S4E7: Why God strikes every firstborn of Egypt - Plague and the Lamb 1

We’re back again for another episode! This is a kind of milestone for the series, as we cover a key narrative in Exodus—that of the final tenth plague, which connects to the Gospel account of Jesus Christ. And the question we must first wrestle with is: why does God strike down every firstborn in Egypt? The plague horrifies with us with the image of dead children, though according to Exodus, it’d have struck down both young and old, and even the animals—but that of course only makes it worse. Why is God’s judgment so indiscriminate?

But, what if there’s something more to this plague? What if the story of this plague means something deeper than what’s on the surface? What if it is connected with other stories and ideas that both challenge and expand our idea of what God’s judgment really means? And what if that is why it connects to the story of Jesus Christ, saving all of humanity?

This is actually the first part of a two-part episode, which I had to split because of the length. So, I really want to get the second episode finished and uploaded within this month, though the latest trends suggest that this will be very challenging. So please keep me in your thoughts, and for those who pray, your prayers!

Chapters

• 0:00 The uniqueness of the tenth plague
• 3:56 The analogy of crime and punishment for God's judgment
• 13:38 God's judgment in the "original, primeval" sense
• 24:30 How the final plague is a "primeval" judgment of God
• 34:23 What the plague of the death of "firstborns" means
• 41:25 Blood that God's judgment passes over

Transcript

[ Pendulum ]

The tenth plague that God unfolds upon Egypt seems different from the previous nine in a fundamental way. And we often miss this, because we tend to become transfixed by the sheer horror of this plague. God kills every firstborn male in Egypt. And the image of dead children that this raises for us tends to overshadow our every other thought about it. But, I think we miss something crucial when we do so. This final plague is completely unlike the first nine, and this difference may tell us what this plague is really about.

The previous plagues involved Nature in some way: whether river, or frogs, or insects, or disease, or hail and thunder, or wind and locusts—even darkness may have been a cloud of volcanic ash. This is not surprising since for Christianity, every law of nature is God speaking, and God “calls forth” every natural event. But, the tenth plague does not involve anything in nature—no disease, no disaster. Not only that, it is unclear whether even unnatural things were involved, like the “destroying angels” mentioned elsewhere in the Bible. [1] Every firstborn male in Egypt simply just dies overnight. 

And according to Exodus, the tenth plague is the only plague that God declares from the very start. As soon as Moses set off on his journey to Egypt, God spoke to him with these words. “Tell this to Pharaoh. ‘This is what Yahweh says: Israel is my firstborn son, and I told you, “Let my son go, so he may worship me.” But you refused to let him go. So, I will kill your firstborn son.’” God did not speak of any of the other nine plagues at the start: only the tenth. This seems to suggest that the tenth is the real plague, while the other nine, in a sense, were somehow added in as a “lead-up” to it.

But, the most startling characteristic of this plague is its all-encompassing scope. Every firstborn in Egypt will die, from the child of slaves to the son of Pharaoh—and not just humans, but even the firstborn of every domesticated animal. And especially significant point here is that not even the Israelites are exempt, even though they are very people that God is rescuing by unfolding these plagues. 

And what saves you from this final plague has nothing to do with who you are—you are not saved because you are a victim of oppression, or because you are a child of Israel and a descendant of Abraham. What saves you is the blood of a lamb. God speaks to Moses that when God moves throughout Egypt with this plague, He will pass over the houses of anyone who has marked their doors with this blood—anyone, God does not speak of any other conditions. And Christians would later identify this lamb with the figure of Jesus Christ, bleeding and dying on the Cross. So, what does this all mean? What is the plague, and the Lamb? Let’s explore these questions in this episode of…

[ music / ] 

… "What do you mean, God speaks?" where we explore important ideas, insights, and stories in Christianity, for the skeptics who want to understand religion, Christians who have questions about their own beliefs, and everyone in between. 

I am Paul Seungoh Chung, and this is our seventh episode of the fourth season, “The Plague and the Lamb, Part 1—Why God strikes down every firstborn in Egypt.”  

