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Here is a map of the path God led the people on:

He could have led the people North, by way of a well-traveled trading route.  Instead,  he took them to a dead end.  Why? For God’s glory to be shown.  It wasn’t Moses that led them out of Egypt (slavery) it was The LORD.  Are they following and trusting Moses at this point or God?  Let’s take a look.

Chapter 13: This wonderful chapter speaks of the additional elements of the annual celebration his people are to celebrate.  Why?  Their children (and the generations to come) will not have witnessed these events personally so God is putting annual celebrations as an opportunity to teach the events that occurred: Verse 14:

¹⁴ “In days to come, when your son asks you, ‘What does this mean?’ say to him, ‘With a mighty hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. ¹⁵ When Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the Lord killed the firstborn of both people and animals in Egypt. This is why I sacrifice to the Lord the first male offspring of every womb and redeem each of my firstborn sons.’ ¹⁶ And it will be like a sign on your hand and a symbol on your forehead that the Lord brought us out of Egypt with his mighty hand.”

Go back to the LAST scripture in Genesis 50:

²⁴ Then Joseph said to his brothers, “I am about to die. But God will surely come to your aid and take you up out of this land to the land he promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” ²⁵ And Joseph made the Israelites swear an oath and said, “God will surely come to your aid, and then you must carry my bones up from this place.”

²⁶ So Joseph died at the age of a hundred and ten. And after they embalmed him, he was placed in a coffin in Egypt.

We can pull together the promises made to Abraham fulfilled in Exodus 13:19.  Moses takes the bones of Joseph to fulfill an oath taken by the sons of Israel.

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Chapter 14- God leads them to a spot near Migdol, opposite Baal Zephon. “Baal” is a root word for a pagan god.  This may have been a place sailors would worship a god of the storm for safe travel.  I picture this as another showdown between The Lord and a god of Egypt.  Storm verse storm!  God verse god.  The Lord creates an east wind with His breath to make a way for final deliverance to show that HE has brought them to redemption.

³¹ And when the Israelites saw the mighty hand of the Lord displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord and put their trust in him and in Moses his servant.

The people feared and put their trust in the Lord, Moses was merely a servant to him.

Reading these scriptures in the Bible is a very personal and amazing read.  When we hear the words Old Testament, this is often the picture in on our mind:

I think this is a scene from the movie 10 Commandments. (not sure I have not seen it)  I like this one

The exodus from Egypt, though a real, historical event, prefigures the saving work of Christ for His people. What God did through Moses was to provide physical salvation from physical slavery. What God does through Christ is provide spiritual salvation from spiritual slavery.

Paul says, “For I want you to know, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ” (1 Corinthians 10:1–4). Paul is giving the Exodus from Egypt a Christological reading; he is making the connection between the Exodus from Egypt and salvation in Christ.

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Chapter 15: Song of Victory

Moses and his sister Miriam teach the song to the Israelites.  The first part addresses the events that have already occurred, worshiping God as the majestic warrior who defeated the final claims that Pharaoh is a god.  Then in verse 13 there is a transition to future events.

On this journey they WILL encounter obstacles from the Philistines, Edom (remember this name?…look back at your genealogies to see who the Edomites are), Moab (who are the Moabites? gross), and the Canaanites (all the way back to the days of Noah we learned about them).

Today’s read ends with a piece of wood, Hebrew translation is a “tree”, which turns the bitter water into sweet drinkable water that brings life.  Hmmm. Symbolism?

What tree or wood are you thinking of from the Gospel that turned your bitter sin into living water?

God instructs his people to follow his ways (after redemption, so stop throwing stones at the lost people of the world….they are still lost) and the reward will come.  We end today with “They came to Elim, where there were 12 springs and seventy palm trees, and they camped there near the water.”  I don’t know why these numbers, but I am reminded of the 12 tribes and the 70 that ended Genesis.   ?

