal counsels.
- Spotless — "without blemish" is purity inside; "without spot" is an unstained walk. His judge could find no guilt in Him.
- Strong — the male animal points to a sacrifice of infinite value. It can cover the sins of countless people.
- Willing and able — the sheep speaks of His readiness to die, the goat of His power to do it.
- Yours — the verse says your lamb. The Lamb God provided is the same Lamb He gives you to take as your own.
And ye shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month; and the whole congregation of the assembly of Israel shall kill it between the two evenings.
Israel chose the lamb on the tenth day, then waited until the fourteenth to kill it — and the whole nation killed it together. Commentators read both the four waiting days and that shared act as pointing forward to Christ.
The gap between choosing the lamb and killing it was not empty time. Commentators read those four days as a set time of testing.
Once the lamb is taken, sacrifice does not follow at once; it is kept for four days. Four speaks of testing. This comes straight after God announces His satisfaction and delight in Him. Until then He had lived under God's eye alone; now man and the devil are to test Him as they please... And this testing brought out only His perfection. The four Gospels show the result.
For those four days the lamb was not hidden away in a pen.
For four days it lived with them in the house its blood would shelter from the judgment. It was before their very eyes during that period. They might consider it and talk of it and say, "This is the lamb that is to suffer for us."... We behold Him as He walks, without spot or blemish. In this Gospel He could challenge His enemies: "Which one of you convicts me of sin?" Even the heartless pagan judge had to admit three times over that he could find no fault in Him.
The delay also says something about God. He fixed the day long before Israel kept it, and one writer traces that purpose back further still.
Here we have the redemption of the people founded on the blood of the lamb, in line with God's eternal purpose. This gives it all its divine stability. Redemption was no afterthought with God. This was settled before the world was, or Satan, or sin. Before the voice of God ever broke the silence of eternity and called worlds into existence, He had His deep counsels of love.
The dates in this verse are not decoration. One writer traces them onto the last week of Jesus' life and finds them matched.
"On the tenth day of this month they shall take every man a lamb... and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month; and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening." How wonderfully the Lord fulfilled all this. On the tenth day of the first month we see Him coming to Jerusalem. He stayed there (though sleeping outside the city) until the fourteenth day, and on the evening of that day He died.
The Hebrew behind the timing reads literally "between the two evenings," and commentators differ on what window it marks. Some tie it down narrowly by comparing other commands that use the same words.
The passover was to be sacrificed in the evening, at the going down of the sun. The daily evening sacrifice was offered up "between the evenings." So this phrase cannot mean what some have said — the time between the evening of one day and the evening of the next... "Between the two evenings" was a certain time on the fourteenth day of Nisan.
Another writer asks what that narrow answer rests on, and suggests a wider span.
Learned men say between the two evenings means between three and six; but why? What is their authority? It is remarkable that the unleavened bread was to begin at evening... but the paschal lamb was to be slain between the two evenings. Might it not be between the beginning of Friday (our Thursday evening) and the beginning of Saturday (our Friday evening)? It was strictly fulfilled in our Lord.
Earlier verses give a lamb to each house; this verse hands the killing to the entire nation. Both stand together.
All must be identified with the slain lamb. It was to be killed for the whole assembly. Every household had its own lamb, because every family had to be under its shelter. On the other hand, "the assembly of the congregation" is viewed as a whole... The passover brings the two together — the families apart, and the congregation as a whole.
Another writer makes that shared act personal.
The whole assembly was to kill the lamb in the evening. This reminds us that all believers are responsible for the death of Christ. Our sins caused Him His suffering and death.
- Chosen — the lamb was set apart on the tenth day, in line with a purpose God held before the world existed.
- Tested — the four days of keeping it answer to the testing of Christ, which brought out only His perfection.
- Watched — the lamb lived in full view of the household it would die for, as Christ lived in full view of men.
- Timed — the tenth day and the fourteenth match the Lord's last week, though writers differ over the exact hour, "between the two evenings."