[ / music ]

I think the biggest mistake we tend to make today when we’re wrestling with the idea of God’s judgment is to think of it simply in terms of our human criminal-justice system— that is, think of it simply as God punishing us for our crimes. Remember: everything we say of God is an analogy, and every analogy has limits. And if we fail to keep this in mind, we are bound to misunderstand something that’s crucial. 

Now, we will largely be leaving aside the idea of Hell here, because that’s a whole other topic. To be sure, Hell is an extension of the idea of God’s judgment, so what we will explore in this episode, including how we’ve misunderstood that idea, do apply to beliefs about Hell as well. But, there’s much more to the idea of Hell than that, and we’ll need to have covered much more ground in other seasons, before we can really delve into that topic. 

Anyway, back to this analogy of crime and punishment; this analogy does resemble what God sometimes seems to do in our lives—that is to say, what reality sometimes unfolds upon us. We humans can do terrible things sometimes, and when reality unfolds terrible things to us afterwards, it is like we’re being punished for our crimes. So, when a cruel tyrant was overthrown and killed, or when someone who became rich by cheating other people, lost everything in a disaster, people have often viewed that as God punishing them for their crimes. And in the Bible, God does sometimes punish people in this way. But, things aren’t so clear and simple in Life—not in the here and now. Too often, the guilty are not punished, and the innocent suffer. And the Bible points this out too, most notably in the book of Job, and in the prophetic writings, but especially in the Gospels —through the teachings of Jesus Christ himself and his own suffering and death at the hands of corrupt and unjust people in power. So there is a limit to our analogy. 

But, more to the point, this analogy limits our understanding of what God’s judgment is, by narrowing it to the terms of administering punishment. So, when we read the stories in the Bible that describe God, bringing down judgment on people, we tend to become fixated on whether the punishment was administered correctly—that is to say, whether God really punished those who deserved to be punished, and whether the punishment fit their crime. So, when we read about the tenth plague, we ask why God punishes so indiscriminately, so that even children die for what Pharaoh did, while Pharaoh himself does not die; we may ask whether refusing to listen to God is a crime that deserves a death sentence. Within the analogy of a human criminal-justice system, what God does seems to fail our standard of justice; and telling us that God’s standard is higher than ours is not very helpful, since our standard is the only one we know, so it’s the only one we can meaningfully apply to our analogy of administering punishment. However, the answer that God’s standard is “higher” also suggests that our analogy has reached its limits, and we need to go beyond it to understand what God is doing—now, it obviously won’t be a complete understanding, but hopefully, a better one. But, how do we start?

Perhaps we can start by remembering why we have a system of crime and punishment in the first place. This system is something we made, and why we made it may reveal its connection to our idea of God’s judgment. And according to current theories, our criminal-justice system serves a number of different but related purposes. [2] So say, someone murdered his brother because he wanted to take over the other’s shares of their family company. By punishing the murderer, either by imprisoning him, or even by executing him, we are stating as a society that this action deserves this retribution. It also stops the offender from harming more people, while deterring others from doing the same thing; also, by punishing him, the spouse or the child of the victim can go on with their lives, instead of, say, living a life of vengeance. Some punishment may even aim to rehabilitate him, so that he will come to truly regret what he’s done, and make amends, if that’s possible. And all of this protects our society as a whole. 

But, then the question is: protect us from what, exactly? Other than just the criminals, I mean, because we don’t need something as complicated as a system of laws for that; guns, violence, and vengeance would also work. But, then the problem is: what kind of world would that unfold for us? For there is something that underlies all of the reasons we considered on why we have a system of laws, with set punishments for breaking them—and it’s something so fundamental and obvious that we rarely even notice it. 

Let me give a simpler example to illustrate what it is. Here’s what the instructor of my high school driving class years ago said about traffic laws, which has stuck with me ever since—yes, I know traffic laws technically aren’t criminal laws, but the same points still apply. So, say we’re driving, and we see a sign that says the speed limit for a sharp curve on a road ahead is 40km/hour. This is a law that we made up. And we can break it, though if we’re caught, we can be punished with a fine, or even a suspension of our license. Of course, we can also not get caught. “But remember,” the instructor added meaningfully, you can break traffic laws, but you can’t break the laws of physics; if you aren’t caught by the police while driving a 100 on that curve, the laws of physics will take over and your car will go off the road and crash, or flip over, or worse. When our human-made systems fail, a greater and deeper system takes over. And our society punishes those who break traffic laws, in order to protect us from that. 

