I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Exodus 10-12.

As I was reading today’s passage I took notice of a verse that I had never really thought much about before. In Exodus 11:3  it says that the Egyptian people looked favorably on the people of Israel and that everyone respected Moses. Perhaps this is just a “throw away” line intended to explain why the Egyptians gave so much wealth to the Israelites as they left the land of Egypt. However, to me it suggests that during the time between the plagues Moses was preaching about God, that he was telling people about the stories which had been passed down from Noah and the way God desired people to act. More importantly, it puts the actions of Pharaoh’s advisers just before the plague of locusts into a different light. The wording in Exodus 10:7 seems to reflect men who were afraid, but perhaps they were trying to use fear to convince the Pharaoh while they thought that letting the people of Israel go was just the right thing to do.

When reading the Passover instructions given here and the account of the actual event it strikes me that the author wanted to make clear that Moses had given instructions for the Passover before it happened and that some of the instructions about how Passover are celebrated are a re-enactment of events as they happened.   As an example of what I am talking about, I do not believe that Moses gave the instructions about not having any yeast in the house for the seven days of the Passover celebration as part of the preparations made to leave Egypt.  On the other hand, I think that the instructions regarding preparing the lamb were part of the instructions given before they did so.  It seems to me that the writer was torn between making sure that those who read his account kept the Passover correctly and recounting what actually happened so that people understood why those instructions were what they were.