from WL Worcester (H Blackmer, ed.), 
The Sower.  Helps to the Study of the Bible in Home and Sunday School
 
(Boston: Massachusetts New-Church Union, n.d.)

Table of Contents
 

 

Lesson 39

Exodus 13: In Memory of Deliverance

The Story

Primary and Junior

The first Passover was kept on the night that the children of Israel left Egypt. They were strictly charged to keep the feast each year in the spring, in the month Abib, which they counted as the first month of the year. As we read on in the story we find times when the Passover was remembered, and a time when it was kept again after being long forgotten. (Num. 9:5; Josh. 5:10; 2 Kings 23:21-23)

This feast was to be a memorial, to keep always in mind how the Lord led the people out of Egypt by His great power. It was important that the people should remember the bondage of Egypt and the Lord's power which brought them out, so that they would always trust the Lord and obey His commandments. If they should forget to trust the Lord's power and think they were safe without it, they would come again into trouble. They should remember Him in everything they did and in all their thoughts; this was meant by the charge to make the law a sign upon the hand and a memorial between the eyes. You know how some of the Jews kept this charge, writing lines from the law and tying them in little boxes called phylacteries on their arms and foreheads. But this was not the way the Lord wished them to do. (Matt. 23:5)

Every firstborn son, both of people and animals, was to be the Lord's. Some heathen people sacrificed their sons to their gods, but the Lord did not wish them to do so. Remember how He taught Abraham this lesson. (Gen. 22) It was not even required that every firstborn son should serve at the Lord's temple, for the whole tribe of the Levites were set apart instead to do that service. (Num. 3:12, 13, 40-51; 8:16-18) But each firstborn son must be presented to the Lord, and five shekels paid. (Num. 18:15-18) The shekel was a silver coin about the size of a fifty-cent piece. Remember how Mary and Joseph brought the child Jesus to the temple. (Luke 2:22-23)

We have read how on the Passover night Pharaoh told the children of Israel to go and how they journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, a district at the eastern end of Goshen. From Succoth, the short way to the land of Canaan would have been north-eastward to the shore of the Mediterranean, and so up into the Philistine country. But the Lord did not lead them "through the way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near." That was a much traveled road and there were fortified cities there. They were to go, as we shall learn, by a much longer way. And now, at the very beginning of their journey we read how the Lord led them by a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. The presence of the Lord and His angels with the people appeared to them in this way (A. 8192), and it was a beautiful reminder that they were never forgotten, but that the Lord was always leading and protecting them. They took with them from Egypt the bones of Joseph. You remember how he had charged them to do so before his death. (Gen. 50:24-26; Josh. 24:32)

1. By what other name was the Passover called? (Luke 22:1) Why?

2. What was this feast to keep always in mind?

3. How was the law to be bound upon the arm and between the eyes?

4. What way did the Lord not lead the people? What way did He lead them?

5. How did they see the presence of the Lord and angels with them?

Spiritual Study

Intermediate

The people were strictly charged to keep the Passover as a memorial of deliverance. It was to remind them of the bondage which they had been in and of the Lord's great power which had brought them out. In our spiritual experience, it is most necessary to remember what the Lord has saved us from and what we should now be if it were not for His saving power. The moment we forget this we are weak. Angels in heaven are safe only because they constantly remember their dependence upon the Lord's great power. (A. 8049, 8050)

The strict charge to put away leaven at the time of the feast means especially that this acknowledgment of dependence upon the Lord must not be spoiled by any secret thought that we are safe in our own strength. For leaven stands for selfish and false thought creeping in. (A. 8051)

The Lord told Nicodemus that heavenly life is a new birth from above. The law of the firstborn means that we must recognize that the new life is from the Lord and gratefully acknowledge it as His. This law also was to be kept in coming years, for the acknowledgment must be made not only in regard to the first gift of heavenly life, but in regard to all new gifts as time goes on. (A. 8042, 8043)

The firstborn of animals were the Lord's as well as children; they represent heavenly developments of a more external kind, which also are the Lord's. But the firstborn of the ass was to be redeemed with a lamb, that is, the lamb was to be offered in its place. This is because the ass represents something of knowledge and understanding, and the lamb something of innocent affection. The Lord does not value knowledge for its own sake, but wishes us to make it a means of gaining innocence and goodness. For every truth learned some goodness should be returned to Him. There is a similar meaning in the redeeming of the firstborn sons and the taking of the Levites in their place, for a son represents intelligence, and the Levites, like the lamb, represent charity and goodness. (A. 8078, 8088)

Having taught the fundamental principles of heavenly life, that the Lord alone protects from evil and that every good thing is from Him, the chapter takes up the line of march. The Lord did not lead the people by the short way of the Philistines, but through the longer way by the Red Sea and the desert. The Philistines represent a state of intelligence without obedience and charity. It is impossible to reach heaven by that short way, by merely knowing what is good. We must travel a longer road, working knowledge out into goodness; and this can only be done through experiences of trial and temptation, which are represented by the desert journey. (A. 8093, 8129)

Our cloud is our perception of the Lord's truth and the fire the perception of His love, both of them obscure and yet enough to guide and strengthen us at all times. (A. 8106, 8108)

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