3. Laws of Covenant Membership (Remastered)

Laws of Covenant Membership

R.J. Rushdoony

[Rushdoony] Exodus 12, The Laws of Covenant Membership.

“And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, This month shall beunto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you. Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house: And if the household be too little for the lamb, let him and his neighbour next unto his house take it according to the number of the souls; every man according to his eating shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year: ye shall take it out from the sheep, or from the goats: And ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month: and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening. And they shall take of the blood, and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the houses, wherein they shall eat it. And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread; and with bitter herbs they shall eat it. Eat not of it raw, nor sodden at all with water, but roast with fire; his head with his legs, and with the purtenance thereof. And ye shall let nothing of it remain until the morning; and that which remaineth of it until the morning ye shall burn with fire. And thus shall ye eat it; with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and ye shall eat it in haste: it is the Lord’s passover. For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the Lord. And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt. And this day shall be unto you for a memorial; and ye shall keep it a feast to the Lord throughout your generations; ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance for ever. Seven days shall ye eat unleavened bread; even the first day ye shall put away leaven out of your houses: for whosoever eateth leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel. And in the first day there shall be an holy convocation, and in the seventh day there shall be an holy convocation to you; no manner of work shall be done in them, save that which every man must eat, that only may be done of you. And ye shall observe the feast of unleavened bread; for in this selfsame day have I brought your armies out of the land of Egypt: therefore shall ye observe this day in your generations by an ordinance for ever. In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at even, ye shall eat unleavened bread, until the one and twentieth day of the month at even. Seven days shall there be no leaven found in your houses: for whosoever eateth that which is leavened, even that soul shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he be a stranger, or born in the land. Ye shall eat nothing leavened; in all your habitations shall ye eat unleavened bread.

Then Moses called for all the elders of Israel, and said unto them, Draw out and take you a lamb according to your families, and kill the passover. And ye shall take a bunch of hyssop, and dip it in the blood that is in the bason, and strike the lintel and the two side posts with the blood that is in the bason; and none of you shall go out at the door of his house until the morning. For the Lord will pass through to smite the Egyptians; and when he seeth the blood upon the lintel, and on the two side posts, the Lord will pass over the door, and will not suffer the destroyer to come in unto your houses to smite you. And ye shall observe this thing for an ordinance to thee and to thy sons for ever. And it shall come to pass, when ye be come to the land which the Lord will give you, according as he hath promised, that ye shall keep this service. And it shall come to pass, when your children shall say unto you, What mean ye by this service? That ye shall say, It is the sacrifice of the Lord’s passover, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when he smote the Egyptians, and delivered our houses. And the people bowed the head and worshipped. And the children of Israel went away, and did as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron, so did they.

And it came to pass, that at midnight the Lord smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon; and all the firstborn of cattle. And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he, and all his servants, and all the Egyptians; and there was a great cry in Egypt; for there was not a house where there was not one dead. And he called for Moses and Aaron by night, and said, Rise up, and get you forth from among my people, both ye and the children of Israel; and go, serve the Lord, as ye have said. Also take your flocks and your herds, as ye have said, and be gone; and bless me also. And the Egyptians were urgent upon the people, that they might send them out of the land in haste; for they said, We be all dead men. And the people took their dough before it was leavened, their kneadingtroughs being bound up in their clothes upon their shoulders. And the children of Israel did according to the word of Moses; and they borrowed of the Egyptians jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment: And the Lord gave the people favour in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they lent [or better ‘gave’ - RJR] unto them such things as they required. And they spoiled the Egyptians.

And the children of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand on foot that were men, beside children. And a mixed multitude went up also with them; and flocks, and herds, even very much cattle. And they baked unleavened cakes of the dough which they brought forth out of Egypt, for it was not leavened; because they were thrust out of Egypt, and could not tarry, neither had they prepared for themselves any victual. Now the sojourning of the children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years. And it came to pass at the end of the four hundred and thirty years, even the selfsame day it came to pass, that all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt. It is a night to be much observed unto the Lord for bringing them out from the land of Egypt: this is that night of the Lord to be observed of all the children of Israel in their generations.

