When I See the Blood: Exodus 12:1-30

The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year.

Time itself reset. The calendar began again. Whatever month the Egyptians called it, for Israel it became the first month. Liberation marked year one.

Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household.

Instructions for survival. Take a lamb. Each family. Each household. The lamb would make the difference between life and death.

The animals you choose must be year-old males without defect, and you may take them from the sheep or the goats.

Without defect. Perfect specimens. Year-old males. The sacrifice must be unblemished.

Take care of them until the fourteenth day of the month, when all the members of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight.

Four days with the lamb. Watching it. Examining it. Perhaps the children growing attached. Then twilight on the fourteenth day. All Israel slaughtering at once. Thousands of lambs dying at the same moment.

Then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the doorframes of the houses where they eat the lambs.

The blood. Not wasted, not discarded. Applied. Doorframes marked. Sides and top—the shape of the cross, some would later note. The blood visible, public, confessed.

That same night they are to eat the meat roasted over the fire, along with bitter herbs, and bread made without yeast.

Roasted meat. Bitter herbs—reminder of bitter slavery. Unleavened bread—no time for rising. The meal eaten with haste.

Do not eat the meat raw or boiled in water, but roast it over a fire—with the head, legs and internal organs.

Complete consumption. Nothing wasted. Nothing left to spoil.

This is how you are to eat it: with your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand. Eat it in haste; it is the Lord's Passover.

Ready to move. Dressed for travel. Staff in hand. Eating in haste. The meal of departure.

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.

Pass through. Strike down. Bring judgment. The gods of Egypt—Pharaoh himself considered divine—all judged. I am the LORD.

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.

When I see the blood. The blood was not for Israel to see—they were inside. The blood was for God to see. The sign that marked the difference. Pass over—the destructive plague would skip that house.

This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord—a lasting ordinance.

Commemorated forever. Not a one-time event but an annual festival. Generations would ask why and hear the story.

At midnight the Lord struck down all the firstborn in Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on the throne, to the firstborn of the prisoner, who was in the dungeon, and the firstborn of all the livestock as well.

Midnight. The strike fell. Every house. From palace to prison. Pharaoh's heir to the dungeon prisoner's child. No Egyptian home escaped.

Pharaoh and all his officials and all the Egyptians got up during the night, and there was loud wailing in Egypt, for there was not a house without someone dead.

The wailing. Imagine it. An entire nation screaming in grief. Every house touched by death. The sound of a million broken hearts.

During the night Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, Up! Leave my people, you and the Israelites! Go, worship the Lord as you have requested. Take your flocks and herds, as you have said, and go. And also bless me.

Pharaoh's resistance shattered. Up! Leave! Go! Take everything! The man who said I do not know the LORD now begged for blessing.

The lamb died so the firstborn could live. The blood marked the difference between judgment and salvation. Centuries later, John the Baptist would point to Jesus and declare: Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.

Passover began in Egypt. It pointed forward to a cross where God's own Firstborn would die, and his blood would mark all who believe. When I see the blood, I will pass over you.