Now that the Lord has made a second set of tablets He's repeating some of the regulations He previously asked Israel to live by.
"The first offspring of every womb belongs to Me, including all the firstborn males of your livestock, whether from herd or flock. Redeem the firstborn donkey with a lamb, but if you do not redeem it, break its neck. Redeem all your firstborn sons." (Exodus 34:19-20a) We took a look at this regulation earlier in Exodus. The firstborn male of families was considered the heir-apparent of all his father owned and as such he was treated as the most important of the offspring, for he would lead and protect the whole family in the future. In ancient cultures the firstborn was considered to be the best of a man's offspring, genetically speaking, so there was a type of reverence bestowed upon a firstborn son. The Lord is teaching the people to regard a firstborn son as special and precious because about 1,400 years later He intends to give His own firstborn Son to redeem human beings from their. He intends to give His best for man.
A donkey was considered an unclean animal but a man could keep a donkey if he offered a lamb to the Lord for it. Donkeys were quite useful for riding or for pulling wagons and carts, so the amount of value one donkey provided could be justified by exchanging a lamb for it. The lamb (a clean animal) redeemed the donkey but if a man did not redeem the donkey he could not keep it. It was to be considered worthless to him. I think this practice illustrates how worthless we are if we remain unredeemed and I think the giving of a lamb in place of an unclean animal symbolizes Christ (the holy and perfect and spotless Lamb of God) giving Himself to redeem man from his sins and to make man valuable in the Lord's service. The Lamb of God was worth more than all of us put together, but His great love for us made Him consider us worth what He would have to pay for us.
"No one is to appear before Me empty handed." (Exodus 34:20b) We would have nothing in this world if God hadn't given it to us. We wouldn't even exist if He hadn't given us life and we are to approach the Lord in a grateful spirit, giving back to Him whatever we can whenever we can. This giving can include offerings to our churches or to Christian charities. This giving can include using our talents and abilities to encourage our fellow Christians and to reach out to the lost. This giving can include devoting time to the Lord's work and to prayer and to praise. In fact, we owe Him our praise every single day of our lives for creating us and loving us and providing a way of salvation for us and providing for us in this life and providing a glorious eternal future for us. It's fitting that the book of Psalms concludes with a psalm about praise which ends like this: "Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord." (Psalm 150:6) If we are still breathing, we should be praising the Lord. No matter how little we may have in this world, materially speaking, and no matter what difficulties we may currently be experiencing, we can still praise the Lord for who He is (a loving and merciful God) and for what He's done (offering us forgiveness and salvation) and for what He's going to do (give us an eternal dwelling place where we will live forever in His love and goodness and light).
"Six days you shall labor, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even during the plowing and harvest you must rest." (Exodus 34:21) Planting time and harvest time are the "busy seasons" of the farmer, yet even though the urge to work seven days a week during these seasons will be strong, they are to resist the temptation to put anything ahead of the Lord. He is only asking for one day out of seven to be devoted to Him; surely man can refrain from putting himself and his activities ahead of God on this day when the Lord has provided man with so many blessings every day of the year. The Sabbath is a day for getting our minds off our work and for placing our thoughts on God. We shouldn't think of the day of rest as a sacrifice, for the Lord Jesus stated that the Sabbath was created for man and not man for the Sabbath. (Mark 2:27) The Sabbath was created for our benefit. We need a day of rest. We need a day to focus on the Lord and to spend time reading His word and meditating on it. We need a day when we put our work and our cares aside as best we can to grow our relationship with the Lord. If the Lord had not designated a Sabbath then people would have worked seven days a week or would have forced their children or servants or animals to work seven days a week. This isn't good for anyone. This would have led to such burnout and to so many health problems and to such a spiritual distance between man and God that it would have done man (and his family and his servants and his animals) a great deal of harm. God didn't establish a day of rest because He needs a day of the week devoted to Him; He established a day of rest because we need to devote a day of the week to Him.
Join us tomorrow as we conclude this section in which God restates and reinforces these particular rules He's already provided earlier in the book of Exodus.
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