Reality unfolds in a very particular way in response to what we do, which is why our actions have consequences. And the world that unfolds because of our actions is the world we must then live with—or sometimes die from. That is the deepest reason why we praise certain kinds of actions while punishing others. And as we explored in our previous episodes, summed up especially in a Season 3 episode titled, “Why would you think that God is good?” reality is structured in such a way that if we live by truth, justice, and peace, what tends to unfold is a world where we flourish together; but, if we live by lies, injustice, and violence, what will unfold is a world where we perish together. Our criminal-justice system protects us from that; it administers punishments to those who “push” reality,so to speak, toward unfolding a world where we perish together. 

And it is here that we should again remember: God? (God) is reality. 

Using the analogy of our criminal-justice system to understand God’s judgment has this tendency to make us slip back into thinking of God yet again as just another entity in our reality: a cosmic entity that administers punishment—like a trial judge, pronouncing a sentence, or perhaps a traffic cop, handing out a ticket. But, punishments imposed by such figures are, in the end, artificial. Paying a fine, for example, is not something that unfolds naturally from speeding; we set up our traffic laws to impose that, so that we won’t “push” reality into unfolding what really happens when we drive at a 100 on a sharp curve. And in our analogy of crime and punishment, God is like this traffic cop, imposing fines on us; but, God–is–Reality, and the laws of physics that govern how our car careens off the road and crash, is God speaking. 

So, God’s judgment, in this example, is actually our car crashing; it is the destruction of our car, debilitating injuries or even death, not only for ourselves, but even other people —passengers, other drivers, pedestrians. And if we’ve been thinking of God’s judgment simply in terms of crime and punishment, and God as a traffic cop handing out a fine, we are bound to protest that this judgment is an overly excessive and indiscriminate punishment. This is how we’ve misunderstood what it means for God tor judge us.

[ Pendulum ]

Now, make sure you don’t get me wrong; in the Bible, God does sometimes speak forth and administers punishments, like a judge in our human criminal-justice system. So, for example, a series of rare and unlikely natural disasters may strike a people because of what they did, and this is always first preceded by a verbal sentencing by someone who speaks with God—who the Bible calls the “prophets.” And yes, this is what the first nine plagues of Egypt are. But, this kind of judgment is a subset of something far, far larger. 

All of reality is God speaking. But, regarding our own lives, we fill in the content of what God speaks. And God will speak that content, even if it is filled with our lies, injustice, and violence, so that reality will unfold a world where we all perish. And that—that—is God’s judgment in the original, primeval sense in the Bible.

And our criminal-justice system protects us from that; it is in place to keep that world from unfolding. But, then we need to remember that since all of reality is God speaking, every truth is God speaking to us, which means, every system of laws and punishments, which is true and just—and not corrupt—is also something that God is speaking; it is God speaking to us about what actions we must punish, so that reality does not unfold the world where we all perish. We can even think of it this way: our justice system is God speaking to us, in order to protect us from His primeval judgment. That’s the idea that the Christian Bible presents, and through one of its foundational stories, no less. 

See, there’s a reason for the exact wording: “God’s judgment in the original, primeval sense”. These words connect to what we explored in the second season of this series: Genesis. The first eleven chapters of the book of Genesis, which are the accounts of Creation, the Fall, the Great Flood, and so on, depict the origin of this world and how it became what it is. And so, they frame everything that follows in the Bible; they are the context from which everything else unfolds, including the plagues that strike Egypt in the Exodus account. And scholars call these Genesis narratives, “primeval history.” 

And so, the kind of “judgments” that God pronounces upon humanity in this “primeval” history is what I’ve been calling “judgments in the ‘primeval’ sense.” These are what reality unfolds in response to what we do; they are what our world becomes, and has become, step by step, generation by generation, because of what we’ve been doing. [3]Now, if you’ve been following this series, you should be quite familiar with all this, including how we are to understand the meaning of these stories, since we explored that in Season Two. So, what we’ll cover now should be something of a review, to “jog” your memory; of course, since it’s been a couple of years, you may also want to listen to those episodes again—just sayin’. 

