◄ Exodus 34:20 ►
You must redeem the firstborn of a donkey with a lamb; but if you do not redeem it, you are to break its neck. You must redeem all the firstborn of your sons. No one shall appear before Me empty-handed.
Study Bible
You must redeem the firstborn of a donkey with a lamb;

In ancient Israel, the donkey was considered an unclean animal, and thus its firstborn could not be sacrificed to the Lord. Instead, it had to be redeemed with a lamb, which was a clean animal. This practice underscores the principle of substitutionary redemption, a theme that runs throughout Scripture. The lamb, a symbol of innocence and purity, points to the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, who redeems humanity from sin.

Exo 13:13 You must redeem every firstborn donkey with a lamb…
Num 18:15-16 The firstborn of every womb, whether man or beast…

but if you do not redeem it, you are to break its neck.

This command highlights the seriousness of redemption. If the donkey was not redeemed, it had to be killed, signifying the cost of failing to fulfill God's requirements. This act served as a reminder of the consequences of sin and the necessity of atonement. It also reflects the broader biblical principle that life is forfeit without redemption, paralleling the spiritual death that results from unredeemed sin.

Deu 21:4 bring the heifer to a valley with running water…
Lev 27:27 But if it is among the unclean animals, then…

You must redeem all the firstborn of your sons.

The redemption of the firstborn sons is rooted in the Passover event, where God spared the firstborn of Israel while striking down the firstborn of Egypt. This act of redemption was a perpetual reminder of God's deliverance and covenant with Israel. The redemption price for a firstborn son was five shekels, as specified in Numbers 18:16. This practice foreshadows the redemption offered through Christ, who is described as the firstborn over all creation (Colossians 1:15).

Exo 13:15 And when Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go…
Num 3:46-51 To redeem the 273 firstborn Israelites…
Exo 13:2 “Consecrate to Me every firstborn male. The firstborn”…

No one shall appear before Me empty-handed.

This command emphasizes the importance of approaching God with offerings, reflecting gratitude and acknowledgment of His provision. In the context of the three annual pilgrimage festivals (Passover, Weeks, and Tabernacles), Israelites were to bring offerings as a sign of worship and dependence on God. This principle is echoed in the New Testament, where believers are encouraged to offer themselves as living sacrifices (Romans 12:1), highlighting the call to give of oneself fully to God.

Deu 16:16-17 Three times a year all your men appear before the LORD…
Exo 23:15 You are to keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread…
2Sa 24:24 So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen…

Persons / Places / Events
1. Moses
The leader of the Israelites who received the law from God on Mount Sinai, including the instructions found in Exodus 34.

2. Israelites
The chosen people of God, who were given the law to follow as part of their covenant relationship with Him.

3. Mount Sinai
The place where God gave Moses the Ten Commandments and other laws, including the redemption laws in Exodus 34.

4. Firstborn
Refers to the first offspring of both humans and animals, which were considered sacred and belonged to God.

5. Redemption
The act of buying back or substituting, which in this context involves offering a lamb in place of a firstborn donkey or redeeming the firstborn sons.
Teaching Points
The Principle of Redemption
Redemption is a key biblical theme, symbolizing God's provision and grace. The requirement to redeem the firstborn underscores the value God places on life and His provision for substitutionary atonement.

The Cost of Redemption
Redemption comes at a cost, whether it is a lamb for a donkey or the blood of Christ for humanity. This teaches us about the seriousness of sin and the preciousness of God's gift of salvation.

Obedience to God's Commands
The Israelites were instructed not to appear before God empty-handed, highlighting the importance of obedience and bringing offerings to God as an act of worship and gratitude.

Symbolism of the Firstborn
The firstborn represents the best and the beginning of strength. Offering the firstborn to God signifies giving Him the first and best of our lives, resources, and time.

Spiritual Readiness
Just as the Israelites were not to appear before God empty-handed, we are called to come before God with prepared hearts, ready to offer our lives as living sacrifices.
Bible Study Questions
1. What does the requirement to redeem the firstborn teach us about God's view of life and ownership?

