ALPHA MAAMA (A.M.)

Tu’apulelulu Ma’asi 9, 2023

חפזון Israelite Fast Food

Me‘atokoni ke ma‘u fakavavevave

EXODUS 12:11

IN THIS MANNER YOU SHALL EAT IT: WITH YOUR BELT FASTENED, YOUR SANDALS ON YOUR FEET, AND YOUR STAFF IN YOUR HAND. AND YOU SHALL EAT IT IN HASTE. IT IS THE LORD'S PASSOVER." 

‘EKISOTO 12:11

Pea ko e anga eni ‘o ho‘omou kai ia; kuo ‘osi no‘o homou kongaloto, pea kuo ‘ai sū homou va‘e, ‘o ma‘u puke homou tokotoko: ‘io, te mou kai ia hangē ha teu ke hola: ko e Pāsova ia kia Sihova.

The original Pesach meal was not to be savored but devoured. Tuck your robes in your belt. Fasten your sandals. Stuff your mouth with one hand while gripping a staff in the other. Clean your plates, Moses says, in chippazon ("in haste"). Unleavened bread characterized this chippazon food, there being no time for dough to leaven (Deut. 16:3). Why? The Egyptians, fearing for their lives, "were urgent with the people to send them out of the land in haste" (12:33). Fast food for a fast exit from a land that had slowly been killing them. Israel had to get out while the gettin' was good.

How different, Isaiah prophesies, will be the exodus of exoduses, when the Lord's anointed servant brings good news, publishes peace and salvation, and says to Zion, "Your God reigns" (52:7). In the saving, worldwide exodus in Jesus, "you shall not go out in chippazon ['in haste']" (v. 12). Why? "The LORD will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rear guard." There is no need for haste. None can pursue us now. All our foes lay conquered and dead in the tomb he left behind.

Make haste, O God, to deliver us, that we might rest securely and peacefully in your finished work.