that thou shalt offer unto Jehovah all that breaketh open the womb, and every firstling that cometh of cattle which is thine the males [shall be] Jehovah's.
God gives this command as Israel walks out of Egypt, and it looks ahead to the day they enter Canaan. Every firstborn, human or animal, now belongs to Him. But why does God claim the firstborn at all? And why must a human son be bought back with a lamb instead?
The command covers both people and livestock. One writer ties it to the Passover night just past, and to what God teaches afterward.
But God takes up the firstborn here to show us, in this Passover scene, His judgment on all that comes of us. Then, once the blessing of redemption is learned, He teaches us to devote to Himself "the chief of all our strength." All the firstborn must either be claimed for judgment or preserved by redemption.
The claim does not end with the wilderness. It holds when Israel settles in the land, and the animals come first.
In verses 1 and 2, the firstborn in Israel were set apart at the time of Israel's liberation from Egypt. The Lord required the same consecration when He brought them into Canaan. The animals come first: every firstborn male was to be the Lord's. Israel would offer the clean animals in sacrifice to Him, but not the unclean animals. They could be redeemed by the sacrifice of a clean animal.
The chapter gives the reason, and it reaches back to the night God struck Egypt.
It is important to notice the ground on which God claimed the firstborn. The chapter links it plainly to the destruction of the firstborn in the land of Egypt (v. 15). As we have seen, God spared Israel on that dreadful night only because of the sprinkled blood of the slain lamb — only because another died in their place. So it rested on the principle of substitution, and this in fact is the ground of God's claim in this chapter. If God spared the firstborn because of the Passover Lamb, He afterwards claimed them as His own. It is the same now. We belong to Him who has redeemed us, because He took our place and bore our sins in His own body on the tree.
The next verse makes one exception, and it exposes the whole logic. A firstborn donkey and a firstborn son are handled the same way: buy them back with a lamb, or break the donkey's neck.
There were two classes, the clean and the unclean, and man was classed with the unclean. The lamb was to answer for the unclean; and if the donkey were not redeemed, its neck was to be broken. So an unredeemed man was put on the same level as an unclean animal, in a condition that could not be more worthless.
One writer traces the picture back to what God said about Ishmael, Hagar's son.
We have only to listen to what God says of Ishmael, where He calls him not just "a wild man," as older translations put it, but literally "a wild-donkey man"... The wild-donkey man is Hagar's son, a child of nature... But Ishmael is not only Israel's picture, he is also ours in our natural state. Whether educated and refined or ignorant and degraded, we belong to that race with a neck that refuses to bear a yoke.
The order matters. God sets the firstborn apart because He has already brought the people out — not so they can get out.
The more fully we enter, by the power of the Spirit of God, into the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, the more decided our separation will be. Our devotedness will be more whole-hearted too. Trying to produce either one before we know redemption is the most hopeless work possible. All our doings must be "because of what the Lord has done," and not to get something from Him.
This ownership is not partial. The altar sets the measure.
We see, then, that the consecration that flowed from redemption was entire and personal. The sacrifice was wholly burned up on the altar. In the same way, the redeemed person is counted as belonging wholly to the Lord, soul and body, and set apart in every way for His service.
Redemption puts a question to the redeemed and to their households. One writer presses it home.
It is well to ask ourselves often whether we are recognizing His claim — His claim on us, on all that we are, and on all that we have. The father was to impress this truth on his son too (vv. 14-16), for both alike, as redeemed ones, owed their service to the Redeemer. It is a great gain when a believer sees himself and his family as belonging to the Lord.
- Judgment. Every firstborn meets one of two ends: judgment, or rescue by redemption. There is no third option.
- Substitute. God's claim rests on the Passover. Another died in their place, He spared them, and then He claimed them as His own.
- Level. The same lamb buys back the son and the unclean donkey. Without redemption, man is worth no more than that.
- Whole. What God redeems belongs to Him entirely — soul and body, like a sacrifice wholly burned on the altar.
- Afterward. Devotion follows rescue. We act because of what the Lord has done, never to get something from Him.