According to Genesis, humanity’s first sin was eating the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. What this account is describing though is how humanity has come to engage reality as a whole. It’s about how we’ve come to know both the good and the bad things that can unfold in our lives—what God can speak forth; yet, this knowledge was born from our distrust toward God. So, we fear that reality is not good—that is, we suspect God of being hostile to us, or at least utterly uncaring—and we feel our lives will never bear meaningful fruit. And so, we become afraid of engaging reality wholeheartedly. 

So, in response, God speaks this following judgment to humanity: everything we do in this world will therefore now frustrate us with seeming thorns and thistles, and Life will become a burden for us. And just as we distrust God, we now distrust other people, and so, our relationships with them will devolve into a struggle for power over them. God’s judgment upon humanity here is not about punishing a crime. Distrust and suspicion is not a crime, after all. But, it is a flaw in our relationship with God—in how we engage reality—and the judgments that God is speaking is an outflow of this flaw. 

And the children of Adam and Eve inherit this flaw, which manifests in their offerings to God. The offerings in their story represent how humanity engages reality by bringing to it what we make out of our lives. Abel, the younger brother, brings the best of himself, and God responds favorably. But, when the older brother, Cain, brings his offering, God speaks to him that he is missing something—what he has brought out of his life is not complete. But, Cain angrily ignores God and kills his brother. This is the account of the first and every murder. According to Genesis, at the heart of every murder is a rejection of God speaking to us, that there is something more, something good that we can bring out of our lives. It is a rejection of Life that God speaks, and it flows from humanity’s first sin and God’s judgment upon it. We are angry at how Life has become a burden; we suspect, and then blame, other people of making it so; and we distrust God that speaks to us, saying that even so, reality is good and is worth engaging. 

God’s judgment to Cain is again not a punishment for a crime, but a world that will now unfold for him. By killing his brother, Cain has irreversibly rejected God speaking to him that there is more to his life—so, the judgment is that there will now be nothing more, so that he will wander endlessly without rest. Cain then becomes afraid that others will kill him just as he killed his brother. So, God marks him with a sign that those who kill Cain will be struck down too. Because that is what reality unfolds from each act of violence: further violence, increasing and escalating, at every turn. 

And that is the world, which Cain’s descendants—those who follow after Cain—then bring about. They do not hear God speak, and so, lies corrupt their world; they engage reality and other people with distrust and suspicion, and so, violence fills their lives. And according to Genesis, when everyone becomes like Cain, God speaks forth the Flood as judgment. And the water of this Flood is from the primordial deep, which is the very substance of chaos. And it is that substance, which floods and drowns the human world. Because that is what reality unfolds upon a world where everyone lies—to others and to themselves—where everyone is suspicious of everyone else, and resort to violence and murder. Such a world unravels into a flood, into an unknowable flux and chaos that will drown us. Because nothing in that world can be trusted; nothing can hold form and be steady; nothing can keep us safe. What God speaks as judgment upon humanity in the primeval history is a world we bring about, and which reality then unfolds. It is a world where we perish together—the world that unravels and drowns in the Flood. 

However, there’s more to this story. God speaks to a man named Noah and his family, and instructs them to build an Ark. And sheltered within the Ark, they survive the Flood. But, then, God speaks to Himself that humanity is bound to make the same mistakes. 

However, God promises Noah and his family that God will not end humanity with the Flood. Then, God speak to them that if anyone murders another human being—that is, if anyone follows after Cain again—other human beings are to take their lives. But, this is not for vengeance, but for punishment; it is because every human being is an image of God—a presence of God speaking to them—and murder is an act that destroys that presence from our world. And such a world ends in a Flood. According to later Jewish traditions—the Talmud—this is one of the Laws of Noah, which is the origin of human justice systems. And the primeval history narrative of Genesis describes this system as God speaking to us to protect us from the greatest of God’s original, primeval judgment: a world of our own making that unravels and drowns us.   

