NOTES for Exo 12:1-41
It is not surprising that sacrifice became the foundation of the Jewish feast of Pesach (the Old Testament Passover) (vv. 3–7), for in ancient times every people and tribe without exception regarded it as a form of communion with higher powers, gods, and spirits. In Yahwism, whose history begins with the calling of Abram and ends in AD 70 with the destruction of the Second Temple, sacrifice also became the foundation of worship, for here too it was the principal means of communion with God. The sacrificial meal was regarded as a shared meal of God and human beings, which nothing could replace. Above all, it was the sacrificial blood that God sanctified, since in antiquity blood was considered the vessel of the principle of life, which the Bible often calls the “soul” (Gen 9:4, 10, 12, 15). Thus the principle of life sanctified by God united the human being with God. But Moses tells the people something else: he speaks of sanctified blood that delivers them from otherwise inevitable destruction (vv. 12–13). At first sight, this may seem somewhat strange. Yet if we reflect on it, what we have before us is essentially no more than a particular instance reflecting the general state of affairs. Life in general, and human life in particular, is not some inalienable right but a gift from God, which a person does not and cannot possess without a relationship with God. In the animal world, where God creates not individual animals but entire species, so that each animal is created according to the pattern characteristic of its species (“according to their kinds,” as the Old Testament language expresses the idea, Gen 1:24–25), the life of an individual creature has no value before God; only the species is valuable, because its existence forms part of God’s design for the world. The situation is different with the human being, who was created not in the image of his biological species but in the image and likeness of God. Yet it can be different only if the person’s relationship with God has not been destroyed. If no such relationship exists, a person stands before God in the position of an animal, merely as a representative of his biological species. Of course, even then God sees the person as His image and likeness; but without a relationship with God this image becomes distorted in the person, and nothing can be done about it without that person’s consent. If someone does not want to let God into his life, God will not break in by force. The person is then doomed to death. He is doomed as a representative of his species, because under the laws of nature the strongest survives and God in no way guarantees the life of each particular representative of a biological species. He is also doomed as a phenomenon of living nature, which is mortal as such: apparently, God’s design did not include immortal animals. Only in the context of a relationship with God does a person receive hope of life—for now, on the night of the Old Testament Passover, the hope of temporal life. The time will come when, on another night, the night of the New Testament Passover, he will receive the hope of eternal life.