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The Blood that was Spread on the Doorframe

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When the LORD goes through the land to strike down the Egyptians, he will see the blood on the top and sides of the doorframe and will pass over that doorway, and he will not permit the destroyer to enter your houses and strike you down. (Exodus 12:23)

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Long ago, there was a great prime minister who rescued Egypt from 7 years of famine. The name of this prime minister was Joseph.

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When Joseph was the prime minister of Egypt, his father Jacob, who was living at Canaan, brought all his family and lived in Egypt. They lived happily beside Joseph, the prime minister, and kept sheep on very good land. Following the nick name of Jacob, they were called Israelites.

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But, when the new king, who didn’t know about Joseph, came to power, the Israelites suffered greatly. They hated the Israelites so much. They ignored them like a slave and made them to work at their construction site.

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Because it was too hard to take the suffering, they prayed eagerly for God to let them out of Egypt. They prayed to God to let them go to Canaan, where their ancestors had lived.

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God heard the prayer of the Israelites and raised Moses as the leader of Israel. Moses, with his brother Aaron, went to the king of Egypt and requested to set his people free.

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But Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, didn’t listen to the words of Moses. To save the Israelites from Egypt, God sent many plagues to Egypt. The changing of water to blood, bringing frogs to all the land, bringing gnats to the animals and the people and flies to cover all the land. But the heart of Pharaoh never changed.

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So God sent a terrible plague of disease, a plague of festering boils, send hailstones to all the land, and God even brought up locusts to all of the land. The ninth plague was the plague of darkness where there was never sunlight.

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Every time God sent plagues, Pharaoh promised to Moses that he would let all of the Israelites go if he would end that plague. However, when that plague ended, Pharaoh would change his heart again and make the Israelites keep suffering.

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To save the Israelites, God decided to give one last plague, the tenth plague, and spoke to Moses. “At around midnight, I will pass through all of Egypt. I will kill the first born of each family and of each animal, too. But, none of the Israelites will be harmed.” For God told the Israelites about the things that they should do.

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God told them to prepare and take one goat or sheep at each family and separately keep the blood of the sheep when killing it.

The Israelites did as God commanded.

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God commanded them to spread the blood that they had kept onto their doorframe. Following the words of God, the Israelites spread the upper part and sides of their doorframe. If there was no blood put on their doorframe, then they would receive the same plague as the Egyptians.

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That night, following the words of God, the Israelites prepared to leave and ate meat roasted over fire, along with bitter herbs, and ate bread made without yeast. These were also things that were commanded by God.

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About midnight of that night, God came down to all of Egypt. All the firstborn of the houses which hadn’t spread blood on the door died. And all the animals that were born first died also. The tenth plague of God had happened.

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But God saved all the Israelites who had spread the blood of the dead sheep on their doorframe. The judgment of God didn’t fall upon them. God saved the Israelites from Egypt. They got freedom from the slavery of Egypt and they were able to return to their homeland, Canaan.

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God is telling us how we can get salvation. Like saving the people who had spread the blood of the sheep on their doorframe, even to us, if we have the marks of blood, we get salvation. That blood is the blood that was shed when Jesus died on the cross to save us.

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The way to get the blood mark of Jesus is very easy. When we just confess with our mouth that we believe Jesus as our Savior, just like spreading the blood on a doorframe we also get the blood marks of Jesus Christ. I hope that like the Israelites, all of us can enter the eternal Canaan, which is heaven, by accepting Jesus as Christ through faith.