“So the Lord saved Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore.” Exodus 14:30
I recently read this verse and stopped to think about it for a few moments. I’ve never seen a dead body other than at a funeral when they’ve been prepared to be seen. Death made presentable.
But these Egyptians were recently dead, crushed by crashing walls of water. And now their dead bodies littered the shore of the Red Sea, in plain sight of Israel. I wonder what it was like to see this and realize this was the cost of your deliverance.
Only a short time before they had been required to kill a lamb for the purpose of putting its blood on their doorposts that they might be delivered from the destroyer sent to kill the firstborn in each family. The death of the lamb was the cost of their deliverance.
And only a short time later they camped at Mt. Sinai where they received from God the law and the system of sacrifice which provided covering of their sins. Every day animals were killed, sacrifices were offered and blood was sprinkled. An abundance of blood and death. This was the cost of their deliverance.
Death and deliverance, hand in hand. A pattern repeated year after year.
Into this system the Messiah is born. As Jesus gained prominence in Israel through the working of miracles and His teaching, great hope was stirred up in Israel. Was this the long awaited One who would bring deliverance?
The answer was a resounding Yes! But the deliverance He would bring would be much more than mere freedom from Roman oppression. It would be freedom from sin and its penalty. His was a death that would bring a complete and perfect deliverance.
“Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead, who delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver us; in whom we trust that He will still deliver us” 2 Corinthians 1:9-10
In Jesus, God did deliver us, does deliver us and will deliver us. AMEN!!
This is an interesting thought – that just as deliverance from the land of Egypt was obtained through the shedding blood, so deliverance from sin is also obtained through the shedding of blood. Christians should certainly think on this more because it teaches us so much. Thank you for the reminder!
He is my Delight 
This is an interesting thought – that just as deliverance from the land of Egypt was obtained through the shedding blood, so deliverance from sin is also obtained through the shedding of blood. Christians should certainly think on this more because it teaches us so much. Thank you for the reminder!
Daniel