- Shared — one lamb per house, yet the whole assembly kills it: shelter is personal, and the guilt is everyone's.
And they shall take of the blood, and put [it] on the two door-posts and on the lintel of the houses in which they eat it.
The instruction to strike the doorposts is the point where blood first appears in Scripture as the means of rescue rather than as evidence of guilt.
In this verse, for the first time in Holy Scripture, blood is linked with man's deliverance and blessing. Several passages in Genesis speak of blood as evidence of human guilt — above all in the story of Cain and Abel. In the early chapters of Exodus, blood twice comes in as one of God's judgements on rebellious Egypt. Now, in the Passover lamb, it comes before us as the means by which God kept His believing people safe from destruction. From this point on to the end of the book of God, the teaching of atoning blood stands out unmistakably. By blood, and by blood alone, can men be saved. It was not enough to kill the lamb, or even to present the blood in a basin. They had to sprinkle it, in obedience to the word of Jehovah.
The mark on the door said one thing about the family inside and another thing to God.
When they sprinkled the blood, those who did it were confessing that they themselves deserved nothing but death, and that they were sheltering under the death of another. To God, the blood was a witness that death had already entered every house it marked. That is what made it right for Him to tell His ministers of judgment to pass those houses by.
The blood went on three sides of the doorway, never on the threshold. Commentators differ on why. Some point to what the placing says about the worth of the blood:
Notice the places where they were to sprinkle the blood — the lintel and the side posts of the doors. They had to lift it high and look up to it, which is just what everyone who truly values the blood of Christ does now. The Israelite had to put it between himself and God, and to know its protecting power on his right hand and on his left as well.
Others say the bare threshold shows which direction the danger came from:
The question was the judgment of God, and where the blood had to be sprinkled to shelter them from it. Which direction was the blow coming from? Certainly not from below, but from above... The lower side was the only side that was never exposed while He passed over. And God did not say, I will pass under you, but over you.
The blood went on the outside of the door, in the dark.
What could show more clearly that the blood was for Jehovah's eye, and not for man to see or reason about? The lamb's blood went outside; inside they ate the flesh roasted with fire. What makes this even clearer is that it was night. There was no natural light for men to see the blood by. Only the divine eye could see the blood on the doorposts.
Two families could feel very differently through that night. It made no difference to their safety.
Do not look for a sign inside yourself; see it in the blood of Christ. Do not look at your feelings, but at His sufferings; not at your joy, but at His pain... Is the firstborn of the pale, downcast mother any less safe than the firstborn of a mother whose strong faith in Jehovah already welcomes the freedom God gives? No — the safety lies in the blood outside the door, not in the feelings of those inside the house.
The verse ties the mark on the door to the meal within, and the two answer to each other.
The lamb was killed, and its blood put on the two side posts and the lintel, outside the house where the family lived. Inside the house they were to eat its flesh. The blood marks on the door were the outward witness that death had already taken place inside. Eating the flesh inside the house pictured how those sheltered by the blood took in the death of the lamb and made it their own.
Safety under the blood was not the whole story.
With the blood on the lintel and doorposts the Israelites were safe. But at the Red Sea God told them to stand still and see "the salvation of the LORD." That was deliverance itself — He took them out of one place and put them into another.
- Blood first — Blood stops being a sign of guilt and becomes the means of rescue. From here on, salvation comes by blood alone.
- Blood applied — Blood left in the basin shelters no one. It had to be put on the door of the house, in obedience to God's word.
- Blood above — On the lintel and the side posts, it stood between the family and God. It was over them and beside them, never under their feet.
- Blood seen — In the dark, only God could see the mark. Safety rested on what He saw in the blood, not on how the family felt.
- Blood then bread — Once sheltered, they ate the lamb. Shelter comes first, making its death your own comes next, and full deliverance came at the sea.
And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread; with bitter [herbs] shall they eat it.