And this, in turn, presents us with a very interesting implication; I said that there are times in the Bible when God punishes people like a judge in a criminal-justice system. Specific individuals, or peoples, or even nations, are sentenced, and then punished with specific disasters for something they did. In fact, I suggested that the first nine plagues that struck Egypt is one such example. But, the Genesis account of the Flood implies that when God does punish people in this way, God is actually trying to protect us—to keep in check His real judgment—judgment in the “original, primeval sense”.

The world where we perish together. The world that unravels into a Flood and drowns us. The world… that Egypt would become.

[ Pendulum ]

Exodus reports that just as Moses set off for Egypt with his wife and sons, God spoke these spine-chilling words to Moses: “When you return to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders I have given you the power to do. But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go. Then say to Pharaoh, ‘This is what Yahweh says: Israel is my firstborn son, and I told you, “Let my son go, so he may worship me.” But you refused to let him go; so I will kill your firstborn son.’” 

Pharaoh had not met with Moses yet, let alone refused God’s call. In fact, Moses had not met with anyone from Egypt at this point—not even his brother, Aaron. And God is already declaring that He will kill Pharaoh’s son for refusing to let Israel go. This seems quite premature and vindictive, and it’s made exponentially worse since it seems God will harden Pharaoh’s heart so that he would refuse, and then God will punish him for it. 

But, the previous episodes of this series should have shown that in the Bible, things are often not as it seems on the surface—though much of that may well be due to our tendency today to misunderstand so many things about God. For example, when we read how God “hardened” Pharaoh’s heart, we tend to imagine God as somehow mind-controlling him against his will. But, what the account actually describes is how Pharaoh hardened his own heart, suppressing even his own thoughts if they leaned toward acknowledging God’s miracles, and breaking his promises to let Israel go. And he repeated this until hardening his heart became something like reflex, beyond his conscious control and better judgment. That’s how our mind works or fails to work; that’s how reality is; and that how is -God- speaking. And that’s what it meant for God to harden his heart. 

So, what really was God speaking then to Moses when he set off for Egypt? What are we likewise missing in our understanding of the final, tenth plague?

The most strikingly odd thing about this plague—the death of every firstborn in Egypt— is that not even the Israelites are exempt. When Moses first announces this plague to Pharaoh and the Egyptian royal court, he declares that, just like the previous plagues, it will not affect his people. But, when God speaks to Moses, it turns out that that was not quite the full truth. God will strike every family in Egypt, including the Israelites, from the family of Pharaoh to the family of slaves—and not only humans, but even domesticated animals. It’s implied that not even Moses’s own family is exempt. Instead, God speaks to Moses and the Israelites to mark the door frames of their houses with the blood of a lamb, and that no one must leave their marked houses during the night of the plague. For God will “pass over” those houses and no one inside them will die. This is a striking echo of the Genesis account of Noah’s Ark and the Great Flood. Every living creature in the human world—in this case, Egypt—will die by God’s judgment, and only those who take shelter in the place God speaks to them about, will survive. 

And this raises an interesting question. What if the final plague is actually an extension of the Flood in Genesis? That is, what if they are the same kind of judgment—judgment in the original, primeval sense? What if that is the reason for the scope of the disaster, why it includes not only humans, but animals, why it strikes everyone, including Israel? And this isn’t just some personal theory that I’m presenting here; Christians, including those who wrote the New Testament portion of the Bible, understood the accounts of both the Great Flood and the climactic events of Exodus—specifically the final plague and the parting of the Sea, which we’ll explore in couple of episodes—as prefiguration of their Gospel witness. They compared how they were saved by Jesus Christ, to how Noah’s family took shelter in the Ark during the Flood, and how the Israelites, sheltered in their marked houses during the final plague. They taught that the entire human world is under the judgment of God, and thus perishing in their sin, just like the world that unraveled into the Flood, and Egypt that was struck down by the final plague. [4]

