Day 2--Chag HaMatzot (Feast of Unleavened Bread)

(Today is the second day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. I originally wrote and posted this to my previous blog on 04/05/2007.)

Readings:

Shemot (Exodus) 13:1-16
Bemidbar (Numbers) 28:19-25

Exo 13:2 "Set apart to Me all the first-born, the one opening the womb among the children of Yisra'el, among man and among beast, it is Mine."

YHWH is to come first in our lives. We are to offer up our first and our best--the first-born of the flocks and herds, the firstfruits of the harvest. He even claims the first-born of our children in order to remind us of the Passover and how the first-born of Israel were saved from death.

First-born children, though, are to be ransomed and not sacrificed:

Exo 13:14 "And it shall be, when your son asks you in time to come, saying, 'What is this?' then you shall say to him, 'By strength of hand YHWH brought us out of Mitsrayim, out of the house of bondage.
Exo 13:15 'And it came to be, when Pharaoh was too hardened to let us go, that YHWH killed every first-born in the land of Mitsrayim, both the first-born of man and the first-born of beast. Therefore I am slaughtering to YHWH every male that open the womb, but every first-born of my sons I ransom.'

By offering up the first and best, it reminds us that everything is His and not ours.

Hebel (Abel) understood this:

Gen 4:4 And Hebel also brought of the first-born of his flock and of their fat. And YHWH looked to Hebel and his offering,

He offered up the first-born with all the fat portions. He didn't hold back, but brought the very best.

Qayin (Cain), on the other hand, merely offered up "fruit of the ground", not the first-fruits and not the best:

Gen 4:3 And it came to be, in the course of time, that Qayin brought an offering of the fruit of the ground to YHWH.
Gen 4:5 but He did not look to Qayin and his offering. And Qayin was very wroth, and his face fell.

Qayin failed to acknowledge who YHWH is.

When we understand who YHWH is, it is nothing and no sacrifice to offer Him the first and best of everything we receive because we realize that it is all His anyway. By offering up the very best, we are acknowledging that HE is the true giver, not us.

Jam 1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no change, nor shadow of turning.