Blood marked the outside of Israel's houses, and inside the same lamb became supper. This verse sets how that meal was to be eaten — fire, unleavened bread, bitter herbs — and commentators read each detail as a picture of the death of Christ and of the heart that receives it.
The blood on the doorposts and the meal inside the house do two different things:
Outside the house, the blood of atonement spoke to God, the One it was addressed to. Inside, He provided what would satisfy them and make them fit for the path with Him that they were soon to set out on. The lamb is theirs to feed on, and God is set on their enjoying this provision of His love.
Safety and communion are not the same thing. The meal did not buy the family's protection:
The families fed on the lamb "roast with fire" (v. 8). But it was not their feeding on the lamb inside their houses that led the angel to pass over them. It was the blood outside their doors. We are not redeemed because of our communion with Christ, but because Christ died for us. True, they could not have eaten the lamb unless they had killed it for themselves. So no one can have communion about the sufferings of Christ unless he first truly receives Him in his heart as Saviour.
The writers quote an older translation, "roast with fire," where the ESV has "roasted on the fire." Fire stands for God's holiness in judgment. That rules out any view of the cross that stops at admiration for a brave man:
Men's thoughts are completely out of step with the mind of God when they speak of the death of Christ as only a martyr's death, with no reference to its atoning worth. But "roast with fire" ought to destroy the dangerous dreams and delusions that men's false theories produce about the sacrificial work of the Lord Jesus. Fire speaks of the holiness of God expressed in judgment. So in the lamb roast with fire we see a picture of the Lord Jesus. He was Himself free from sin and its penalty. Yet as our sinless, unblemished Substitute He was exposed to the full, intense and searching action of the fire — the judgment of God expressed in wrath against sin.
Shelter under the blood is not the whole of it. The lamb was also supper, and many believers stop short there:
We are not merely under the eternal shelter of the blood of the Lamb, but we feed, by faith, upon the Person of the Lamb. Many of us come short here. We are apt to rest content with being saved by what Christ has done for us, and never grow in holy communion with Himself. His loving heart could never be satisfied with this. He has brought us near to Himself, that we might enjoy Him, that we might feed on Him, and delight in Him.
Leaven is yeast, and God shut it out of this meal:
Leaven pictures evil in its tendency to spread by taking over whatever it touches. So this command means refusing and putting away all the evil that belongs to man in his fallen state.
Asked whether the herbs mean self-judgment, one writer agreed and went further:
We quite agree with you in thinking that self-judgment has its place in what the "bitter herbs" pointed forward to. These herbs always had to go with the passover. We do not consider it the only thing, but we do consider it one thing foreshadowed in these herbs... We think they set out the deep spiritual exercises that flow from really entering into the sufferings of Christ. If these things were better known, there would be less heartless lightness, less cold formality, less sinful indifference in our celebration of the Lord's Supper.
Taken as one meal, the three elements form a pattern:
Leaven is a picture of sin, so the unleavened bread pictures sin fully judged and put away by the cross. "Bitter herbs" show how our hearts respond when we recognise that it was our own sins for which He was sacrificed. So the roasting speaks of Christ judged for us; the unleavened bread, of sin judged; and the bitter herbs, of self judged.
- Blood — the blood outside the door made the angel pass over, not the meal inside. Redemption rests on Christ's death, not on our communion with Him.
- Fire — the roasting shows Christ judged in our place. So the cross was never just a martyr's death.
- Feeding — the roasted lamb was supper. Believers feed on the Person who bore that fire, not only rest in what He did.
- Bread — leaven spreads by taking over what it touches. Shutting it out means sin judged and all the evil of fallen man put away.
- Herbs — the bitter herbs are the heart's own share: self judged. Where they are missing, the Lord's Supper turns cold and light.
Ye shall eat none of it raw, nor boiled at all with water, but roast with fire; its head with its legs and with its in-wards.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
And ye shall let none of it remain until the morning; and what remaineth of it until the morning ye shall burn with fire.
The last rule for the Passover lamb closes the night. The meal had to end before daybreak, and anything left over went into the fire. Commentators read this as a picture of feeding on Christ: nothing of Him is ever wasted, and nothing of Him is ever treated as common food.
