(ver. 51). "And the children of Israel went up armed out of the
land of Egypt" (xiii. 18).

FOOTNOTES:

[20] Though of course the Person Whose Body was thus offered is Divine
(Acts xx. 28), and this gives inestimable value to the offering.

[21] Here the sceptical theorists are widely divided among themselves.
Kuenen has discussed this whole theory, and rejected it as
"irreconcilable with what the Old Testament itself asserts in
justification of this sacrifice." And he is driven to connect it with
the notion of atonement. "Jahveh appears as a severe being who must be
propitiated with sacrifices." He has therefore to introduce the notion
of human sacrifice, in order to get rid of the connection with the penal
death of the Egyptians, and of the miraculous, which this example would
establish. (_Religion of Israel_, Eng. Trans., i., 239, 240.)

[22] The astonishing significance of this declaration would only be
deepened if we accepted the theories now so fashionable, and believed
that the later passage in Isaiah was the fruit of a period when the
full-blown Priestly Code was in process of development out of "the small
body of legislation contained in Lev. xvii.--xxvi." What a strange time
for such a spiritual application of sacrificial language!

[23] So that it is used equally of the slow action of the lame, and of
the lingering movements of the false prophets when there was none to
answer (2 Sam. iv. 4; 1 Kings xviii. 26). "The Lord of Hosts shall come
down to fight upon Mount Zion.... As birds flying, so will the Lord of
Hosts protect Jerusalem; He will PASS OVER and preserve it" (Isa. xxxi.
4, 5).

CHAPTER XIII.

_THE LAW OF THE FIRSTBORN._

xiii. 1.

Much that was said in the twelfth chapter is repeated in the thirteenth.
And this repetition is clearly due to a formal rehearsal, made when all
"their hosts" had mustered in Succoth after their first march; for Moses
says, "Remember this day, in which ye came out" (ver. 3). Already it had
been spoken of as a day much to be remembered, and for its perpetuation
the ordinance of the Passover had been founded.

But now this charge is given as a fit prologue for the remarkable
institution which follows--the consecration to God of all unblemished
males who are the firstborn of their mothers--for such is the full
statement of what is claimed.

In speaking to Moses the Lord says, "Sanctify unto Me all the firstborn
... it is Mine." But Moses addressing th