A foreigner and an hired servant shall not eat thereof.
The rule barred outsiders and temporary hired workers from sharing the paschal lamb meal on the night Israel left Egypt. Those excluded could eat only by joining the congregation through circumcision, which made bought servants and strangers full members of the household with all common privileges. That bar concerned the Passover alone and did not keep the uncircumcised from keeping the Sabbath. The mention of bought and hired servants takes their existence for granted without creating, sanctioning, or justifying slavery. The meal thus guarded was a yearly memorial of deliverance when the destroying angel passed over blood-marked houses, and a type of Christ the Lamb of God slain on the fourteenth day of the first month.
Passover Setting and Wording
The ordinance to which the rule belongs was given in close connection with the tenth plague, the death of the firstborn, and the hurried departure of Israel from Egypt. It stands in the record of chapters 11 to 13:16, within the mainly historical first division of Exodus in chapters 1-18, where the firstborn are also claimed as the Lord's.
Chapters 6 to 12 give the account of the ten plagues upon Egypt and God's merciful deliverance of His children. That account presents a conflict between God's religious system and Egypt's, supported by miracles. Chapters 5-12 narrate a direct crisis over the right to worship the true Creator God and keep His commandments, particularly the Sabbath. Moses and Aaron hindered Israel from their burdens by teaching Sabbath rest, while Pharaoh despised God and His law as vain words and increased their labor. Pharaoh refused to let Israel go until his land was laid waste and the angel of death visited every family, and Israel was delivered through terrible plagues and the direct miraculous intervention of God.
In its first institution the Passover was for the Israelites in Egypt. It was first kept at Rameses on the night Israel was led out of bondage toward Canaan. The name Passover means that the angel passed over every house with blood on the doorposts and did not kill the oldest child there. The chapter's record of the exodus and unleavened bread stands one month before Israel came into the wilderness of Sin on the fifteenth day of the second month.
The chapter establishes Abib as the first month of the sacred year, while it was the seventh month of the civil year reckoned from creation. It gives the appointed time for observing the Passover. It sets out how the Passover was to be celebrated, when it was to be observed, who could take part, and its purpose.
Eating the Passover meant eating the paschal lamb meal, not Passover in a general sense. That meal was eaten with bitter herbs. In this Passover law the word eat implies both to eat and to drink. Drinking as such was optional, but the seven-day festival made drink a necessity, left to circumstances and common sense. The one absolute rule was that nothing leavened or fermented was permitted at the sacred memorial feast, under the heaviest penalty known, so whatever drink was used could not be leavened.
Memorial, Type and Deliverance
Exodus 12 contains memorials of Israel's deliverance from Egypt, with the Passover observance as the appropriate memorial of that deliverance, especially the night kept in remembrance of the Lord bringing Israel out. The Passover recalled that God passed over Israel when He struck the Egyptians, and the feast of unleavened bread recalled the bread eaten during the flight from Egypt, and these memorials, unlike the weekly Sabbath, commemorated the deliverance. The Passover ordinance was a fit, plain yearly memorial preserving in strong remembrance how God brought judgment nigh when Egypt's firstborn were doomed to die and the destroying angel passed over Israel's dwellings.
The blood on the doorposts is a type of Christ's blood, through which God passes over transgression and grants pardon so that His people are not cut off. The lamb eaten by each family was a memorial of the deliverance from Egypt and a type of Christ, the Lamb of God. The Passover which commemorated that deliverance served as a shadow of something good to be done for the human race.
The paschal lamb was slain on the fourteenth day of the first month, and this met its antitype in the death of the Lamb of God on that day.
The houses marked with the blood of the paschal lamb and spared as the destroying angel passed to slay the Egyptians' firstborn are a pattern for the seal of God, a distinguishing mark or religious characteristic through which God's servants will be exempted from the judgments falling on the wicked around them. The account of the plagues in Exodus 7-12 foreshadows the seven last plagues, which will be as real and literal as the plagues of Egypt were. As the plagues of Egypt came just prior to Israel's deliverance, the seven last plagues will be poured out just before the final deliverance of the saints. The going out from Egypt to Canaan is a type of the deliverance of God's people from the dark Egypt of earth, and the plagues visited upon Egypt are a type of the last plagues recorded in Revelation 16 and were literal events known in Egypt and not doubted in Philistia. That setting of Israel during the plagues on Egypt corresponds to God's people remaining on earth through the first six end-time plagues, protected by God during the time of trouble.
In the Passover deliverance the firstborn of those who believed God were spared, while in the homes of those who rejected God's mercy not one escaped the destroyer's hand. That surpassingly impressive experience, together with the ten plagues, the Red Sea, Marah, bread from heaven, and water from the rock, gave Israel personal knowledge of and acquaintance with the King of kings and Lord of lords. It made the title I am the Lord thy God which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt out of the house of bondage far more comprehensive than the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. After God redeemed Israel from Egyptian bondage with a mighty hand, because hundreds of years of slavery had unfitted them to comprehend His great salvation and the character He required, He gave them the sanctuary as a great multiple object-lesson in various forms and rites comprehending the great plan of salvation.
