God is a little nicer to the firstborn sons of the Israelites and their livestock: they're just his. Moses instructs them all not to eat leavened bread for the next week, or even to keep it in their houses. Was there something against yeast with these people? I suppose so, but Jerry is mum.
He has a bizarre little instruction for them in verse 9: and it shall be for a sign unto thee upon thine hand, and for a memorial between thine eyes, that the LORD'S law may be in thy mouth which is apparently why some Orthodox Jews wear tefillin when praying.
He then instructs them to kill a lamb for every first born son and first-born ass, by breaking its neck. It's pretty weird and confusing. And when their sons ask, they're to say it's because god freed them from bondage, and god slew all their first-born sons in revenge.
God then sends them home, not the short way past the Philistines, because he thinks they might go back to Egypt, but along the Red Sea. Moses takes Joseph's bones along. They camp and during the day, god marks the path with a pillar of cloud, and at night a pillar of fire. Is this the beginning of the 40 years in the wilderness?
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