The family ate all it could. What it could not eat still went to God.
Nothing of the lamb was to remain until the morning. There were to be no "left overs." If they could not eat it all, they were to burn the remainder with fire (v. 10). God is glad to give us all that we can digest of Christ, but if any remains it must be offered by fire to God. If we do not appropriate everything concerning Christ, God does.
No Israelite could take in the full worth of what he ate that night.
The command to burn all that remained of the lamb uneaten shows how precious Christ's worth is. On that night each fed upon it "according to his eating." There was much more than any Israelite could then understand, for it was a whole Christ pictured there. Was that to be wasted which man in Egypt could not understand? No — gather up the fragments so that nothing is lost. But "burnt with fire" also speaks of the unsparing judgment of God. The whole lamb was roasted with fire, and in the morning they burned all that was left. All that Christ was, was offered to God, for nothing less than a whole Christ could bear all God's judgment.
This is not a rule about tidiness. Leftovers could have fed the family the next day, and that is what the command forbids.
A similar direction is given about eating the sacrifices (see Lev. 7:15). It could be eaten only in connection with the judgment through which it had passed. As they ate the lamb "roast with fire" they were to remember that the lamb had taken their place, and its blood had sheltered them from the judgment of God. Given all that its sacrifice meant, how necessary these instructions about what was left: it must not be put aside and eaten later as ordinary food.
Israel ate on the very night the blood was shed. That timing carries the meaning of the command.
This command teaches us that the communion of the congregation could never be separated from the sacrifice on which that communion was founded. The heart must always keep the memory alive: all true fellowship is tied to a redemption already accomplished. To think of having communion with God on any other ground is to imagine that He could share in our evil. To think of fellowship with other people on any other ground is only to form an unholy club, and nothing can come from it but confusion and wickedness. In a word, everything must rest on the blood and stay linked to it. That is the simple meaning of eating the Passover lamb on the same night the blood was shed.
The whole meal had to fit into one night. That says something about the sacrifice it pictures.
The rising sun was to see no trace of the slain lamb. In the same way the atoning work of Christ is not a work in progress, but a finished work. It is not still being carried out; it was accomplished once, definitely and for ever. Calvary's costly sacrifice stays with God and the redeemed for ever as a fragrant and holy memory, but the sacrifice itself is past and complete. It is so effective before God that nothing more could ever be required or accepted. For God's suffering Lamb the dark night of judgement is no more, and He lives on high in the eternal sunshine of divine favour and love.
Nothing was carried over to the next day, so the meal could never be stale. Commentators tie that to worship.
None of that roast lamb was to remain until the morning. Exodus 12:10 tells us that true worship cannot be known apart from the death of Christ. True worship can never be stale: it must always be fresh.
What we take in now shapes what we can take in later.
The present moment of our soul's history with God is a most serious one, because our capacity becomes fixed here. Therefore we must go on, and grow by the truth. But note, it must be Christ, in all His fullness, and all His grace, that our souls feed upon.
- Whole. A whole Christ was pictured in the lamb, and nothing less than a whole Christ could bear all God's judgment.
- Eaten. Each ate "according to his eating" — your share of Christ is measured by your appetite, and appetite can grow.
- Burnt. What no one could take in was not wasted. It went up to God in fire, and what we fail to see in Christ, God values in full.
- Joined. Israel ate on the night the blood was shed. That ties all fellowship to a redemption already accomplished.
- Finished. Dawn found no trace of the lamb — the atoning work is not in progress but complete, so worship of it is never stale.
And thus shall ye eat it your loins shall be girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and ye shall eat it in haste; it is Jehovah's passover.
Israel ate their last meal in Egypt dressed for the road, while judgment fell outside the blood-marked door. The verse covers what they ate and also how they ate it. Every detail of that posture says something about the people God had just redeemed.
Belt, sandals and staff form one picture, and each part of it carries meaning.