The Passover instructions are described as perpetual, and this rule is an example of an ordinance called perpetual whose prescribed period can nevertheless expire.
Exclusion, Belonging and Slavery
A foreigner and a hired servant were not permitted to eat the Passover lamb or meal. The directions for the Passover given in Exodus 12 governed the meal eaten before suffering, so preparation and eating followed those directions.
Such outsiders could partake only after becoming members of the Hebrew church through circumcision, so the restriction fell on those not admitted under that condition. Those bought with money were to be circumcised, thereby becoming part of the household during service and naturalized citizens of the state, members of the congregation, and partakers of all the rites and privileges common to the people. In this way the stranger was made as one born among them, which increased the numbers of the commonwealth.
The bar on the uncircumcised foreigner and hired servant applied to eating the Passover, not to keeping the Sabbath. Circumcision was not required to keep the Sabbath, as shown by women and nearly all Israel during the forty years keeping the Sabbath without circumcision. The mention of servants bought with money and hired servants in connection with who may eat is the first reference to servitude in the Jewish economy. It does not create, institute, provide for, sanction, censure, or justify slavery or either system of service, but only takes for granted that bought servants and hired servants already exist, without approval or condemnation of that existing practice, and therefore gives no justification for American slavery.
At that time Israel had been reduced to a servile condition as serfs of the Egyptians. After allowing it for a time, God refused to sanction even that modified form of slavery and demanded their instant release. When release was refused He struck the oppressors with terrible judgments, led Israel forth as an army of fugitive slaves, and drowned their pursuers in the Red Sea. The same law given to Israel was for every other person of whatever race or nationality. Israel was the chosen people through whom knowledge of God was to extend throughout the earth as a light to the surrounding nations, revealing to all other people what it means to be a member of God's government and God's people. The Ten Commandments were the Constitution of the government of Israel, and the added laws, rites, services, and ceremonies were by-laws explaining the real meaning of the Sinai law, how to be kept from transgressing it and what to do when it was violated. In Egypt Israel still observed God's ordinances, with circumcision kept as necessary to eat the Passover and the people ready to eat it, which shows they worshiped God and had not forgotten His past dealings.
The rule barred outsiders and temporary hired workers from sharing the paschal lamb meal on the night Israel left Egypt. Those excluded could eat only by joining the congregation through circumcision, which made bought servants and strangers full members of the household with all common privileges. That bar concerned the Passover alone and did not keep the uncircumcised from keeping the Sabbath. The mention of bought and hired servants takes their existence for granted without creating, sanctioning, or justifying slavery. The meal thus guarded was a yearly memorial of deliverance when the destroying angel passed over blood-marked houses, and a type of Christ the Lamb of God slain on the fourteenth day of the first month.
Passover Setting and Wording
The ordinance to which the rule belongs was given in close connection with the tenth plague, the death of the firstborn, and the hurried departure of Israel from Egypt. It stands in the record of chapters 11 to 13:16, within the mainly historical first division of Exodus in chapters 1-18, where the firstborn are also claimed as the Lord's.
Chapters 6 to 12 give the account of the ten plagues upon Egypt and God's merciful deliverance of His children. That account presents a conflict between God's religious system and Egypt's, supported by miracles. Chapters 5-12 narrate a direct crisis over the right to worship the true Creator God and keep His commandments, particularly the Sabbath. Moses and Aaron hindered Israel from their burdens by teaching Sabbath rest, while Pharaoh despised God and His law as vain words and increased their labor. Pharaoh refused to let Israel go until his land was laid waste and the angel of death visited every family, and Israel was delivered through terrible plagues and the direct miraculous intervention of God.
In its first institution the Passover was for the Israelites in Egypt. It was first kept at Rameses on the night Israel was led out of bondage toward Canaan. The name Passover means that the angel passed over every house with blood on the doorposts and did not kill the oldest child there. The chapter's record of the exodus and unleavened bread stands one month before Israel came into the wilderness of Sin on the fifteenth day of the second month.
The chapter establishes Abib as the first month of the sacred year, while it was the seventh month of the civil year reckoned from creation. It gives the appointed time for observing the Passover. It sets out how the Passover was to be celebrated, when it was to be observed, who could take part, and its purpose.
Eating the Passover meant eating the paschal lamb meal, not Passover in a general sense. That meal was eaten with bitter herbs. In this Passover law the word eat implies both to eat and to drink. Drinking as such was optional, but the seven-day festival made drink a necessity, left to circumstances and common sense. The one absolute rule was that nothing leavened or fermented was permitted at the sacred memorial feast, under the heaviest penalty known, so whatever drink was used could not be leavened.
