Daily Lesson for Sunday 3rd of August 2025
On the night of Passover, divine judgment fell on those not covered by the blood (Exodus 12:1-12). No one escaped because of position, education, social status, or gender. Punishment struck all families, from Pharaoh to slaves, and even the firstborn of the animals. The pride of Egypt was in the dust.
Read Exodus 12:31-36. What strange request does Pharaoh make and why, even as he gives permission for them all to leave?
How interesting that Pharaoh, in telling the Hebrews to go and worship, adds this request: “And bless me also.”
And bless me also?
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Why would he, the king of Egypt, a “god” on earth among his people, ask that? It sounds as if he’s finally catching on to the power of the Hebrew God and would like to benefit from it. However, how can God bless him while he is steeped in rebellion, stubbornness, sin, and pride? Sure, he finally gave his consent, but it wasn’t out of submission to the will of Yahweh. It was, instead, out of defeat. He wasn’t repentant—as his later actions will reveal. He simply wanted to stop the devastation that was destroying his kingdom.
Pharaoh was humiliated. And, given the tragic circumstances from the worst plague of all, he gives permission for Israel to leave Egypt. What he refused to grant all previous times, and no matter the suffering his actions brought upon his nation, he now permits.
And the Egyptian people, understandably, are eager for the Hebrews to go, as well. As they said, please leave, or else “we shall all be dead.”
God, meanwhile, made provision so that the Israelites did not leave Egypt empty-handed but with things they would need for what, in the end, would turn out to be a much longer sojourn than anticipated. The Egyptians gave the Jews these precious articles only to hurry the people out of the country, but the items were wages that were long denied the Israelites for centuries of slave labor. Surely for the Egyptians, the price of getting the Hebrews out of their land was cheap enough.
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How often have we “repented” of actions only because of their consequences and not because those acts were themselves wrong? Why is that not true repentance? How can we learn to be sorry for the sins that, in a sense, we “get away with,” at least in the short term? |
(0)Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/25c-06-go-and-worship-the-lord/
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