2. How does the concept of redemption in Exodus 34:20 foreshadow the ultimate redemption through Jesus Christ?

3. In what ways can we apply the principle of not appearing before God empty-handed in our daily worship and spiritual practices?

4. How does understanding the cost of redemption deepen our appreciation for the sacrifice of Jesus?

5. What are some practical ways we can offer the "first and best" of our lives to God today?
Connections to Other Scriptures
Exodus 13:13
This verse also discusses the redemption of the firstborn, emphasizing the importance of substituting a lamb for a donkey and redeeming firstborn sons.

Numbers 18:15-16
Provides further instructions on the redemption of the firstborn, including the payment required for redeeming human firstborns.

Luke 2:22-24
Describes Mary and Joseph bringing Jesus to the temple to present Him to the Lord, following the law of redeeming the firstborn.

1 Peter 1:18-19
Speaks of the ultimate redemption through Christ, who is the Lamb without blemish, connecting the Old Testament practice to the New Testament fulfillment.
Sermons
Renewal of the Tables, and Fourth IntercessionJ. Orr Exodus 34:1-10, 28
Revived ObligationsJ. Orr Exodus 34:10-29
People
Aaron, Amorites, Canaanites, Hittites, Hivite, Hivites, Israelites, Jebusites, Moses, Perizzites
Places
Egypt, Mount Sinai, Sinai
Topics
Appear, Ass, Beheaded, Break, Broken, Donkey, Empty, Empty-handed, Firstborn, First-born, Firstling, Hast, Lamb, Neck, None, Offering, Offspring, Payment, Ransom, Redeem, Sons, Wilt
Dictionary of Bible Themes
Exodus 34:20

     1255   face of God
     4663   lamb
     6714   ransom

Exodus 34:10-35

     4269   Sinai, Mount

Exodus 34:19-20

     5688   firstborn

Library
Blessed and Tragic Unconsciousness
'... Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone while he talked with Him.'--EXODUS xxxiv. 29. '... And Samson wist not that the Lord had departed from him.'--JUDGES xvi. 20. The recurrence of the same phrase in two such opposite connections is very striking. Moses, fresh from the mountain of vision, where he had gazed on as much of the glory of God as was accessible to man, caught some gleam of the light which he adoringly beheld; and a strange radiance sat on his face, unseen by himself, but …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

God Proclaiming his Own Name
'The Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth.'--EXODUS xxxiv. 6. This great event derives additional significance and grandeur from the place in which it stands. It follows the hideous act of idolatry in which the levity and sinfulness of Israel reached their climax. The trumpet of Sinai had hardly ceased to peal, and there in the rocky solitudes, in full view of the mount 'that burned with fire,' …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

A Jealous God
I. Reverently, let us remember that THE LORD IS EXCEEDINGLY JEALOUS OF HIS DEITY. Our text is coupled with the command--"Thou shalt worship no other God." When the law was thundered from Sinai, the second commandment received force from the divine jealousy--"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in the heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 9: 1863

The Knowledge that God Is, Combined with the Knowledge that He is to be Worshipped.
John iv. 24.--"God is a Spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." There are two common notions engraven on the hearts of all men by nature,--that God is, and that he must be worshipped, and these two live and die together, they are clear, or blotted together. According as the apprehension of God is clear, and distinct, and more deeply engraven on the soul, so is this notion of man's duty of worshipping God clear and imprinted on the soul, and whenever the actions …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

Nature of the Renderings
From the text we now turn to the renderings, and to the general principles that were followed, both in the Old and in the New Testament. The revision of the English text was in each case subject to the same general rule, viz. "To introduce as few alterations as possible into the Text of the Authorised Version consistently with faithfulness"; but, owing to the great difference between the two languages, the Hebrew and the Greek, the application of the rule was necessarily different, and the results …
C. J. Ellicott—Addresses on the Revised Version of Holy Scripture

Elijah's Weakness, and Its Cube
'And Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and withal how he had slain all the prophets with the sword. 2. Then Jezebel sent a messenger unto Elijah, saying, So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I make not thy life as the life of one of them by to-morrow about this time. 3. And when he saw that, he arose, and went for his life, and came to Beersheba, which belongeth to Judah, and left his servant there. 4. But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

