BibleProject | Redemption in the Biblical Storyഉദാഹരണം

The Redemption Payment

In today’s reading, we see Pharaoh relentlessly gripping onto the enslaved Israelites because he thinks he owns them. He does not own them, and as the story unfolds, the final death plague impacts everyone involved (whether Israelite or Egyptian), suggesting that everyone has become enslaved to death itself.

God first sends nine crippling plagues upon Egypt, but Pharaoh remains stubborn and refuses to let Israel go. The tenth and final plague aims at every firstborn throughout Egypt (animal and human, Hebrew and Egyptian alike). For any firstborn to survive this final death plague, households must sacrifice a blemish-free lamb and mark their doorposts with its blood.

Every household trusting God by following this instruction receives freedom from death; the blameless animal’s blood is a symbol of flawless life that’s surrendered over to death to open a way back to life with God (Exod. 11-13).

Then God instructs the Israelites to redeem their firstborn sons because they belong to him (Exod. 13:2, 13). But years later God focuses on one tribe, the Levites, calling them alone to dedicate their sons to temple service as priests (Num. 3:11-13, 44-45).

The Levites replace most of the other tribes’ firstborn sons but not all. There are 273 more firstborn sons than Levites, so families from non-Levite tribes must offer a five-shekel payment to the Levites for each of those 273 sons in order to redeem them (Num. 3:46-51). In this case (and many others like it in Scripture), redemption includes the exchange of some kind of payment.

Reflection Exercises:

• The video says that redemption means “to purchase a slave’s freedom.” What other keywords and concepts does the video connect to this redemption idea?
• According to Exodus 13:1-16, why do the firstborn belong to God?