chapter 11 outlined by Alec Motyer

11:1 The announcement

11:2-3 The granting of favor to Israel when they made requests of the Egyptians

11:4 The Coming of the LORD to Egypt

11:4-5 The nature of the coming plague and its timing

11:6 The great cry of the Egyptians

11:8 The command to leave Egypt

11:9 A concluding comment that Pharaoh had  not changed but was still resistent to the word of the LORD.

These topics reappear in the epilogue of 12:29-42.


what about 11:7??

Life From Death

These ceremonies are to be observed through all generations as a reminder, in this case a graphic reminder, of the lengths God will go to save His children---his firstborn son, Israel.  We see, then, a hint of what becomes clearer almost fifteen hundred years later on a cross near Jerusalem: Life comes from death, or better, life can only come from death.  The tenth plague was not a divine temper tantrum where God flexes His muscles before the Egyptians and really lets them have it.  It is the necessary implementation of a redemptive pattern, one that requires death as a means to fuller life.  The consecration of the firstborn, therefore, is a reminder of the once-for-all substitutionary death of the beloved firstborn son who is to come.


--Peter Enns

Exodus 12, God defines Israel's time

"God is weaving into the very fabric of Israel’s calendar, their time, their schedule, their routine, a remembrance of Him, and a remembrance of what He is going to do in this great redemptive work of the Exodus."

--Ligon Duncan