"That the Righteousness of the Law Might be Fulfilled in Us. "
Rom. viii. 4.--"That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us." God having a great design to declare unto the world both his justice and mercy towards men, he found out this mean most suitable and proportioned unto it, which is here spoken of in the third verse,--to send his own Son to bear the punishment of sin, that the righteousness of the law might be freely and graciously fulfilled in sinners. And, indeed, it was not imaginable by us, how he could declare both in the salvation …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

Moses --Making Haste
"Lord, teach us to pray."--Luke xi. 1. "And Moses made haste . . ."--Ex. xxxiv. 8. THIS passage is by far the greatest passage in the whole of the Old Testament. This passage is the parent passage, so to speak, of all the greatest passages of the Old Testament. This passage now open before us, the text and the context, taken together, should never be printed but in letters of gold a finger deep. There is no other passage to be set beside this passage till we come to the opening passages of the New …
Alexander Whyte—Lord Teach Us To Pray

The Christian's God
Scripture References: Genesis 1:1; 17:1; Exodus 34:6,7; 20:3-7; Deuteronomy 32:4; 33:27; Isaiah 40:28; 45:21; Psalm 90:2; 145:17; 139:1-12; John 1:1-5; 1:18; 4:23,24; 14:6-11; Matthew 28:19,20; Revelation 4:11; 22:13. WHO IS GOD? How Shall We Think of God?--"Upon the conception that is entertained of God will depend the nature and quality of the religion of any soul or race; and in accordance with the view that is held of God, His nature, His character and His relation to other beings, the spirit …
Henry T. Sell—Studies in the Life of the Christian

Jehovah. The "I Am. "
WHEN Moses in the desert beheld the burning bush God answered his question by the revelation of His name as the "I Am." "And God said unto Moses, I am, that I am: and He said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you" (Exod. iii:14). He who spake thus out of the bush to Moses was the same who in the fullness of time appeared upon the earth in the form of man. Our Lord Jesus Christ is no less person, than the I AM. If we turn to the fourth Gospel in which the Holy …
Arno Gaebelein—The Lord of Glory

The True Manner of Keeping Holy the Lord's Day.
Now the sanctifying of the Sabbath consists in two things--First, In resting from all servile and common business pertaining to our natural life; Secondly, In consecrating that rest wholly to the service of God, and the use of those holy means which belong to our spiritual life. For the First. 1. The servile and common works from which we are to cease are, generally, all civil works, from the least to the greatest (Exod. xxxi. 12, 13, 15, &c.) More particularly-- First, From all the works of our …
Lewis Bayly—The Practice of Piety

That the Employing Of, and Associating with the Malignant Party, According as is Contained in the Public Resolutions, is Sinful and Unlawful.
That The Employing Of, And Associating With The Malignant Party, According As Is Contained In The Public Resolutions, Is Sinful And Unlawful. If there be in the land a malignant party of power and policy, and the exceptions contained in the Act of Levy do comprehend but few of that party, then there need be no more difficulty to prove, that the present public resolutions and proceedings do import an association and conjunction with a malignant party, than to gather a conclusion from clear premises. …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

The Exercise of Mercy Optional with God.
ROMANS ix. 15.--"For He saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion." This is a part of the description which God himself gave to Moses, of His own nature and attributes. The Hebrew legislator had said to Jehovah: "I beseech thee show me thy glory." He desired a clear understanding of the character of that Great Being, under whose guidance he was commissioned to lead the people of Israel into the promised land. God said to …
William G.T. Shedd—Sermons to the Natural Man

The True Tabernacle, and Its Glory of Grace and Peace
THERE WAS A TIME when God freely communed with men. The voice of the Lord God was heard walking in the garden in the cool of the day. With unfallen Adam the great God dwelt in sweet and intimate fellowship; but sin came and not only destroyed the garden, but destroyed the intercourse of God with His creature man. A great gulf opened between man as evil, and God as infinitely pure; and had it not been for the amazing goodness of the most High, we must all of us forever have been banished from His …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 31: 1885

