I've been slowly reading through the books of Moses recently. I finished Genesis while I was in Europe, took a detour through the Gospel of John, and am now in Exodus. As when I was reading Genesis, I find that it has been such a long time since I last read Exodus that reading it again now has a sort of freshness to it and although I'm a little surprised at how often I'm surprised at what I'm reading (I've forgotten quite a lot), I'm noticing things this time through that I had never paid attention to before. For instance... I just read chapter 13. The first two verses seemed a little out of place at first - sandwiched between a section on the Passover (chapter 12) and a section reiterating the feast of unleavened bread (13:3-10), the first two verses are "The Lord said to Moses, '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.'" Why is this stuck between the eating of unleavened bread with the passover and the reiteration of the requirement to keep the feast of unleavened bread?
And again, in 13:11-16 there is this business about firstborns. But this time there is a reference also to the Passover and the slaying of the firstborns. So there's a thread of unity starting to emerge, from chapters 11 and 12 (Passover) through 13:1-2, and through to 13:16. Now, what's particularly interesting is in 13:12-13 and 13:15. The relevant parts of these verses are as follows: "All the firstborn of your animals that are males shall be the Lord's. 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." And "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."
I think this is what is going on: When God says "the firstborn is mine", He means that the firstborn is to be sacrificed to Him. I suppose this might be similar to the kind of sacrifices that the Canaanites (and other peoples through history) performed - we know that they used to sacrifice their children to their gods. But what is interesting is that in the very next breath God demands redemption by a lamb. It is as if God is saying "Your only-begotten son I demand of you - but you must redeem him by offering a lamb in his place". This is exactly what God demanded of Abraham - "offer him as a burnt offering to Me". And this is exactly what the outcome was when Abraham was about to sacrifice Isaac - "Abraham, Abraham! Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him"; and "Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram...And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called the name of that place, 'The Lord will provide.'" And of course, this is the great theme of salvation - that God has offered His own Son as the lamb to redeem us.
Well, specifically, to redeem Israel. In Exodus 4:22, God tells Moses that he shall say to Pharaoh "Thus saith the Lord, 'Israel is my firstborn son, and I say to you, Let my son go that he may serve me. If you refuse to let him go, behold, I will kill your firstborn son.'" And this is exactly what happens in the 10th plague - the Passover. The firstborn of all of Egypt was killed because Pharaoh had not let Israel go. And notice also that the firstborn of Israel was spared precisely because of the lamb's blood on the doorposts of the houses (12:22-23).
So Exodus 13:1-2 begins to make sense in its context. You have the Passover in which the firstborn of Egypt is killed because God's firstborn (Israel) is not allowed to serve Him, so God redeems His firstborn with the firstborn of Egypt. The firstborn of Israel are spared because they are redeemed by a lamb (in the Passover). And this is all to be commemorated by the feast of unleavened bread and by the redeeming of all firstborns (well, not firstborn animals, except for donkeys - and I have no idea why donkeys are the exception) with a lamb, just as Isaac was redeemed by the ram, and just as all of Israel/God's people are redeemed by the Lamb of God, who is at the same time the only-begotten Son of the Father who is offered up to Him.
For that matter, Exodus 4:24-26 struck me as a bit out of place. You have God telling Moses to go to Egypt and lead the people out in the preceding verses, and you have God telling Aaron to go meet Moses and work with him to accomplish bringing the people out in the following verses; but in between you get this weird 3 verses about how God tries to kill Moses (whom He has just sent to Egypt to free His people) because Moses' son was not circumcised. But actually I think the placement of this episode at this point is just right. God has just told Moses to demand the release of Israel on the basis of the fact that Israel is His firstborn son. But God had earlier told Abraham that anyone who was not circumcised would be cut off from the covenant people; and there's this whole thing about the firstborn belonging to God. You could say then that Gershom, Moses' son, should by rights have belonged to God but Moses had not acknowledged that by circumcising his son and bringing him into the covenant - Gershom was still Moses' even though God demanded him as a part of the covenant. How could Moses convincingly (or at least with integrity) demand that Pharaoh let Israel go on account that Israel was God's (rather than Pharaoh's) when Moses himself was not giving to God what was His? And if the penalty to Egypt was destruction, it is fitting that the same penalty would be to Moses. Or... If the verse is indicating that the Lord was going to kill Gershom (rather than Moses), that also makes sense, because apart from the covenant there is no lamb to redeem the firstborn and therefore the firstborn must die (be sacrificed to God).
Well, those are some thoughts about Exodus 13. Now it's time for bed.