And the Lord said unto Moses and Aaron, This is the ordinance of the passover: There shall no stranger eat thereof: But every man’s servant that is bought for money, when thou hast circumcised him, then shall he eat thereof. A foreigner and an hired servant shall not eat thereof. In one house shall it be eaten; thou shalt not carry forth ought of the flesh abroad out of the house; neither shall ye break a bone thereof. All the congregation of Israel shall keep it. And when a stranger shall sojourn with thee, and will keep the passover to the Lord, let all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near and keep it; and he shall be as one that is born in the land: for no uncircumcised person shall eat thereof. One law shall be to him that is homeborn, and unto the stranger that sojourneth among you. Thus did all the children of Israel; as the Lord commanded Moses and Aaron, so did they. And it came to pass the selfsame day, that the Lord did bring the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt by their armies.” i

The commandment, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me,” the first commandment is the basic, the root commandment of all laws. Those who obey this commandment are members of God’s covenant. The two basic rites or rituals of the covenant are, in the Old Testament, the circumcision and Passover and in the new, baptism and communion. It is important for us to understand the meaning of these covenant rites.

First of all, circumcision, circumcision was instituted as the sign of the covenant with Abraham. And at the same time that God ordained circumcision, He made it clear that the requirement of the covenant is obedience to God’s moral law. Circumcision is required by the law of Moses in Leviticus 12:3 on the eighth day. It was required of all who took the Passover. And we cannot understand circumcision apart from the fact that, although circumcision was common in antiquity and into relatively modern times of all cultures around the world, it differed radically from what you find in other cultures.

Now, anthropologists as they analyze biblical circumcision, they say, “Of course, this was a common rite in antiquity and in modern times of every civilization we encounter.” Now, this is true, but of course they do not tell us the origin of it. And we cannot understand this, apart from the fact that, apparently, all nations in the beginning had a general revelation from God which made clear the fact of circumcision. They cannot account for the fact of circumcision and its universality. We believe, of course, that it was ordained by God, and it was established with Abraham. How it passed to other peoples, or whether it had been a sign previously to Noah and disappeared in Abraham’s family, we do not know. But we do know that its beginnings in the Bible are with Abraham. Its meaning was made clear from very early years from Abraham’s day. What it signified was this; that even as the foreskin of the male organ was cut off, so man was to realize there was no hope in himself or in generation, or any act of man as far as saving himself was concerned, that there is no hope in generation or in any generation of man, but man’s hope instead is in regeneration.

Moses repeatedly speaks of the symbolic meaning of circumcision. He says for example:

“Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiffnecked.” ii

That is, rebellious against God. And he declares:

“And the Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live.” iii

Another basic difference between pagan circumcision and biblical circumcisions appears in the fact that biblical circumcision was required on the eighth day. If circumstances prevented it, it was to be as soon thereafter as possib le. Now, this in of itself is a remarkable fact which indicates clearly revelation. Required on the eighth day, why? Why not on the first or the second or the third day? Well, the answer is that recently we have discovered that the blood of the child, the first seven days of its life after birth, does not permit coagulation. So that any operation runs the very, very great risk of bleeding to death. So that circumcision during the first seven days would probably resolve in the bleeding to death of the child, but beginning on the eighth day, the blood coagulates.

Now, all pagan circumcisions were performed at the onset of maturity when the boy was about thirteen or fourteen. Here is a remarkable difference. In all pagan circumcisions, the meaning of circumcision was that now that the young man was reaching maturity, he now had adult capacities, and was able, in effect, to save himself. Because pagan cultures also recognize that there was something wrong with the race of mankind, that mankind was tainted, it did have propensities to evil, so that mankind was faced with a problem, it needed saving. But the basic thesis of mankind in all paganism, as well in all humanism toda, was that man was able to save himself. And so, with this act of circumcision of the boy when he reached maturity, or began his adolescence, there was signified his initiate into the male fraternity of those were now going to rule and save mankind. It was a doctrine of self-salvation. But, as administered to child on the eighth day, in such an act the child was wholly passive, the child did nothing except to receive the rite. Except for the total, the sovereign grace of God, that this covenant rite which set forth salvation, represented not an act of man, it was not man who saved himself, but it represented the fact that it was entirely of God and all man does is to receive it, and his reception of it is passive. Circumcision, therefore, signified justification, regeneration, and sanctification.