Because of his Importunity
"I say unto you, Though he will not rise and give him, because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will arise and give him as many as he needeth."--LUKE xi. 8. "And He spake a parable unto them, to the end, they ought always to pray and not to faint.... Hear what the unrighteous judge saith. And shall not God avenge His own elect, which cry to Him day and night, and He is long-suffering with them? I tell you that He will avenge them speedily."--LUKE xviii. 1-8. Our Lord Jesus …
Andrew Murray—The Ministry of Intercession

The Mercy of God
The next attribute is God's goodness or mercy. Mercy is the result and effect of God's goodness. Psa 33:5. So then this is the next attribute, God's goodness or mercy. The most learned of the heathens thought they gave their god Jupiter two golden characters when they styled him good and great. Both these meet in God, goodness and greatness, majesty and mercy. God is essentially good in himself and relatively good to us. They are both put together in Psa 119:98. Thou art good, and doest good.' This …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

The Formation of the Old Testament Canon
[Sidenote: Israel's literature at the beginning of the fourth century before Christ] Could we have studied the scriptures of the Israelitish race about 400 B.C., we should have classified them under four great divisions: (1) The prophetic writings, represented by the combined early Judean, Ephraimite, and late prophetic or Deuteronomic narratives, and their continuation in Samuel and Kings, together with the earlier and exilic prophecies; (2) the legal, represented by the majority of the Old Testament …
Charles Foster Kent—The Origin & Permanent Value of the Old Testament

That Deep Things Ought not to be Preached at all to Weak Souls.
But the preacher should know how to avoid drawing the mind of his hearer beyond its strength, lest, so to speak, the string of the soul, when stretched more than it can bear, should be broken. For all deep things should be covered up before a multitude of hearers, and scarcely opened to a few. For hence the Truth in person says, Who, thinkest thou, is the faithful and wise steward, whom his Lord has appointed over his household, to give them their measure of wheat in due season? (Luke xii. 42). …
Leo the Great—Writings of Leo the Great

The Lord of Glory.
1 Cor. ii:8. OUR ever blessed Lord, who died for us, to whom we belong, with whom we shall be forever, is the Lord of Glory. Thus He is called in 1 Cor. ii:8, "for had they known they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory." Eternally He is this because He is "the express image of God, the brightness of His Glory" (Heb. i:3). He possessed Glory with the Father before the world was (John xvii:5). This Glory was beheld by the prophets, for we read that Isaiah "saw His Glory and spake of Him" …
Arno Gaebelein—The Lord of Glory

The Development of the Earlier Old Testament Laws
[Sidenote: First the principle, and then the detailed laws] If the canon of the New Testament had remained open as long as did that of the Old, there is little doubt that it also would have contained many laws, legal precedents, and ecclesiastical histories. From the writings of the Church Fathers and the records of the Catholic Church it is possible to conjecture what these in general would have been. The early history of Christianity illustrates the universal fact that the broad principles are …
Charles Foster Kent—The Origin & Permanent Value of the Old Testament

Moses the Type of Christ.
"The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto Him ye shall hearken."--Deut. xviii. 15. The history of Moses is valuable to Christians, not only as giving us a pattern of fidelity towards God, of great firmness, and great meekness, but also as affording us a type or figure of our Saviour Christ. No prophet arose in Israel like Moses, till Christ came, when the promise in the text was fulfilled--"The Lord thy God," says Moses, "shall …
John Henry Newman—Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII

Covenant Duties.
It is here proposed to show, that every incumbent duty ought, in suitable circumstances, to be engaged to in the exercise of Covenanting. The law and covenant of God are co-extensive; and what is enjoined in the one is confirmed in the other. The proposals of that Covenant include its promises and its duties. The former are made and fulfilled by its glorious Originator; the latter are enjoined and obligatory on man. The duties of that Covenant are God's law; and the demands of the law are all made …
John Cunningham—The Ordinance of Covenanting

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