e people advances gradually, and
almost diplomatically. First he reminds them of their deliverance, and
in so doing he employs a phrase which could only have been used at the
exact stage when they were emancipated and yet upon Egyptian soil: "By
strength of hand the Lord brought you out _from this place_" (ver. 3).
Then he charges them not to forget their rescue, in the dangerous time
of their prosperity, when the Lord shall have brought them into the
land which He swore to give them; and he repeats the ordinance of
unleavened bread. And it is only then that he proceeds to announce the
permanent consecration of all their firstborn--the abiding doctrine that
these, who naturally represent the nation, are for its unworthiness
forfeited, and yet by the grace of God redeemed.

God, Who gave all and pardons all, demands a return, not as a tax which
is levied for its own sake, but as a confession of dependence, and like
the silk flag presented to the sovereign, on the anniversaries of the
two greatest of English victories, by the descendants of the conquerors,
who hold their estates upon that tenure. The firstborn, thus dedicated,
should have formed a sacred class, a powerful element in Hebrew life
enlisted on the side of God.

For these, as we have already seen, the Levites were afterwards
substituted (Num. iii. 44), and there is perhaps some allusion to this
change in the direction that "all the firstborn of man thou shalt
redeem" (ver. 13). But yet the demand is stated too broadly and
imperatively to belong to that later modification: it suits exactly the
time to which it is attributed, before the tribe of Levi was substituted
for the firstborn of all.

"They are Mine," said Jehovah, Who needed not, that night, to remind
them what He had wrought the night before. It is for precisely the same
reason, that St. Paul claims all souls for God: "Ye are not your own, ye
are bought with a price; therefore glorify God with your bodies and with
your spirits, which are God's."

And besides the general claim upon us all, each of us should feel, like
the firstborn, that every special mercy is a call to special gratitude,
to more earnest dedication. "I beseech you, by the mercies of God, that
ye present your bodies a living sacrifice" (Rom. xii. 1).

There is a tone of exultant confidence in the words of Moses, very
interesting and curious. He and his nation are breathing the free air at
last. The deliverance that has been given ma