Reading for Saturday, 15th Week in Ordinary Time

Optional Memorial: Our Lady's Saturday

From: Exodus 12: 37-42

The Sons of Israel Leave Egypt
[37] And the people of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children. [38] A mixed multitude also went up with them, and very many cattle, both flocks and herds. [39] And they baked unleavened cakes of the dough which they had brought 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 provisions.

[40] The time that the people of Israel dwelt in Egypt was four hundred and thirty years. [41] And at the end of four hundred and thirty years, on that very day, all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt. [42] It was a night of watching by the Lord, to bring them out of the land of Egypt; so this same night is a night of watching kept to the Lord by all the people of Israel throughout their generations.
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Commentary:
12:37-42. Here we are given concrete details about the departure from Egypt. They headed towards Succoth, a city which modern excavations locate some 15 kms (nine miles) south-east of Rameses, in the Nile delta. It seems to make sense that they should have avoided trade routes, which would have been quieter but busier and patrolled by Egyptian armies--the coast road to the country of the Philistines (cf. 13:17), the road through the southern desert, which led to Beer-sheba, or the trading route linking Egypt and Arabia. Even in this little thing one can see God's special providence at work: he has no need of beaten tracks to show his people where to go.

The figure of 600,000 is an idealize one (cf. Num 1:46; 26:51), for it would imply a total population of three million people, women and children included. Maybe for the hagiographer's contemporaries this figure had a significance which escapes us today; or perhaps it is just a way of indicating that there were very many people--part of the epic style of the account, to highlight the power of God.

The figure of 430 years for the time the sons of Israel had been in Egypt (v. 40) is slightly different from the 404 years which appears more often in the Bible (cf, Gen 15:13; Acts 7:6; Gal 3:16-17). In the Pentateuch numbers often have a more symbolic than chronological meaning (cf. the note on Gen 5:1-32). The 400 years would mean that the chosen people lived in Egypt for ten generations (forty years per generation: cf. the note on Ex 7:9), that is, a complete period of the history of Israel.

"Night of watching" (v. 42): if the darkness causes any misgiving, God will transform it into a time of salvation. Because God looks out for them, the Israelites will also commemorate the night of their deliverance by keeping watch. Christian liturgy celebrates the Lords' resurrection with a solemn vigil, commemorating the deliverance of the Israelites, the redemption of Christians, and Christ's victory over death--three stages in God's intervention to save souls; as the Church sings: "This is the night when first you saved our fathers: you freed the people of Israel from their slavery. [...] This is the night when Christians everywhere (are) washed clean of sin and freed from all defilement. [...] This is the night when Jesus Christ broke the chains of death and rose triumphant from the grave" ("Roman Missal", Exultet).
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Source: "The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries". Biblical text taken from the Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries made by members of the Faculty of Theology of the University of Navarre, Spain. Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland. Reprinted with permission from Four Courts Press and Scepter Publishers, the U.S. publisher.