And this in turn opens an interesting way to understand the first nine plagues. In our previous episode, we explored how these plagues seemed to be natural disasters that God specially and specifically spoke forth upon Egypt and its people. Of course, for religions like Christianity, every natural event is something God speaks forth, but what God speaks is a range of possibilities—a range set by the parameters, or laws that God is speaking—and Nature is free to bring about anything within that range from event “A” to event “Z.” But, the plague in Exodus is different; God calls Nature to bring about a specific thing—event “X,” and “X” only. And according to Genesis, the range of natural events that God speaks can include natural disasters, like drought and famine; but why those happen has nothing to do with us, and God can speak to people like Joseph, to guide us safely through them. But the kind of disasters that unfold in Exodus are about us, and like how specific punishment is sentenced and then imposed upon a convict, specific plagues were declared beforehand by God, and then executed by Nature.

Furthermore, these plagues were specific and measured because they were primarily communication, rather than destruction. They would’ve meant something specific to the Egyptian culture and religion; the tainted Nile River, swarming insects, hail and thunder, darkness blotting out the Sun, would’ve been symbolic messages to Egyptians that they were profoundly out of step with what they called the Ma’at—the principle of truth, order, and justice, which keeps their world from unraveling into chaos, and grants power and legitimacy to their own gods. These disasters would’ve implied that refusing to listen to Moses, and his God called “Yahweh,” was the same as refusing to uphold this cosmic order of Ma’at. So, the plagues weren’t simply just punishments, but a message, like how sentencing a convict is also a kind of message to the rest of society. And the message was: their slaves are a people called by God for a special purpose. If Egypt does not let them answer that call, what will unfold is a world where everyone perishes together—what Egyptians would’ve understood as a world of darkness, bereft of Ma’at, and what Genesis described as a world that unravels into the Flood. 

So, what if the first nine plagues were God speaking to Nature, to punish Pharaoh, in order to protect everyone from that? Just as how the punishments in our criminal-justice system are meant to keep that world from unfolding, God was speaking to Nature to keep Pharaoh from leading his nation into that world. That is why when God first spoke to Moses, God spoke only of the tenth plague—the final plague is the real plague that reality will unfold if nothing changed. So, the others were, in a sense, specially and specifically added in as “wonders” that were meant to communicate, warn, and deter. 

Except of course, Pharaoh and his royal court will ignore the message, and God knew they would. Yet, God sends Moses, and Nature itself, to speak to them even so. Why? Well, the first reason is that otherwise, Egyptians would not have recognized the final tenth plague as something that struck them because of their refusal to let Israel go. And that would’ve in turn unfolded an even greater plague; after all, death of every firstborn is not yet the death of everyone, which is what the Genesis Flood was. For the second reason, we can think about it this way. Back when I taught courses at universities, there were often one or two students in class who I knew would fail the course; they skipped the lectures; they didn’t seem to do the readings; they didn’t hand in their assignments. But, at the end of the semester, I still gave them their final term papers, like all the other students. I knew they’d fail it, but, they still had to be given the opportunity to fail. And they did in fact fail them. Because that’s how God’s primeval judgment unfolds; it is a world of our making, which then God speaks and brings about. 

But still, we haven’t answered the most obvious question: why is the death of every firstborn male, a judgment of this kind—an “extension” of the Flood of Genesis? 

[ Pendulum ]

Here, we must first note the limit of what this series can consider. We can explore what the story of Exodus means, in terms of the culture of the people who first read it, and in the context of the ideas and messages presented by the rest of the Christian Bible. So, I can tell you what the death of every firstborn means and why that is connected to the Great Flood in Genesis. But, I cannot tell you, at least in this episode, whether this is exactly what “physically” happened, and why that is connected to the Flood. You may remember though that the same thing was said about that Genesis Flood; so, we can understand what the Flood means—which is how our human world can unravel because we fill it with our lies, corruption, and violence, and that how is God speaking—but we can’t say which actual, physical flood that this story’s about. This is not at all to say that nothing like that ever happened, but that we don’t know how to find out. And besides, if we don’t know what the story really means, we won’t know how to even begin searching for that answer in the first place. So, what does the final tenth plague mean in the Bible?   

