Exodus 13:1-15:27

The first thing that the Israelites do after leaving Egypt is dedicate all of the first born sons to the Lord.  Then the Passover is established as a perpetual day of remembrance of their Exodus from Egypt.  The Lord guides the Hebrews with a pillar of fire at night and a pillar of cloud in the day;  the Lord will stay with them in one form or another until the establishment of the Temple.

The Egyptians give chase and the people complain to Moses.  God leads Israel through the sea and crushes the trailing Egyptians to prove His power.  Moses then leads a song of remembrance.  The Lord says to the people, “If you will listen carefully to the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in his sight, obeying his commands and laws, then I will not make you suffer the diseases I sent on the Egyptians; for I am the lord who heals you.”

There is a strong contrast between the final plague (the deaths of the first born sons of Egypt) and the dedication that occurs at the beginning of this passage.  God has saved his people and he now claims the lives that he saved as his own.  This is one of the first great examples of substitutiary atonement in the Bible.  Because the Hebrews had faith in God, God was willing to accept the blood of a lamb on the door posts instead of the blood of the first born sons.  This lives are now dedicated to God.

I found it amazing that God essentially said, if you will listen to me then I will heal you.  All of us experience times in our lives when we need healing; if we would just stop and listen to God,  He will heal us.  God will lead us through enormous obstacles if we will only listen to him.  When we try to do things on our own without listening to God we come out as broken failures.  If we listen to God, he will heal us and bring us through to the other side.