The sign of the covenant in the N ew Testament was very early set forth to be baptism. In the Old Testament the priests were symbolically baptized when they put on their garb to set forth that which was to come when the great high priest, Jesus Christ, came. And so the priests were symbolically washed, that is they were sprinkled or aspersed. And in Ezekiel 36:25-26 we have the sign of the new covenant set forth as baptism and as sprinkling.

And so it is that biblical baptism, being patterned after circumcision as the sign of the covenant, the membership in the covenant is to be administered to children. To adults only when they become converts later in life. But children of believers are to be are to be baptized, even as in the Old Testament they were circumcised to indicate their membership in the covenant, to indicate the fact that salvation is the act of God, not of man, it is entirely of grace.

Now the other great covenant rite is Passover, the communion of the Old Testament. And the Passover was to celebrate the redemption of Israel which was from Egypt. Nine plagues had been passed against Egypt. These nine plagues had laid each a blow, but Egypt was still unwilling to surrender the Israelites, to release them from their slavery. And so came now the culminating judgment, the culminating plague against Egypt; the death of all the firstborn, of man and beast. Only those who placed themselves under the blood of the lamb, signifying Jesus Christ the Messiah who is to come, and who killed the sacrificial lamb and sprinkled the blood upon the side posts and the lintel of the door, were spared from the death of the firstborn. And so it was that night all Egypt found death striking every household, the firstborn.

Now, the firstborn symbolically represents in antiquity and until fairly recent times the totality, in that the firstborn represented the head of the household that was to take the place when the father passed on. He was the head of the clan, as it were. And so, the death of the firstborn represented the death of the whole. As St. Paul echoing this declared in Romans:

“For if the firstfruit be holy, the lump [that is the totality - RJR] is also holy.” iv

The firstfruit, you see, represents the whole. So the death of the firstborn represented God’s judgment against all of Egypt.

Now, this was a literal salvation. They were slaves, they were released from bondage by this judgment which the Passover set forth. So that when they ate it, that is the Passover lamb:

“And thus shall ye eat it; with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and ye shall eat it in haste…” v

Ready to move. Ready to move how? Ready to move in terms of the terms of the fact that before the night is over, and before you have finished the meal if you dawdle over it, you won’t be able to eat because your salvation would havecome. And we read that in the middle of the night they were all ready on their way because Pharaoh said “Get out of the land! We have been destroyed by you and your God.”

So they ate with their staffs in their hand, with their sandals on their feet. And in those days people took off their shoes at the door, oriental fashion, when they came in, but they ate in the house with their sandals on their feet, their loins girded, that is belted up, ready to move. It was not only a spiritual salvation, it was a physical redemption. They were literally slaves, with this eating they were to free men.

“For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the Lord.” vi

Now the salvation of Israel was their deliverance from slavery in Egypt. It was spiritual, it was physical. Our salvation is the cross of Christ and His resurrection. It is for us also a physical as well as a spiritual redemption. It declares that God is able to overthrow and to destroy our enemies, to deliver us from the bondage of sin and death, to redeem us from all our enemies. Unfortunately, in the church today the sacrament has been made to spiritual. Its meaning has been limited to the spiritual aspect. But if we are to see it as exactly what the Passover was, the new Passover, we must therefore, as we partake of the sacrament, recognize that it declares unto us that the God who destroyed Egypt is able to destroy the tyrant and the enemy today.

We take it therefore to signify that we believe that Jesus Christ has died to redeem us from sin, that He is the Lamb of God, our Passover lamb. This all of the New Testament declares. But he is also our deliverer from the enemies around about us, and that we are to take it in this faith and in this confidence.