And every firstling of an ass shalt thou ransom with a lamb; and if thou do not ransom it, thou shalt break its neck; and every firstborn of a man among thy sons shalt thou ransom.
Exodus 13 turns the lessons of Passover night into lasting practice: God claims every firstborn, and every firstborn needs a redeemer. Verse 13 adds a strange exception — a donkey, standing in the middle of a law about firstborn sons.
The law of clean and unclean decided which animals people could bring to God. The donkey failed that test.
To begin with, it fell into the class of unclean animals. To be counted clean, an animal had to have a divided hoof and chew the cud (Leviticus 11:26). The donkey does not belong to that class. Is man a clean creature in the eyes of God, or an unclean one? … Let us not deceive ourselves. In the eye of God, man, with all his boasted light and learning, is as unclean as the donkey he despises.
Uncleanness is only half the picture. Scripture gives the animal a second trait.
In the Word of God the donkey is not only pictured as unclean; it is also the very synonym for self-will. And what is sin? 1 John 3:4 defines it correctly: "sin is lawlessness." In other words, sin is doing our own will and neglecting the will of God. Who can claim exemption here? Who among us does not love to have his own way, whatever the cost? … Genesis 16:12, correctly translated, says of Ishmael, "He shall be a wild donkey of a man."
The verse puts the donkey and the son in the same breath, and both need a redeemer. One commentator traces that parallel back to Passover night.
It is striking that the law joins the firstling of a donkey to the firstborn of man. It is more striking still that both alike needed redemption. There is also another thing. A lamb had to redeem the firstling of the donkey. A lamb had redeemed the firstborn of Israel on Passover night. Add one more thing. If no one redeemed the donkey, it had to die. Israel would have died too when the Lord struck the Egyptians. The parallel is complete. What then do we learn from it? We learn this: God places man, as he comes into the world, in the same class as the firstling of a donkey. Both are unclean. Both are doomed to destruction unless a lamb redeems them.
Why a lamb, and not some other animal?
For both the firstborn of the donkey and the firstborn of man a lamb had to be sacrificed in Israel. The lamb pictured Christ. "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!" (John 1:29). In its characteristics the lamb is the very opposite of the donkey. It is clean, so it pictures Him. Though born of a sinful mother, as we all are, He entered the world unstained in nature. All His ways too were holy. His own judge had to say of Him, "I find no guilt in this man." The lamb is also the symbol of meekness. How fitting, then, that Isaiah 53:7 says of the Lord Jesus: "like a lamb that is led to the slaughter and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth."
The wording allows no middle path — redeem it, or break its neck. One writer puts the choice as an answer to a man who has no lamb.
"Then go, buy one, and come back, or the donkey's neck must surely be broken. The lamb must die, or the donkey must die."
The broken neck matches the animal's nature, and ours.
We belong to that race with a neck that refuses to bear a yoke. So the wild-donkey nature shows itself as something God cannot own. Yet in sovereign grace He has provided the Lamb that gave up its life for our redemption — for us, who were stiff-necked and stubborn in our rebellion against God. … as rebellious sinners we fully deserved death. Our escape from it, and our possession of a life that death cannot touch, rest on one ground alone: the ransom price has been paid in the shed blood of Him, the spotless Lamb of God's providing.
The verse ends with the sons, and redemption carries a consequence.
If God spared the firstborn because of the Passover Lamb, He then claimed them as His own. It is so now. We belong to Him who has redeemed us, because He took our place and bore our sins in His own body on the tree. He died for all, so that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again. It is well to ask ourselves often: are we recognizing His claim — His claim on us, on all that we are, and on all that we have?
- Unclean. No one could offer a donkey to God. Scripture puts man in the same class.
- Stiff-necked. The animal stands for self-will, a neck that refuses the yoke; sin is doing our own will instead of God's.
- Doomed. The law leaves no third choice: the lamb dies, or the donkey dies.
- Redeemed. A lamb — clean and meek, the opposite of the donkey — dies in its place, pointing to Christ, the Lamb of God.
- Owned. God spared the firstborn, then claimed them. Those Christ has redeemed no longer belong to themselves.