There is something odd about how God phrases His judgment to Pharaoh: “Israel is my firstborn son; I told you to let him go to worship me; but, you refused let him go; so, I will kill your firstborn son.” A rather superficial reading of this would be that God is justifying the final plague to Pharaoh, but I don’t think that quite fits. If that was the purpose, God should’ve said instead, “Israel is my firstborn son, and you drowned him in the River.” That would’ve served as better justification—a sort of eye-for-an-eye—and it’s one that modern popular re-telling, often play with like the animation, The Prince of Egypt. But, God says instead that it’s because Pharaoh will not let Israel go and worship God. The word, “worship” here means more than just some religious service—it turns out, that it’s about being dedicated to a larger purpose and mission that God has for them. And keeping them enslaved and away from that purpose, is the reason why God strikes down every firstborn in Egypt. But, why would that be the reason? 

Well, if we understand this plague as a kind of extension of the Genesis Flood, and Exodus as continuation of Genesis, then the words, “firstborn son” that God is speaking to Moses, takes on a new, deeper meaning. Remember that the story of Israel actually begins in the book of Genesis. It begins by God speaking to their ancestor, Abraham, that he must begin a journey, and that all nations of the world will be blessed through him. But, if you add up the numbers, it turns out that God calls Abraham and speaks this blessing, just after the death of Noah, who survived the Flood. And in the previous story, God promises Noah that even though humanity is inclined to again make their world unravel and perish in the Flood, God will not unfold that ending; God will not speak forth that primeval judgment again. What is implied then is that Abraham and his descendants will be the fulfillment of God’s promise to Noah—a blessing that will keep that world from unfolding, and keep us from perishing together. In fact, Abraham almost kept the city of Sodom from being destroyed when he prayed to God on its behalf. 

And the idea of the firstborn son becomes a key thread throughout the Genesis account that follows this life of Abraham and his descendants afterwards. Abraham and his wife, Sarah, had no children, and God promised them that they will have a child: that child will inherit Abraham’s blessing; he will continue what his father was called to be. That promised child was Isaac. But, biologically speaking, Isaac was not the firstborn son of Abraham; Ishmael was. But, Isaac was the one who would continue the journey that God called Abraham’s family to follow; he would be the one who speaks personally with God, and become a blessing for the world. And so, Isaac was the heir, and that’s what made him the “firstborn” son. Isaac then had two sons with his wife, Rebecca, Esau and Jacob. But again, it was the younger son, Jacob, who became the heir, who received the blessing reserved for the “firstborn son.” Because he was the one who sought that blessing; he was the one who “wrestled” with God his entire life. And because of that, God names him, “Israel,” meaning the one who “struggles with God,” and through that struggle, bring forth something meaningful. Then, Genesis recounts the life of his son, Joseph, who was actually the second youngest by age, but he was the one who heard God speak to him in the form of dreams, and so he was the “firstborn.” In the Bible, to be the “firstborn” means that they carry on their Father’s will into the future generation. 

And the people of Israel is God’s firstborn son, in that they are called to carry on God’s will, and that will, spoken first to Abraham is to be a blessing to all the nations. And this “blessing” that God is speaking about, isn’t some “made your day a little happier” kind of thing; it’s the continuation of God’s promise to Noah—they are to be a people who speak with God, and keep the world from unraveling and drowning in the Flood. And Pharaoh refused to let them go fulfill that purpose. He thought that they’re mere slaves; they cannot have a higher purpose than the ones he and his empire grants them. They were but extension of his will, his purpose, securing his future in the way that he deems fit. That’s what slaves are, after all. 

And what God was speaking to him was something like this: “These ‘slaves’ of yours, Israel, are a people who will unfold a future that will save your world. I am calling them for that purpose. And so, I called Moses, and then I called all of Creation, the river, the swarms, the hailstorm, the darkness, to warn you over and over that you must let them go, to fulfill that purpose. But, you refused and refused. And so, the future they are called to unfold, will not unfold; and the future of your world will perish with it.” 

That is what reality will unfold instead, and God is Reality.  

