Parshah Bo - Exodus 10:1-13:16
Torah Reading for Week of January 25-31, 2009
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Pesach’s Bread of Faith
This week’s Parshah tells the story of the final plagues that God sent against the Egyptians and records for us the first Pesach (Passover) which is sometimes thought of and commemorated as the birth of the Jewish nation. It was the moment when God would fulfil His word to Moses and the children of Israel would begin their journey to Mount Sinai where God would give them His Torah.
Say therefore to the people of Israel, ‘I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the LORD your God.’ (Exodus 6:6-7)
God tells Moses to go in to Pharaoh and confront him with His warning that, if he doesn’t let the children of Israel go, He will send a plague of locusts, but Pharaoh’s heart has been hardened by God. Even his advisors are telling him that Moses is causing the country to be ruined and all he can concede is to allow the men to go to worship God. Moses tells him that this is not enough - they must all go, their families and their livestock. But Pharaoh couldn’t concede, so God sends the locusts and devastates the land. At this point, Pharaoh calls for Moses and acknowledges that he has sinned against them and their God, yet, when Moses asks that Pharaoh to let the people go, he, again, says no. So God tells Moses to stretch out his hand and darkness descended on the land of Egypt for 3 days; although, not upon the children of Israel who had light. Yet again Pharaoh’s heart remains hard – now he is willing that all go but not their flocks, but Moses says that this won’t do, for how can they make sacrifices. Pharaoh, furious, banishes Moses with a death threat.
But why did God harden the heart of Pharaoh? I think perhaps that there are a number of reasons; first, we read God reasons: Then the LORD said to Moses, "Go in to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants, that I may show these signs of mine among them, and that you may tell in the hearing of your son and of your grandson how I have dealt harshly with the Egyptians and what signs I have done among them, that you may know that I am the LORD." (Exodus 10:1-2)
God wanted to show both the Egyptians and the Children of Egypt his Lordship, that He is the Lord of Heaven and Earth. In fact, as we look at the "Eser Makot" (the ten plagues or punishments) that God sent against the Egyptians, we are actually seeing a powerful spiritual battle being played out before us
Pharaoh who had feared the rise of a foreign nation within Egypt’s borders had sought to limit and oppress Israel, so he cursed them by destroying their firstborn, drowning their male children in water. God, in turn, cursed Pharaoh and all Egypt, bringing destruction Egypt’s firstborn and by later destroying the pride of Egypt’s military forces in water. (They drowned after the Israelites had crossed the Red Sea.)
The plagues were part of a powerful campaign of spiritual warfare waged by God and directed against different demonic powers worshipped by the Egyptians. For example, Hapi the Nile-god was shown powerless when the Nile turned to blood; Heqit. the frog goddess of fertility, became a plague to the Egyptians through the plague of frogs; light of Ra the sun-god was blotted out. The plagues declared God’s awesome power in judgment, and that He alone is God.
God again speaks to Moses and tells him of the final plague, the death of the firstborn, and gives them what the rabbis say is the first mitzvah (command) that God gave to the Jewish people; even before the giving of the Torah (Law). This was the establishment of a calendar which was to follow the cycle of the moon, not the sun. Other nations fixed their calendars to the sun. The rabbis suggest it is a reminder that just as the moon has no light of its own but reflects the light of the sun, so, too, Israel has no light of its own but the light that Israel is to reflect is the light of God’s Glory.
Interestingly, God calls it the first month of the year. This is not the New Year which happens in Tishri, the 7th month - when the number of the year changes, but it is considered to be the beginning of the religious year. In God’s calendar, the first month of the year begins with redemption, the deliverance of the children of Israel from slavery and bondage in Egypt. We too have different annual cycles, for example, the tax year or the academic year.
They were to count the days taking a year old lamb on the 10th day and keeping it until the 14th when they were to slaughter it at twilight and put its blood on their doorposts as a sign. They were to eat the lamb with unleavened bread and bitter herbs on that night with their belt fastened, their sandals on and their staff in hand as a sign of readiness. On that night when the Lord passed through the land killing all the male firstborn children of Egypt, He passed over the homes whose doorposts were marked with blood.
Someone recently asked the question: did God not know where His people lived that He needed a sign? Of course not, it was His people who needed a sign. He was building their faith and trust in Him. He was teaching them to look to Him.
God instituted the Passover as a memorial to be celebrated down through the generations and it is still kept today and is a reminder of these lessons.
You shall observe this rite as a statute for you and for your sons forever. And when you come to the land that the LORD will give you, as he has promised, you shall keep this service. And when your children say to you, 'What do you mean by this service?' you shall say, 'It is the sacrifice of the LORD's Passover, for he passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt, when he struck the Egyptians but spared our houses.'" And the people bowed their heads and worshipped. Then the people of Israel went and did so; as the LORD had commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did. (Exodus 12:24-28)
We end the Torah portion with the command to celebrate for seven days the feast of unleavened bread. In today’s Passover celebrations the matzah along with the 4 cups of one is central to the meal and is often called the ‘bread of affliction’. With it we identify with our ancestors in their slavery and with the afikomen (another piece of matzah that is wrapped in a white cloth and hidden to be found by the children and eaten at the end of the meal) we are reminded of the deliverance God wrought for His people. Jewish people are taught to celebrate the Passover meal as if it were they who were being set free and brought out of Egypt.
The children of Israel were downtrodden, oppressed, and had lost sight of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I read this comment: “On Passover eve, God ignited a small seed of faith with a tremendous revelation of His might and truth, blasting our souls free of the chains that had imprisoned them in an internal slavery far worse than any physical bondage”.
It was this faith, and this faith alone, that took us out of Egypt and set us on the road to Sinai. The prophet Jeremiah describes the moment when he says: "So says God: I remember your youthful love, your bridal devotion, following Me out to the desert, to an unsown land."
But faith alone was not enough. Faith can move mountains, but it cannot remake the essence of man. Faith got us out of Egypt, but it could not get Egypt out of us. To become truly free we have to change from within and that only happens when we give ourselves to God, through the Messiah Yeshua - when we experience for ourselves liberation from the bondage of sin and when we leave behind our spiritual Egypt to enter the Promised Land.
He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. (Colossians 1:13-14)
Matzah also represents the food eaten by slaves - hard bread digests slower and keeps hunger away longer. Yet this Bread of Affliction becomes the Bread of Freedom which was eaten by the Israelites as they left the slavery of Egypt for freedom.
Matzah is not a tasteless food, it has a taste: it is the taste of faith, the taste of commitment, the taste of obedience. Faith, true faith, always carries the potential for a deep and satisfying relationship with God. So it is said that the matzah not the wine, that is the true symbol of the Exodus and the symbol of our freedom and nationhood; and a poignant reminder of the One who was broken to make us whole.
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