SANCTIFY UNTO ME - The command is addressed to Moses. It was to declare the will of God that all firstborn were to be consecrated to Him, set apart from all other creatures. The command is expressly based upon the Passover. The firstborn exempt from the destruction became in a new and special sense... [ Continue Reading ]
ABIB - April. Compare Exodus 12:2. It is uncertain whether this name was ancient or given then for the first time. It is found only in the Pentateuch, six times as the name of the first month, twice in the sense of young wheat, hence its etymology, namely, the month when the wheat began to ripen. Th... [ Continue Reading ]
THE CANAANITES - Five nations only are named in this passage, whereas six are named in Exodus 3:8, and ten in the original promise to Abraham, Genesis 15:19. The first word “Canaanite” is generic, and includes all the Hamite races of Palestine.... [ Continue Reading ]
Hebrew writers have generally regarded this as a formal injunction to write the precepts on slips of parchment, and to fasten them on the wrists and forehead; but other commentators are generally agreed that it is to be understood metaphorically. The words appear to be put into the mouths of the par... [ Continue Reading ]
AN ASS - The ass could not be offered in sacrifice, being an unclean animal: possibly the only unclean animal domesticated among the Israelites at the time of the Exodus. This principle was extended to every unclean beast; see Numbers 18:15. THOU SHALT REDEEM - The lamb, or sheep, was given to the... [ Continue Reading ]
HARNESSED - More probably, “marshalled” or “in orderly array.” There is not the least indication that the Israelites had been disarmed by the Egyptians, and as occupying a frontier district frequently assailed by the nomads of the desert they would of necessity be accustomed to the use of arms. Comp... [ Continue Reading ]
ETHAM - The house or “sanctuary of Tum” (the Sun God worshipped especially by that name in Lower Egypt), was in the immediate vicinity of Heliopolis, called by the Egyptians the fortress of Zar, or Zalu (i. e. of foreigners); the frontier city where the Pharaohs of the 18th dynasty reviewed their fo... [ Continue Reading ]
PILLAR OF CLOUD - The Lord Himself did for the Israelites by preternatural means that which armies were obliged to do for themselves by natural agents. The Persians and Greeks used fire and smoke as signals in their marches, and in a well-known papyrus, the commander of an Egyptian expedition is cal... [ Continue Reading ]