They were to eat it as a people ready to leave behind the land of death and darkness, wrath and judgment. They were moving on toward the land of promise — the inheritance meant for them. The blood that had preserved them from the fate of Egypt's firstborn was also the foundation of their deliverance from Egypt's bondage. True, they had not yet crossed the Red Sea. Still they were, in principle, a redeemed people, a separated people, a pilgrim people, an expectant people, a dependent people. Their whole way of life was to match their present position and their future destiny. The girded loins spoke of intense separation from all around them. They also spoke of a readiness to serve. The shod feet declared they were ready to leave that scene. The staff was the vivid emblem of a pilgrim people, leaning on something outside themselves.
Older translations call this "your loins girded." A man had to tie up his loose clothes before he could move fast. Jesus uses the same image when He tells His disciples how to wait for Him.
Could words or acts give us a more vivid picture? Here is a people screened from divine judgment, leaving the house of slavery in haste for a land flowing with milk and honey. In Luke 12:35 the Lord uses the same figure, with others, to impress on His disciples their pilgrim character while they wait for His coming. They are not to take their ease. They are to stay ready to do His will earnestly, and that is what girded loins mean. For hard work, people tucked up their garments instead of letting them hang loose, so nothing got in the way. So He would now have our hearts engaged without wandering affections or distraction of mind.
Shoes wear out fast on a desert road. God kept Israel's shoes whole for forty years, and that protection carries a meaning.
Travellers tell us that their shoes are cut to pieces in a short time in the desert Israel had to cross. Yet Israel, shod by the Lord, crossed that desert from end to end. For forty years their shoes did not wear out on their feet... This shoe stands for faithfulness to God. That faithfulness stays unchanged in a hostile world and resists everything that would break it down.
Commentators read the staff in two ways. One sees a pilgrim leaning on something outside himself. Another names what he leans on.
Finally, they were to eat the passover with "your staff in your hand." The staff is God's word that supports our steps in the way He leads us. His promises are our prop and stay. We have only one staff, but it is unfailing. "Scripture cannot be broken." Lean on it, fellow Christian; the more you do, the more you will find its strength.
The hurry was not panic. It had everything to do with when the judgment fell.
They were now to start their journey. What was impossible before the passover is now at once commanded to them. The passover itself is to be eaten in haste, since they expect to leave right away. Judgment must roll over first. They must start with it behind them — not in front, where they would have to meet it. Then, and in that way, they must go out.
The verse names the meal after the Lord, not after Israel.
The name implies the complete passing over of all who have been sheltered by the precious blood of Christ... It is "the Lord's Passover" — that is, His own exclusive work of matchless grace. Only those who had been sheltered by blood, that is, Israel, could rightly keep the Passover.
This picture puts a question to us. Can we be dressed for departure and taken up with Egypt at the same time?
Could a people waiting like that for the call to leave give their time and attention to the affairs of Egypt? Had they not heard that judgment was coming?... Is our position less solemn, less momentous? Are the commands to us less stringent? Is the judgment hanging over the world less real, less awful, or less certain? The commands are identical.
- Sheltered — the blood that kept the destroyer out is also the ground of their leaving. Redemption comes before the journey.
- Girded — tucked-up robes mean a heart ready to move at once, undistracted, waiting for the Lord's call.
- Shod — feet kept safe on a road that destroys shoes. Faithfulness to God stays unchanged in a hostile world.
- Staffed — a pilgrim leans on something outside himself; the word of God is the one prop that never fails.
- Hastened — they eat fast because judgment is behind them, not ahead. The call to leave may come at any moment, and the feast belongs to the Lord alone.
And I will go through the land of Egypt in that night, and smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment I am Jehovah.
Egypt's last plague is not a natural disaster but a personal visit from God. That raises two questions: why does the judgment reach Egypt's gods as well as its homes, and how could Israel survive the same night?
God does not send an angel to do this work.
