Bible Summary:

God instructs Moses and Aaron about the Passover Festival. The Israelites are to kill a young goat or lamb and mark their doors with the blood, roast the animal and eat all of it, and be ready to travel. No one is to leave their house until morning.

That night God sends the Angel of Death through Egypt to kill every first-born son, except in houses marked with blood that are past over without harm. The king and his officials awaken to loud cries throughout the land. He sends for Moses and demands the Israelites get out. The Egyptian people urge the Israelites to leave quickly before God does anything else.

The Israelites grab their unleavened dough and ask the Egyptians for jewelry and clothes, and so carry away the wealth of Egypt. About 600,000 men, not including women and children, set out on foot, free after 430 years of slavery in Egypt.

My Thoughts:

Worst Epidemic Ever: The description of Passover makes me believe an epidemic from dead animals contaminating the Nile River struck Egypt. God saved the Israelites by teaching them to roast their meat instead of eating it raw or boiled and marking healthy houses. The latter makes me believe the plague was worse than the Black Death that killed 30-60% of Europe’s population between 1348 and 1350 (See full Black Death story on Wikipedia). Normally citizens will mark unhealthy homes to stay away during an epidemic, but Egypt’s epidemic must have been so bad that the Israelites marked just the safe houses.

Jacob’s Numerous Descendants: The seventy Hebrews that entered Egypt with Jacob grew to about 2.4 million descendants freed by Moses, assuming the 600,000 men were pared with a like number of women and children made up half the total number. This seems incredibly high, but a little estimation shows that roughly six children per family over 21 generations grew to the large number of Hebrews.

See what an impact you can have through your children!  Be sure love them dearly so they carry it on for generations to come.