But this is not all, what is the meaning of the Passover as it is declared?

“And it shall come to pass, when your children shall say unto you, What mean ye by this service? That ye shall say, It is the sacrifice of the Lord’s passover, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when he smote the Egyptians, and delivered our houses. And the people bowed the head and worshipped.” vii

Now, the whole of the Passover was geared to teaching the children the meaning of God’s salvation as well as celebrating it as a household. So that the youngest male child in family, who was old enough to talk and to understand, was to ask at the Passover this question “What ye mean ye by the service?” And the father, as he officiated, was to make known to that child the meaning of the service. This meant, therefore, that the children participated, did they not?

Now, at this point I have very few in any branches of church who agree with me, but I have found none yet to tell me where-in I am wrong in my interpretation of Scripture. But when we come to the New Testament we find that the Lord’s Table was celebrated by the people of God Sunday evening, Why? Because Sunday was a workday for them, it was not legal holiday in those days. So when did they meet? In the evening, in the home. And what does Paul tell us in Corinthians as he deals with the sacrament? It was in those days a potluck dinner because these men came from work, long hours, the womanfolk brought the food there, they had the service and then they ate. Now, the children all ate, did they not? And we have from the records of the Early Church and the Early Church Fathers that the children did eat.

Now even after in terms of the injunction of Paul, it became a symbolic meal, the bread and the wine instead of a full meal as in the very early years. The children still partook of it, and the service was geared to making known to the children the meaning of the Lord’s redemption. We cannot understand, until we go to the origins of the Lord’s supper in the Passover, the totality of its meaning. It sets forth the whole salvation of our God. And if we take it only as meaningthat we are saved from our sins and that is all, important though that is, we are neglecting a basic meaning. It means salvation from sin and death on the one hand, and that God will destroy our enemies materially on the other hand. This is the double aspect of the Lord’s Table.

But there is another aspect of the original celebration which we have in the thirteenth chapter of Exodus and must be discussed in connection with it. Briefly, because our time is short. In the thirteenth chapter we read that first two verses and verses eleven through sixteen.

“And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Sanctify unto me all the firstborn, whatsoever openeth the womb among the children of Israel, both of man and of beast: it is mine.” viii

What does this mean? Now, the Passover was a witness to blood in a double sense. The term ‘blood’ is a common one in Scripture, we cannot understand the Bible without understanding the meaning of blood. Now, the idea of blood is of life taken violently, of death. And as we read the various passages of Scripture as they deal with blood, we find, first,that there is no greater act of love, or of sacrifice, or of service than a sacrifice unto blood.

“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” ix

Second, the greatest evil is to take life against the Law of God. No life can be taken apart from the Law of God. Third, the penalty for taking life unlawfully is death. And fourth, the only possible atonement is life for life, blood for blood.

Now the Passover was a double witness to blood. On the one hand it was required of Egypt for unbelief. So that on the night of the Passover, the blood of the firstborn of Egypt was shed, it was taken, God killed them. Now, what does this tell us about communion? Communion, therefore, is life to us because it is death to the ungodly. So that the act of communion has a double meaning, does it not? It is life to the people of God, it signifies their salvation by the Lord because it is at one and the same time a sentence of death upon the Egypt ‘round about us.

Now how can we partake of the Lord’s Table without setting forth its meaning? It becomes a superstitious rite if the meaning is not proclaimed and understood. It is death to the world round about us when it is properly celebrated, when we affirm its meaning by faith. But Israel was no less sentenced to death for its sins because it was unbelieving, and doubting, and stumbling to the last moment. There was no merit in them to save them, it was of the grace of God, because they were the covenant-people of God. And so when the sentence of death passed against Israel, who assumed the death? The lamb, the Lamb of God who set forth the Messiah who is to come. So that when John the Baptist first saw Jesus as he began his ministry, he pointed to him and said:

“Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” x

And what did Jesus Christ do as he prepared the last week His disciples for the cross, for His death? He declared at the same time the sentence of death upon Jerusalem, upon all Judea, did He not? He pointed to the temple and He said:

“…there shall not be left one stone upon another…” xi

He passed a death sentence upon the whole land. So that His atoning death was at the one and the same time life to the people of God, death to the enemies of God. This, then, is the double meaning of the Passover, of the cross of Christ,of the Lord’s Table.