Now God announces that He (not an angel) would pass through the land that night (v. 12), striking dead all the firstborn in Egypt, both of people and animals, executing solemn judgment on all the idols of Egypt, for they would find their idols helpless to protect them.
The removal of every go-between is what gives the night its weight.
Each act of divine judgment had made it more solemn to have to do with God in judgment. This last one deepens that solemnity beyond measure, for God deals in Person with the Ruler and the people of Egypt. Every instrument and agency is set aside. As He says in Exodus 11:4, "About midnight I will go out in the midst of Egypt, and every firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die."
The strike on Egypt's deities was not a side note. It exposed what stood behind the temples.
The hand of the LORD was heavy also upon "all the gods of Egypt." He executed judgment on their deities — probably the living emblems of their gods — and that must have caused terror in every temple. Judgment falling on the gods of the land showed the LORD's supremacy over "all" the powers men worshipped. It also explains to the Christian the real meaning of the Egyptian religion. Every god in that land was opposed to the LORD. Every sacrifice and prayer offered in any temple, at any shrine, through any priest, went to a demon! King, priests, and people were all completely bewildered. Besides, the LORD's carefully aimed hand, striking only the firstborn, whether of people or of cattle, showed His power so plainly that all Egypt dreaded death. To save themselves, they begged Israel to go, in case everyone died as the firstborn had died.
The earlier plagues had already struck particular Egyptian gods.
Egyptologists tell us that a special goddess was supposed to watch over the frogs and keep the land safe from them. Her name was Heki, and the monuments sometimes picture her with the head of a frog. The Egyptians had to learn that Heki was nothing before the LORD. This illustrates the word, "on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments" (Exodus 12:12). Probably, too, when the first plague fell, Pharaoh was approaching the river to worship the god the Nile was supposed to stand for.
The blow falls on a chosen target, and the target carries meaning.
The firstborn stand for human excellence. They were the sons with a natural claim to the birthright, the place of honour and rule. "He struck down all the firstborn in Egypt, the firstfruits of their strength," says the psalmist. "Reuben," says the dying father, "you are my firstborn, my might, and the firstfruits of my strength, preeminent in dignity and preeminent in power." Yet he had to add, "Unstable as water, you shall not have preeminence."
God moves through Egypt searching. The Passover night turns on what He is searching for.
But it is God as Judge that is the leading idea in the Passover. Every blessing flows from it. Still, on that night the word was "I will pass over" — not communion with God, but barring out judgment. God as Judge was going through the land, searching for sinners, not to save but to slay. Blood that He Himself appointed turns His eye away from the sinner. The Judge passes on as if there were no sinners in the house.
Being God's people was not enough that night. The blood made the difference.
On the Passover night the question was how God could pass over the guilty, even when they were His people. The blood of the lamb sprinkled on Israel's doorposts declared this: God was judging in the open, yet He could not touch those sheltered by it. That blood held His truth and justice back, and satisfied them. It kept the destroyer from entering. Not one Israelite died within the blood-sprinkled doorframes.
The verse ends with a name, not a reason. The name is the reason.
The LORD, then, is the living, unchangeable God, acting from Himself, finding in Himself the reason for what He does. How suitable a name for the God of redemption — the covenant name!
- He comes. No angel, no agent. God Himself passes through Egypt, and that alone makes this night heavier than the nine before it.
- He exposes. He strikes the gods of Egypt to show they are helpless, and to show what every temple truly served: demons.
- He targets. The firstborn stood for the best that nature could produce: rank, might, the birthright. That is exactly what falls.
- He passes over. As Judge He searches for sinners. Blood of His own appointing turns His eye away, and not one sheltered Israelite dies.
- He signs it. "I am the LORD" — the unchangeable God acts from Himself alone, so His judgment and His shelter both stand.
And the blood shall be for you as a sign on the houses in which ye are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you; and the plague shall not be among you for destruction, when I smite the land of Egypt.
On the night God struck Egypt, every household faced the same sentence. Israel had no natural claim to better treatment. One thing made the difference: blood on the outside of a house. Safety rested on what God saw there, not on what the people felt about it.