[ Music ] 

The Exodus account of the tenth, final plague is describing the opening step of God’s judgment in the original, primeval sense—a world of our own making where everyone, and everything within our grasp, perishes. And it begins with our firstborn, the heirs of our deeds, the heirs our failures, the heirs of future that we are destroying. That is what it means for God to strike down every firstborn, of every family, and even the animals around us. Perhaps, that is why Exodus mysteriously lacks any description of how they die, and what specific thing actually kills them. For what kills them isn’t any one thing; it’s the entire world that we bring about, a world we make, which God then speaks forth. And that world will unfold unless the people that God calls answer that call.     

So, what if we fail to answer, or are kept from answering?

More than a thousand years later, a man is nailed to a tree on a barren hill outside a city. He is being executed, slowly, and painfully. He gasps for breath as crowds below jeer at him. This execution normally wouldn’t produce too much blood—it’s meant to prolong the agony, after all, and so it won’t do if the convict dies from blood loss. But, the man had also been brutally flogged earlier by his executioners, who in a moment of sadistic malice, pressed down a crown of thorns into his head. Blood from his head, from his back, torn to strips by sharpened flails, from his hands and feet, pierced with nails, had all seeped down and stained the wooden stake and frame, from which he hung. And a handful of women—the man’s disciples who hadn’t fled—watched tearfully among the jeering crowd, and remembered a passage in their Hebrew Bible.

God spoke to Moses: “Take a lamb, for each and every family. It is to stay with you until the night of the plague. Then, you are to slaughter it, and mark the door frames of your houses with its blood. That night, I will bring judgment and strike down every firstborn of both humans and animals. But, when I see the blood, I will pass over you.” 

And they looked up to see their teacher, the voice of God who had spoken to them in their lives, dying on the cross, and its wooden frames, etched against the darkened sky, marked with his blood. And they would realize that at that moment, God’s judgment, God’s original, primeval judgment, passed over their world. 

The Gospel that has been shared ever since by Christians, of their Lord, Jesus Christ.  

[ Ending Music ]

So join me in the next and second-half of this two-part episodes, to explore what that story means—why the blood of a lamb, and the blood of Christ, brings salvation to the world that is perishing. Why God’s judgment passes over us. And since this is really one episode divided into two, I’m really hoping to be able to finish and upload that within this month! So, keep me in your thoughts—and for those who pray, your prayers!

Thank you once again for listening and continuing this journey with me. Please follow, subscribe, and share this series with others, and rate it on your Apple podcast and other platforms. You can also support this series at buymeacoffee.com—which you can go to by clicking on the line, “Support the show” in the episode description.

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[1] In the Exodus account, there is no description of what exactly happened in the final plague, other than that “Yahweh” struck down every firstborn male in Egypt during the night. When Moses speaks to the Israelites about the plague, he does make a passing mention of how God will not let the “destroyer” enter the houses that are marked with the blood of the lamb. But, this word, “destroyer,” is very vague and general—used in other parts of the Bible for anything, or anyone, or even any event, which “destroys” things. So, what actually happens is still left unsaid. This is in sharp contrast to how the popular modern imagination tends to depict the plague in films and animations—as supernatural entities, angels of death, an eerie fog, etc.  

[2] The two major positions on the criminal justice system is that of utilitarianism, and retribution. The first argues that by this system, we want to maximize the happiness and minimize the suffering of the society; the second argues that we want to recognize the wrong as a wrong with just consequence. Check "Punishment | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy" (https://iep.utm.edu/punishme/). Both can be achieved through what these theories call the functions of the punishment, which include deterrence, rehabilitation, or incapacitation.

[3] And it’s easy to miss this, if we read these stories without really thinking about what they actually mean, especially because the various “things” in the world that are described in these stories, meant something quite different to their ancient Hebrew readers than what they mean to us today. For example, “waters of the deep” is not H2O, but something like the substance of pure possibility—or more negatively put, primordial chaos; “earth” is not planet Earth, but more like the entire material universe, upon which we humans live our lives; “tree” is not just a particular kind of plants, but manifestation of Life as a whole. Again, check out Season 2 for greater details.  

[4] The first and second epistle of Peter makes this connection with the Flood, while the Lamb that saved Israel from the final plague in Exodus is explicitly connected with that of Jesus Christ throughout the New Testament, from the Gospels to the epistles.