Daily Devotions
Exodus
"For the LORD Most High is awesome; He is a great King over all the earth." Psalm 47:2
Text: Exodus 12 : 1-2
A NEW CALENDAR
God’s perspective for the redemption was full and complete! Releasing the children of Israel from bondage to Pharaoh, was only the first step! Unfolded in the following text was the second step!
“Now the LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt,
saying, ‘This month shall be your beginning of months;
It shall be the first month of the year to you.”
EXODUS 12:1-2
The suggestion of having a calendar must have been most exciting to the children of Israel! They had known nothing but toil and trouble under their Egyptian taskmasters! Every day was the same! They laboured to build grand structures for Pharaoh! They had no time to call their own, let alone have a calendar to plan things by! Now God Himself was organizing a calendar for them! How awesome a God He was proving Himself to be!
THE EGYPTIAN PASSOVER
What a tremendous way to begin the year! The focal point of the New Year would have a spiritual emphasis! It would commemorate a most significant event!
“For I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night,
and will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt,
both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt
I will execute judgments: I am the LORD.”
EXODUS 12:12
The last plague that God would inflict on the land of Egypt would be the slaying of all the firstborn of man and beast! This plague would be God’s judgment against “all the gods of Egypt”! The impotence of the idols would be highlighted most dramatically! The gods of Egypt would be powerless to prevent this plague from occurring! They had proven themselves useless in the last nine plagues that had devastated the land!
The solemnity and majesty of what God planned to do may be found in this phrase, “I am the LORD!” This was the memorial name that God said Israel would know him by (Cf. Exodus 3:14-16)
RECALLING A WORD SPOKEN
God had previously briefed Moses as to what He would do against Pharaoh!
“Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the LORD:
‘Israel is My son, My firstborn. So I say to you,
let My son go that he may serve Me.
But if you refuse to let him go, indeed
I will kill your son, your firstborn.””
EXODUS 4:22-23
The event of the Egyptian Passover would be commemorated forever! Each time the New Year is celebrated, the children of Israel would remember what the Lord had done to redeem them from bondage to Pharaoh!