Egypt deserved judgment. The real question was whether Israel could stand if God came in. One writer puts it as God Himself raised it:
When God reveals the judgment, He also reveals the way to escape it. The soul that fears God stays close to His word, and this raises the question between God and Israel. Could Israel stand if God came in judgment? The Egyptians were sinners, and God would surely judge them. But if God came down to judge, what were the children of Israel? Where were their sins? ... The destroying angel of the Lord passed through the land. Israelites might have been ever so honest, but without the blood on their doorposts he would have had to enter and kill. For God was under this sign judging sin, and sin levels all distinctions.
The blood was a sign given to Israel, but the promise turns on God's eye, not theirs. That difference decides where a troubled person finds rest.
But must I not see the blood? asks many a distressed soul. It is good for me to value it rightly, and more and more; but no one could have solid peace on that ground. And that is not what God told His people. It was indeed a token to them. But their assurance rested on this: "when I [the Lord] see the blood, I will pass over you." The Israelite's business was not to look at it for his safety. He was to stay within the shelter of the sprinkled blood that God had pledged Himself to.
The place of the blood teaches the same thing. It went outside, on the door, where no one indoors could look at it.
It is also important for us to remember that the blood of the lamb was outside, for the eye of God. The word was, "When I see the blood, I will pass over you." Once the blood was there, God would not fail to see it. They did not have to see the blood. Knowing it was there, they were to rest content with God's definite word that, since it was there, He would pass over them. The blood was for the eye of God; His word was for the ears and hearts of those within.
The promise adds no second condition. So safety never rests, even in part, on the person sheltered:
Is it a question of the believer's state, of his worthiness, of his feelings, of his experience, of his walk, of his love, of his devotedness, of his appreciation of Christ? Then there would be no force, no value, no truth in that glorious sentence, "When I see the blood, I will pass over." In that case the wording would have to change completely, and a dark, chilling shadow would fall over its heavenly brightness. It would then have to read, "When I see the blood, and … ."
The word behind "pass over" means more than God overlooking a house. Commentators explain it as active protection:
We are told that the Hebrew word translated this way means to pass over with protection, like a bird stretching its wings over its young. It is not just the negative idea of failing to notice when it is a question of judgment. On that fateful night the Lord was going to strike the firstborn and execute judgment against all the gods of Egypt. But wherever the token of death appeared on a house, He would spread His wings of protection over it, and the plague would not enter to destroy.
The blood is also called a sign — older translations say "token" — and it was given to you, so that those inside would have something solid to hold on to.
First, that the blood (notice, not their feelings, nor opinions, nor even prayers, but the blood), and the blood only, was to be the sign to them of their perfect safety. Whatever came, they were to think of the blood and be at peace, because they were sheltered by it. ... He did not say, when I see your feelings or your doings. Oh no; but "when I see the blood, I will pass over you." So the blood answers every claim of God, as well as meeting every need of our souls.
Commentators read the whole chapter as pointing to Christ. They press the same question: what does God see?
Blind indeed are the eyes that cannot see that chapter 12 sets before us the redemption blood of Christ. As the apostle says, "For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed" (1 Corinthians 5:7). ... And God kept His word. Not one person died that night who believed what He said about that blood. ... Think what God sees in the blood of Christ! It is not what you see. Our views of the value of the atoning death of Jesus are still very limited. But what does God see? The place of highest glory into which God has raised the once-bleeding Jesus is the answer.
- Seen — the whole promise turns on one eye: God's. "When I see the blood," not when you see it.
- Outside — the blood went on the door, where those inside could not see it. Indoors they had God's word, not their sight.
- Only — nothing follows "the blood." Not state, not feelings, not worthiness, not devotedness — or the promise would have to read differently.
- Over — passing over is not God overlooking a house but covering it, like a bird spreading its wings over its young.
- Christ — the lamb of that night points to Christ our Passover. God shows what He sees in that blood by the glory He gave the One who shed it.