Memorial, Type and Deliverance
Exodus 12 contains memorials of Israel's deliverance from Egypt, with the Passover observance as the appropriate memorial of that deliverance, especially the night kept in remembrance of the Lord bringing Israel out. The Passover recalled that God passed over Israel when He struck the Egyptians, and the feast of unleavened bread recalled the bread eaten during the flight from Egypt, and these memorials, unlike the weekly Sabbath, commemorated the deliverance. The Passover ordinance was a fit, plain yearly memorial preserving in strong remembrance how God brought judgment nigh when Egypt's firstborn were doomed to die and the destroying angel passed over Israel's dwellings.
The blood on the doorposts is a type of Christ's blood, through which God passes over transgression and grants pardon so that His people are not cut off. The lamb eaten by each family was a memorial of the deliverance from Egypt and a type of Christ, the Lamb of God. The Passover which commemorated that deliverance served as a shadow of something good to be done for the human race.
The paschal lamb was slain on the fourteenth day of the first month, and this met its antitype in the death of the Lamb of God on that day.
The houses marked with the blood of the paschal lamb and spared as the destroying angel passed to slay the Egyptians' firstborn are a pattern for the seal of God, a distinguishing mark or religious characteristic through which God's servants will be exempted from the judgments falling on the wicked around them. The account of the plagues in Exodus 7-12 foreshadows the seven last plagues, which will be as real and literal as the plagues of Egypt were. As the plagues of Egypt came just prior to Israel's deliverance, the seven last plagues will be poured out just before the final deliverance of the saints. The going out from Egypt to Canaan is a type of the deliverance of God's people from the dark Egypt of earth, and the plagues visited upon Egypt are a type of the last plagues recorded in Revelation 16 and were literal events known in Egypt and not doubted in Philistia. That setting of Israel during the plagues on Egypt corresponds to God's people remaining on earth through the first six end-time plagues, protected by God during the time of trouble.
In the Passover deliverance the firstborn of those who believed God were spared, while in the homes of those who rejected God's mercy not one escaped the destroyer's hand. That surpassingly impressive experience, together with the ten plagues, the Red Sea, Marah, bread from heaven, and water from the rock, gave Israel personal knowledge of and acquaintance with the King of kings and Lord of lords. It made the title I am the Lord thy God which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt out of the house of bondage far more comprehensive than the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. After God redeemed Israel from Egyptian bondage with a mighty hand, because hundreds of years of slavery had unfitted them to comprehend His great salvation and the character He required, He gave them the sanctuary as a great multiple object-lesson in various forms and rites comprehending the great plan of salvation.
The Passover instructions are described as perpetual, and this rule is an example of an ordinance called perpetual whose prescribed period can nevertheless expire.
Exclusion, Belonging and Slavery
A foreigner and a hired servant were not permitted to eat the Passover lamb or meal. The directions for the Passover given in Exodus 12 governed the meal eaten before suffering, so preparation and eating followed those directions.
Such outsiders could partake only after becoming members of the Hebrew church through circumcision, so the restriction fell on those not admitted under that condition. Those bought with money were to be circumcised, thereby becoming part of the household during service and naturalized citizens of the state, members of the congregation, and partakers of all the rites and privileges common to the people. In this way the stranger was made as one born among them, which increased the numbers of the commonwealth.
The bar on the uncircumcised foreigner and hired servant applied to eating the Passover, not to keeping the Sabbath. Circumcision was not required to keep the Sabbath, as shown by women and nearly all Israel during the forty years keeping the Sabbath without circumcision. The mention of servants bought with money and hired servants in connection with who may eat is the first reference to servitude in the Jewish economy. It does not create, institute, provide for, sanction, censure, or justify slavery or either system of service, but only takes for granted that bought servants and hired servants already exist, without approval or condemnation of that existing practice, and therefore gives no justification for American slavery.
At that time Israel had been reduced to a servile condition as serfs of the Egyptians. After allowing it for a time, God refused to sanction even that modified form of slavery and demanded their instant release. When release was refused He struck the oppressors with terrible judgments, led Israel forth as an army of fugitive slaves, and drowned their pursuers in the Red Sea. The same law given to Israel was for every other person of whatever race or nationality. Israel was the chosen people through whom knowledge of God was to extend throughout the earth as a light to the surrounding nations, revealing to all other people what it means to be a member of God's government and God's people. The Ten Commandments were the Constitution of the government of Israel, and the added laws, rites, services, and ceremonies were by-laws explaining the real meaning of the Sinai law, how to be kept from transgressing it and what to do when it was violated. In Egypt Israel still observed God's ordinances, with circumcision kept as necessary to eat the Passover and the people ready to eat it, which shows they worshiped God and had not forgotten His past dealings.