Now the command “thou shalt have no other gods before Me” requires that a man know that his only hope of salvation is in the blood of sacrifice, the Lamb of God, to live in grateful obedience therefore to God, to recognize that all blood is governed by God and his Law-Word and to eat, or drink, or do nothing, apart from God. St. Paul declared:

“…for whatsoever is not of faith is sin.” xii

Now, in this Chapter, the thirteenth, Moses called for the redemption of the firstborn of Israel. He said “Every firstborn of man and beast,” Verses eleven through thirteen as well as verses one and two, “belongs to me, because I have spared your firstborn by the sacrifice of my firstborn [symbolically set forth in the lamb] therefore it must be given to me, signifying that the whole must be given to me.” So that every firstborn child had to be redeemed, that is, a payment had to be made to God, signifying that the child was bought back from God. Every firstborn of the livestock had to be redeemed, or had to be killed if it was not redeemed, because it belonged to God, the man could not keep it. Its set forth, therefore,the fact that they recognized that God had given His only begotten son to die for them rather than passing the sentence of death upon them. So, in the redemption of the firstborn, they confirmed that which was set forth in the covenant, in circumcision. It was the Old Testament rite of confirmation.

Now Christ is declared by all of the New Testament to be our firstborn and our firstfruit. Christ, our firstfruit, is sacrificed for us.

“…ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.” xiii

And so St. Paul declares “Our salvation in Christ being therefore of soul and body, the culmination of it will be in the new creation, the resurrection of our bodies as well as of our soul so that we shall live in the new creation in perfect redemption, in a physical life, in a glorified body as well as a resurrected soul.” For that which the Lord’s Table sets forth, as well as the Passover, is a total redemption; body and soul.

Let us pray.

* * *

Our Lord and our God we give thanks unto thee for thy so great salvation. And we pray our Father that thou wouldst make the people of God in this generation mindful that the sacraments set forth not only the salvation of our souls, but the judgment of death against thine enemies. Grant that in this faith of the confidence we may move to prepare ourselves in the days ahead for the judgment that shall fall upon thine enemies and for our triumph and our redemption in and of thee through Jesus Christ our Lord. In His name we pray. Amen.

* * *

Are there any questions now?

[Audience member] Is this ordinance, the Passover, to continue forever, to the end of time? xiv

[Rushdoony] The ordinance is continued today in the Lord’s Table. Because, you see, our Lord at the Last Supper began the supper as the Passover, and then as the service came to a conclusion He said, “Now, in effect, this is the new Passover it is my body, and it is my blood, shed for you.” So that the whole meaning of the Last Supper as our Lord instituted the Last Supper on that night in the upper room was to declare, “Here it is, to continue forever, do this in remembrance of me, the Passover.” So that the sacrament of the Lord’s Table used to be spoken of as the ‘Christian Passover.’ It is continued, and it is to be continued until the end of time.

Because also, according to the New Testament, we are now the Israel of God. Why did our Lord call twelve disciples? To indicate that, because the old Israel, the old twelve tribes were now apostate, and were no longer the chosen people of God, He was calling out of them twelve to indicate this, the church, is the true Israel of God. Thus, we are now the true Israel. And this was pointed out some years ago in a very fine statement by Pope Pious XII when he declared “Spiritually we are all (that is we Christians) are all Semites.” In other words, we are the true Israelites.

[Audience member] [Indistinct question]

[Rushdoony] Except it doesn’t work that way and the fact is that St. Paul did persecute Christians and was responsible for their death but it was God who redeemed Him. Now, those who say, “I will do thus and so” are saying that “I am my own savior now or in the future, so it makes no difference, I will take care of the situation.” They are thereby affirming themselves, in effect, to be their own God. They will manage their own salvation in their own good time. But God took and saved St. Paul, even as He did the thief or murderer on the Cross, by His own sovereign grace.