And this day shall be unto you for a memorial; and ye shall celebrate it [as] a feast to Jehovah; throughout your generations [as] an ordinance for ever shall ye celebrate it.
God ties Israel's rescue to a single night, and then commands a feast that repeats that night every year. Why does one act of deliverance need a permanent ceremony, and how far does "for ever" reach?
The verse gives this day more than one title, and the chapter adds still more. One writer lists them:
Israel was to keep this day in memory forever (v. 14) with a yearly feast. Various names show how important it is: (1) "the LORD's Passover" (v. 11); (2) "a memorial" (v. 14); (3) "a feast" (v. 14); (4) "an ordinance" (v. 24); (5) "a service" (v. 25); and (6) "the sacrifice" (v. 27).
God arranged the remembrance before Israel had even left Egypt. One writer sees the same pattern on the night the Lord was betrayed:
The grace of the LORD provided for Israel's wonderful redemption. The same grace provided the memorial of it, on the very night the Lamb was slain (v. 14). The Lord did the same thing. On "the night when He was betrayed" He "took bread" (1 Cor. 11:23), and set up the memorial of His dying love in direct connection with eternal redemption.
A memorial assumes a real danger of forgetting. One writer gives that reason, and says what the yearly feast kept alive:
The people of Israel were to keep that night in Egypt in perpetual remembrance. So that it might never be forgotten, they were to hold the Passover every year as a feast to the LORD throughout their generations, "as a statute forever" (Ex. 12:14). There is a dangerous tendency in the human heart to forget, especially in matters relating to God. In Deuteronomy — the book that gives us Moses' final addresses to the people — we often meet warnings like "Beware lest you forget," and "Take care that you remember." … Year by year the Passover feast was to be kept in Israel. In this way the people would keep alive in their minds the goodness of God, and the mighty fact that He redeemed them from slavery in Egypt and brought them into relationship with Himself on the ground of the blood of the lamb.
Israel's escape had two great moments: the blood on the doorpost and the Red Sea. God gave a lasting yearly memorial to only one of them:
It was God's way of vividly reminding them of their earlier slavery, and of His most marvellous way of delivering them. It was also a picture of a far greater deliverance, so it was fitting that it should have a lasting memorial. The Red Sea had none, although it was there that God openly displayed His power. The nations heard of the striking judgment on Pharaoh and his army. But did they hear of blood sprinkled on the doorpost? Did they hear how a sin-judging God stepped in to save His people from judgment? The blood on the doorpost is the foundation of everything; the Passover is God's feast, and its memorial is for ever.
The command to remember runs straight on into a second command. One writer sees a purpose in that order:
One more thing is brought in here, and it is of great practical importance to us: the feast of unleavened bread. This feast was commanded right after the sprinkling of blood (Ex. 12:14-20). This was to show that the two things — shelter by blood, and the obligation to walk in moral agreement with that death — can never be separated.
The verse calls the feast "a statute forever." One writer draws out what that guarded:
The sense of redemption by blood was not to pass away with the event in Egypt. There was to be a memorial feast, kept every year "as a statute forever."
Yet "for ever" has a limit here. One writer, weighing this verse with similar phrases in Leviticus, explains:
Here the word "everlasting" cannot mean a never-ending state. That is beyond dispute. The whole Jewish system under the law, with all its memorials, statutes and ordinances, has found its end in Christ.
- Remember the blood. The feast marks the sprinkled blood, not the power shown at the Red Sea. The doorpost is the foundation of everything.
- Remember by God's gift. God gave the memorial on the same night as the redemption itself, just as the Lord gave the bread on the night He was betrayed.
- Remember because you forget. The human heart forgets, so God commands remembrance instead of leaving it to feeling.
- Remember and walk. God joined shelter by blood to a walk that matches that death. The two cannot be pulled apart.
- Remember till Christ. "For ever" held Israel through all their generations. Writers add that the whole system of ordinances found its end in Christ.