The Four-Day Lamb

“Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household… and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight.” – Exodus 12:3, 6

Ellie joined student council this year, and apparently their first item of business is to carry out a school-wide vote on the names for the two new baby goats the school farm acquired this year (top contenders: Salt and Pepper). All the kids know about this, from Elijah in kinder, to Eric in second grade, to Ellie in fifth grade, because all the classes visit the farm every week, where they take care of and get to know the various livestock.

I’ve always found it interesting that God asks the Israelites to keep the one year-old, unblemished lamb or goat (the Hebrew seh here can refer to either) in their own homes for a period of four days before killing it. Livestock were surely not normally kept in a house, much less crowded slave quarters. Why would he do this?

It would have been a constant symbol of what was to come. Nine plagues had happened by this time, but Pharaoh still had not let them go. Had the people lost heart? Or grown in hope? This bleating lamb or goat, wandering the house nibbling on clothing, pooping on floors, surfing the counters, would have been a reminder—salvation is coming, this time we really will be set free, have faith and believe. It was a promise they could touch, see, smell, hear, and later on, taste. 

But it was a promise that would come at a cost. Four days were probably long enough to start to see the lamb as a pet, particularly for the children. Can you imagine explaining to your kids that they would have to watch you kill it? Can you imagine how Abraham felt for the days it took him to walk up the mountain with Isaac to the altar? I don’t even really want to imagine any of that. But God wants his people to know—the sacrifice comes not just at a material cost, but an emotional one. The lamb is not just any lamb: it is a beloved one. It helps us understand what it meant that God was a God who “did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all” (Romans 8:32). 

This was done as a household. As a parent, I think about the significance of that: the lamb was to be brought into the family. All of it a story, a lesson, for everyone, from the smallest to the oldest. All of it a journey to be walked through together, as each family did the same thing, killed at the same time, ate the same flesh. I think about what it means to live with the gospel so centric in our family lives that it cannot be avoided. That it would be obvious to the neighbors. I think about how it looks to live as a congregation of families. I picture our last community group meeting, where folks in their sixties sat in the same circle as five year-olds, everyone sharing and listening to each other. The lamb was not for each individual, or just for the pertinent individual, the first-born son. It was for every household, and neighbors were to come together as needed. This is how growing in understanding salvation happens, how the journey is meant to be taken.