Yes?

[Audience member] Why the emphasis on unleavened bread?

[Rushdoony] First of all, you find, if you go to Scofieldian interpreters, that leaven is said to mean sin. This is not true, because otherwise why were leavened offerings required for certain offerings if you took to the temple, or to the tabernacle? Leaven signifies corruptibility. It signifies that which can, for example, mildew or spoil, or get rotten. Now, the offerings that man took to God were leavened offerings to signify that which man did could pass away. Our leavened offerings, for example, are building churches which can in time decay, or be torn down, or be taken over. Our offering is work for the Lord which passes away, which changes. But when it is God’s offering, as it is you see in the Passover, what does it signify? The body and blood of Christ, the unleavened bread the body, and the meat the Passover lamb, the blood. Now, signifying Christ, whose work is incorruptible and does not pass away, it therefore could not be with leaven, it was incorruptible.

[Audience member] Should we celebrate the sacraments in this meeting?

[Rushdoony] We are not formally a church, this is the reason why we have not observed any of the sacraments. But in the very near future we are going to ask to get a committee together to see what answer we can come up with with respect to this. So we are planning to take a step, since so many of you have raised the question to remedy this problem,one way or another.

Yes?

[Audience member] I didn’t understand what you said previously about having to redeem the child.  xv

[Rushdoony] In Israel, every believer, everyone who was faithful to the covenant, had to, first of all circumcise their child, which we do in baptism, the same basic rite. Then, to confirm this, they went to the sanctuary the first available opportunity and they redeemed the child, that is they made a payment so that they could take back the child, otherwise the child belonged to God, and legally was under sentence of death.

Since every Israelite had to redeem his child, and the firstborn of all his crop, we similarly, are under the same law, that is we are under the sentence of death and this is symbolically passed against our firstborn. How is it fulfilled, literally? Our firstborn is given over unto death, in that we are now the household of faith, the family of God. And God gives His firstborn, you see, and the sentence of death is passed against Him. So that St. Paul speaks of Christ as being our firstborn, and we are called by St. Paul, the church of the firstborn. This is one of the terms used for the church, one of the names, the church of the firstborn. So that Christ dies as our firstborn.

Yes?

[Audience member] The firstborn male?  xvi

[Rushdoony] Yes, firstborn male in that he represented the head, and it was the firstborn of woman, or of the female of the livestock. So it was not the man’s firstborn, it was the woman, because it specifies, “whatsoever openeth the womb.” So it was the firstborn of the female, of man and beast.

[Audience member] It could be a girl then?

[Rushdoony] No, of the beasts it was anything and everything, but it was the male of…

[Audience member] What happened if they didn’t have any sons?

[Rushdoony] They just had daughters then.

Yes?

[Audience member] [Indistinct question.]

[Rushdoony] This symbolism has been drawn by the Church Fathers, but we don’t have it in the scriptures. It’s a good symbol and there’s nothing wrong with it. All we have to say is, it isn’t a part of a biblical symbolism. So that while we can say it is a useful and a beautiful symbol, we cannot read it into the Bible since we’re not given any grounds for it.

It’s a beautiful analogy, and I think it’s a good one.

[Audience member] Is there a connection, then, between circumcision and the resurrection?  xvii

[Rushdoony] Yes the fact that the resurrection came on the eighth day after the full week, that circumcision signifying regeneration, also came on the eighth day as an analogy to resurrection. It’s a beautiful one which the Church Fathers drew. So there is a beautiful analogy there. But since the Scripture does not itself draw out the analogy, we must distinguish between the fact that it is a fitting one, it’s a good one, but the Scripture doesn’t tell us there is this analogy. So there is a line of distinction there we must recognize.

Yes?