(There were a few really beautiful scriptures in these 3 chapters that I purposely did not talk about so that you can hear it straight from the Lord.  Please share if anything made you smile today)

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The last plagues: Each plague was significantly worse than the last.  When we get to the plague of darkness, this is when Pharaoh was shaking in his sandals.  Each god for the Egyptians was extremely important.  (One day you should spend some time digging into it, or the connection each plague had in the New Testament or End Times).

Anyway, back to the plagues.  Overruling the sun god Ra was HUGE!  See there were lots of gods in a “god hierarchy” but the Lord went straight for the top dog in each one.  I have this scene in my head after each plague was over God yelling….Next!

Chapter 11.  The plague of the firstborn.  Pharaoh was the god that mediated between man and all the gods and was in charge of divine order (obviously it’s a job that gave him a title without actually having to do anything.).  After death,  the pharaoh became divine, identified with Osiris, the father of Horus and god of the dead, and passed on his sacred powers and position to the new pharaoh, his son.

Before the last plague, lots of instructions are given, don’t forget to get all the material, gold, and silver you can carry (that’s odd, I wonder what God is planning to build? If you don’t know you will soon😁) Make this month the first month, Nisan.   So this is what their calendar looks like.

Why do you need to know this?  Because it will be a trivia question.  Just kidding.  As we read each Hebrew Jewish Feast WILL be fulfilled.  The feast is a foreshadow of what WILL come.

On the 10th day get a spotless lamb, bring it in for 4 days to ensure its unblemished state. Then there are specific instructions on what is going to happen and how you are to commemorate it.

Do you realize I worked on this post for 5 hours and have started over or deleted almost everything several times!!.  It is just too much and I don’t know where to focus myself!!!  I will just point out a few I suppose and explode later for not writing about all of them.

Calendar: I need the head to explode emoji here.  When I found out that God put all the commemorative holidays like Good Friday, Easter, (well, not Christmas, humans popped that one on the calendar, but it’s a wonderful day ending the advent of the birth of Christ.)  So God set all his feasts on the calendar in the Old Testament to be FULFILLED on the same calendar day in the New Testament.  Maybe some of you knew that, but I am telling you many don’t and it is awesome to hear it, put your hand out and say “wait, what??” and then marvel at how God’s plan and details are in everything. Here is a visual to help you get your mind around:

Chapter 12.  The Passover.

This entire chapter is the overwhelming foreshadow of the Messiah and the protective blood of Christ, the Passover lamb, that takes on the wrath of God for our sins.

The lamb is sacrificed, and no bone is to be broken, just like Christ on the cross.

Exodus 12:46 “It must be eaten inside the house; take none of the meat outside the house. Do not break any of the bones.

John 19:36 These things happened so that the scripture would be fulfilled: “Not one of his bones will be broken,”

The blood would be put on the doorpost.  Remember Covenant requires a sacrifice.  Salvation/the way to Heaven has NEVER changed!  Since Genesis Salvation has been the same as it is today.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,

that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

When we believe that Jesus was the unblemished lamb that TOOK on the wrath of God for us so we can exit our slave state to sin and death (Egypt) that’s when death will also PASSOVER us.

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Chapter 12:17 Celebrate the Festival of Unleavened Bread. So if Good Friday is the Passover, then The Festival to follow is the Resurrection 3 days later.  Yeast is symbolic to sin (we will learn about this more later), it also causes decay through the fermentation process (a compelling representation of the result of sin).  This Festival lines up with Easter Sunday.

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John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! (John 1:29)

For Christ, our Passover lamb, has beensacrificed.  (1 Cor 5:7)

They will make war against the Lamb, but the Lamb will overcome them because he is Lord of lords and King of kings—and with him will be his called, chosen and faithfulfollowers.” (Rev 17:14)

The lamb is sacrificed and applied.  Those who are obedient through Faith, they will be spared from death:

¹² “On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn of both people and animals, and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord. ¹³ The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.

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The Exodus!

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How long were the Israelites there?? (Trivia!)

