openeth the womb” (Exo 13:2, cf. Num 3:12), or in the ratio legis, or in the circumstances under which the law was given, either a necessity or warrant for any such explanation or extension. According to Exo 13:2, after the institution of the Passover and its first commemoration, God gave the command, “Sanctify unto Me all the first-born both of man and of beast;” and added, according to Num 3:11., the further explanation, that when the Israelites came into the land of Canaan, they were to set apart every first-born unto the Lord, but to redeem their first-born sons. This further definition places it beyond all doubt, that what God prescribed to His people was not a supplementary sanctification of all the male first-born who were then to be found in Israel, but simply the sanctification of all that should be born from that time forward. A confirmation of this is to be found in the explanation given in Num 3:13 and Num 8:17 : “All the first-born are Mine; for on the day that I smote all the first-born in the land of Egypt, I hallowed unto Me all the first-born in Israel, both man and beast.” According to this distinct explanation, God had actually sanctified to Himself all the first-born of Israel by the fact, that through the blood of the paschal lamb He granted protection to His people form the stroke of the destroyer (Exo 12:22-23), and had instituted the Passover, in order that He might therein adopt the whole nation of Israel, with all its sons, as the people of His possession, or induct the nation which He had chosen as His first-born son (Exo 4:22) into the condition of a child of God. This condition of sonship was henceforth to be practically manifested by the Israelites, not only by the yearly repetition of the feast of Passover, but also by the presentation of all the male first-born of their sons and their cattle to the Lord, the first-born of the cattle being sacrificed to Him upon the altar, and the first-born sons being redeemed from the obligation resting upon them to serve at the sanctuary of their God. Of course the reference was only to the first-born of men and cattle that should come into the world from that time forward, and not to those whom God had already sanctified to Himself, by sparing the Israelites and their cattle.[1]
- ↑ Vitringa drew the correct conclusion from Exo 13:11-12, in combination with the fact that this law was not carried out previous to the adoption of the Levites in the place of the first-born for service at the sanctuary - that the law was intended chiefly for the future: “This law,” he observes (in his Obs. ss. L. ii. c. 2, §13), “relates to the tabernacle to be afterwards erected, and to the regular priests to be solemnly appointed; when this law, with many others of a similar kind, would have to be observed. The first-born were set apart by God to be consecrated to Him, as servants of the priests and of the sacred things, either in their own persons, or in that of others who were afterwards substituted in the goodness of God. This command therefore presupposed the erection of the tabernacle, the ordination of priests, the building of an altar, and the ceremonial of the sacred service, and showed from the very nature of the case, that there could not be any application of this law of the first-born before that time.”