[Audience member] Why does the scripture speak of the Children of Israel ‘borrowing’ and ‘lending’ in this passage?  xviii

[Rushdoony] Yes, now here we have a problem with words because Exodus says they borrowed and they lent. Here you have older meanings of the word that we don’t recognize. For example to us “borrow” and “lent” has the strict idea of a temporary loan, something that is to be returned. But when the King James Version was translated, it had the meaning of taking and of giving.

Now what happened was this. They had been slaves you remember, now they said, “We are demanding wages, pay us off, we worked for nothing, we are entitled to wages.” And the Egyptians gave it to them to get them out of the land, they didn’t want them around. “Okay, here we’re paying you off tonight, get out!” This was the meaning, so that this is a part of the changing nature of language which we encounter several times in Scripture. I’ve cited before the fact that Paul says, “Quit thee like men” which means “acquit yourselves, perform like men.” And during World War II, one commanding officer, when a tract was passed out by an Episcopal chaplain with this across the front, “Quit thee like men” blew his stack, because he read the word “quit” in a totally modern sense which was not that intended by St. Paul.

Yes?

[Audience member] Well, after all the excitement that they had suffered and it came up to this moment where they were going to leave, did the Egyptians know that the Passover was coming, or had they already told them, “Take your wages and get out”?

[Rushdoony] Good question. The Egyptians knew this death sentence was coming because Moses made the witness to all of them. And then you read that it was a mixed multitude that left. In verse thirty-eight:

“And a mixed multitude went up also with them…” xix

So, six hundred thousand men, which means about two million Israelites, plus foreigners. That’s what meant by the ‘mixed multitude;’ Egyptians, and other peoples, who, believing what Moses and Aaron had declared, had preserved themselves by celebrating the Passover themselves also.

[Audience member] Do we have any evidence in the Bible that a mixed multitude that followed them became merged in the end?

[Rushdoony] Yes, very definitely, even in the wilderness journey we have references to some of the people from this mixed multitude. They were now Israelites, so they were actually a part of the people, and within a generation or two they had mixed in with them.

Now, when you actually estimate the blood of Abraham and Israel it was a very small strain. Because, first of all, in Abraham’s household we read that he had a few hundred fighting men, did he not? So that when he went to battle he took a few hundred men to battle with him, which means that he left the boys and the old men back at home tending the flocks. So, if you estimate the men of fighting age at about a third, you would have to estimate he had twelve hundred males in his household, and perhaps a household of 2,400, 2,500 people all told.

Now this was the family of Abraham, the chosen people of his day. Isaac represented therefore, within the Israel of the day, 1/2500th Abrahamic blood.

Now, when they went into Egypt, there were about one hundred and twenty with the blood of Abraham, of Jacob and his sons. But all the rest, numbering a number of thousand of all this household, you see, were not of Abrahamic blood. So hence the importance of the genealogies you see, because the genealogies helped trace those who were strictly of Abrahamic blood in terms of knowing the line of the of the Messiah who was to come.

[Audience member] What nations did the rest of the people represent, then? xx

[Rushdoony] Well, it was Egyptian; it was say Ammonite, Moabite, and so on. We know for example that David had a Moabite grandmother, Ruth. And we know that several other foreigners were married into the line of David, quite a few. So that it was a very slightly Jewish blood a good deal of the time. In fact, David was a redhead according to Scripture.

[Audience member] I was wondering where really dark people originate from? xxi

[Rushdoony] Well, the Hamitic people in antiquity, were not dark in the modern sense. We have all kinds of inscriptions and reliefs on the walls of the Hamitic peoples. Now, the Ethiopians are among the Hamitic peoples of today and so are the Arabs, some of the Arabs, and the Egyptians. But even though the Ethiopians to this day reveal very strong, and non-negroid features, they have been so mixed with Negro blood that they have become very dark. But actually the strict Hamitic features in Ethiopia have very and beautiful lines and they still maintain a difference. You have three groups in Ethiopia today that have very little to do with each other; the Ethiopians, the Arabs, and the Negroes. And there’s quite likely to be extensive civil war between the three when Haile Selassie dies, and already the negroid peoples are in warfare against the others so at night there is another law that prevails.