⁴⁰ Now the length of time the Israelite people lived in Egypt was 430 years. ⁴¹ At the end of the 430 years, to the very day, all the Lord’s divisions left Egypt. 

When The LORD was sealing the Abrahamic Covenant in Genesis 15 he said to Abraham:

¹² As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and thick and dreadful darkness came over him. ¹³ Then the Lord said to him, “Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there. ¹⁴ But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward, they will come out with great possessions. 

He says what He means and He means what he says!

 

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Why did God need to bring plagues?

1. To show that their gods were false
2. To show that the LORD is real
3. To show that there is only 1 God (theirs never showed up)

These plagues were miracles for both the Egyptians and the Israelites to see.   The Israelites will be delivered and it is important that they know that Moses is a vessel for God (not a god).   In chapter 6: the Lord says I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. 

It is REALLY important that the people who exit Egypt (Israelites as well as some Egyptians)  are following God, not Moses.

Moses (through God), and Aaron as his prophet performs the staff/snake miracle.  The magicians were able to duplicate it BUT were not able to UNDO God’s work.  The magicians had power (tricks, illusions, sorcery, satan,…)

The Plagues were designed according to the gods that were worshiped in Egypt.  There were over 100 named gods, but they worked “together” in categories, so The LORD is going to hit all 10 categories.

The most important thing in Egypt was the Nile. The Egyptians had a god that would be a guardian over the Nile, Khnun.  A “spirit” of the Nile called Hopi, and a god that gave life in the Nile called Osiris.   I can’t help notice their own imitation of the Trinity.   So God changed the Nile to Blood. (not just red…BLOOD).

The Frogs.  The Bedrooms in the palace were probably 3 stories up, surrounded by palace walls and protection. An interesting verse for me was verse 8..Pharaoh says “Pray to the Lord to take the frogs away from me and my people.  Why didn’t he pray to the god Heqt, the great Frog, who was in charge of resurrection and childbirth?

The gnats and the flies are the next 2 plagues.  Pharaoh now wants to compromise a little.  He says if you take away the flies, I will let you make an offering to the Lord. (the 3-day journey was obedience to the Lord Exodus 3:18.).  Isn’t it weird that the magicians tried to duplicate the plagues, rather than end the plagues.  Couldn’t Pharoah see their lack of power?

The Livestock.  The bull was a chief god called Apris.   Even the cow was a god, Hathor, the mother goddess.  (that reminds me, I have to defrost the burgers for tonight).  We begin to see that The Lord is making a distinction between the Hebrews and the Egyptians.⁴ But the Lord will make a distinction between the livestock of Israel and that of Egypt, so that no animal belonging to the Israelites will die.’”

The Boils,  notice none of this is happening to the Israelites.  But this time, God hardens the heart of Pharaoh, as said he would in 4:21. Yet where is the god of medicine, Imhotep to heal them? Where is he?  He must have taken a sick day.

We end today on Hail.  I am reading this paragraph and I think…This is it…finally! Pharaoh says  “This time I have sinned,” he said to them. “The LORD is in the right, and I and my people are in the wrong.  Pray to the LORD, for we have had enough thunder and hail. I will let you go; you don’t have to stay any longer.”

God could stop here, but that would leave gods on the list, as well as the ‘deity’ of Pharaoh.  It is important to show His Sovereignty to the Egyptians, but also to the Israelites so that when they exit slavery it is not a god, Pharaoh, or Moses that will free them.  It is The God.  The ONLY GOD.

 “the Lord says I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians.

Listen, I could have made that post 5 times longer.  There is so much info in this chapter we could talk about, but let’s save some for our next Read Through.

In yesterday’s post I touched on the hardening of the heart.  Here it is again.  I don’t want you to read this and think WHY would a loving God ever do that.  He didn’t.  The Hebrew word for ‘harden’ is chazaq.  It means to fortify or strengthen what he was already feeling.

Click here for a cheat sheet I found on-line.  I will pop it into the printable section too. 

Click here for a second option if you didn’t like the other one.