[Audience member] Where does the megroid race come from?

[Rushdoony] Well, the Negro peoples, their origin, we don’t know from the Bible. This is the thing we must realize, as people separated, after the days of Noah, and went into various parts of the world, they began to breed in terms of certain standards that the different peoples considered to be beautiful. So that, over the centuries, you had a pronounced development of certain tendencies that a people considered to be ideal. Now, the Negro peoples went into the central part of Africa, there were no Negros in South Africa when the Dutch settled there. About the same time that New York was settled, they settled in an uninhabited area. The Negro peoples of that period were not very numerous. They increased under white man’s rule. They were a very small people in population, in terms of the world population. Rhodesia had only a handful of Negroes when the white man went there.

Alright, these were peoples who have bred in terms of certain standards and had developed in that direction, you see, by selective breeding you see just as plant, animal, breeders can breed and breed and in time develop a particular strand. For example, your Western peoples are just beginning to change their tastes so we are not, we who represent the Western peoples, we are changing very rapidly in our looks. And the most conspicuous way in which we are changing is that what was once regarded as a sign of great beauty, from the Middle East to the North of Europe, is no longer so regarded, and this is the eagle beak nose.

Now, the eagle beak nose was always regarded as a sign of tremendous beauty, of virility, of health, of strength. Well, in the last hundred years this has been a liability rather than an asset. In fact, it used to be the case that if a child when it was born, had a small nose, I’ve called this to your attention before, what the parents did was to take and to work it, to make it eagle beak in shape, and longer. Now, there was a good reason for this, the larger nose is able, because of the multitude of fine blood cells inside the nose, to take the air that you breathe, to render it sterile, to warm it to the exact temperature, so that it goes to your lungs as good, healthy, clean air. So that, you see, people with the eagle beak nose had a better ability at survival.

Whereas because in African the standard that became (and inscriptions and carvings reveal this) increasingly the ideal, the flat broad nose doesn’t have the same ability at preparing the air. And with a warm climate who needed it? This is why the negroid peoples in climates like ours, in America and especially in Canada, have a low survival rate when they’re not in a welfare economy. They die off, they have a high susceptibility to disease, especially respiratory diseases;TB and other things, colds, pneumonia. So you see our ancestors knew what they were doing when they said that an eagle beak was a sign of virility, of health, of strength, and a strong man was a man with a masculine eagle beak. They knew more than we in this respect.

Well, our time is really up, we’ve wandered far adrift. We’ll continue next week with the law of covenant membership.

i. The Holy Bible: King James Version, Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version. (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009), Ex 12.

ii. The Holy Bible: King James Version, Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version. (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009), Dt 10:16.

iii. The Holy Bible: King James Version, Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version. (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009), Dt 30:6.

iv. The Holy Bible: King James Version, Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version. (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009), Ro 11:16.

v. The Holy Bible: King James Version, Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version. (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009), Ex 12:11.

vi. The Holy Bible: King James Version, Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version. (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009), Ex 12:12.

vii.  The Holy Bible: King James Version, Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version. (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009), Ex 12:26–27.

viii. The Holy Bible: King James Version, Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version. (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009), Ex 13.

ix. The Holy Bible: King James Version, Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version. (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009), Jn 15:13.

x. The Holy Bible: King James Version, Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version. (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009), Jn 1:29.

xi. The Holy Bible: King James Version, Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version. (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009), Mk 13:2.

xii. The Holy Bible: King James Version, Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version. (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009), Ro 14:23.

xiii. The Holy Bible: King James Version, Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version. (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009), Ro 8:23.

xiv. Question added for the sake of brevity and clarity.

xv. Question added for the sake of brevity and clarity.

xvi. Question added for the sake of brevity and clarity.

xvii. Question added for the sake of brevity and clarity.

xviii. Question added for the sake of brevity and clarity.

xix. The Holy Bible: King James Version, Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version. (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009), Ex 12:38.

xx. Question added for the sake of brevity and clarity.

xxi. Question added for the sake of brevity and clarity.