BREAKFAST BIBLE STUDY

Firstborn Sons Must Die?

Exodus 22: 29-30 (ESV)

7/27/25

“Christian nationalists should spend less time seeking power and more time reading the words Jesus preached.” – Christian Pecker

At first, Grace claimed the passage she picked for this week amounted to one of the greatest grifts ever devised, but I became so confused that I lost my appetite. To keep Christian’s cholesterol low, we now eat oatmeal, which I have never liked. Christian only gets one egg, boiled. I still get my two eggs, cooked sunny, the way I like my eggs, but we also need to eat whole grain toast, which has a funny aftertaste, and grapefruit, which makes my face scrunch.

“Grapefruit is not going to kill you,” Christian says.

“I still have ten years before I need to eat this stuff,” I said.

“Better to start getting your cholesterol down now,” Grace said.

“I don’t like this food,” I said, “and I don’t get what’s wrong with the law you picked…except for the press part. I don’t think that means the newspapers.”

“I’m thinking you’re correct,” Christian said. “Do you want me to take a crack at the verse?”

“And you can have my grapefruit,” I said.

“I’m good with my own grapefruit,” Christian said as he pulled the Bible to him. “Let’s see. ‘You shall not delay to make offerings from the fullness of your harvest and from the outflow of your presses. The firstborn of your sons you shall give to me. You shall do the same with your oxen and with your sheep: for seven days it shall remain with its mother; on the eighth day you shall give it to me.’”

“What’s so bad about that?” I asked.

“The priests evidently liked their wine,” Christian said. “That’s what the presses are. Wine presses.”

“Where would they find grapes in the desert?” Grace asked.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Weren’t they roaming the desert when Moses gave them the law?” Grace asked.

“But he knew they were going to reach Canaan,” I said. “God knew they would have harvests and grapes.”

“They were roaming the desert with sheep and oxen?” Grace said.

“Yep,” I said. “When they all left Egypt, they took the animals with them.”

“What did the animals eat out in the desert?” Christian asked.

“Manna from Heaven,” I said. “Just like the people.”

“So, were they giving God the first fruits of the manna fresh from the ground,” Grace asked. “Or were they pounding it into bread first?”

“It doesn’t say,” I admitted. “Since it came from Heaven, would they even have to share it with God?”

“God does like to get his ten percent,” Grace said.

“They also have to give offerings of their oxen and lambs,” I said. “Does that mean they would sacrifice them eight days after they were born?”

“While they were fat and tender from their mother’s milk,” Grace said.

“And their firstborn sons would become priests?” I said.

“Does the text say that?” Grace said.

“Um, but how else would they give their firstborns to God?” I asked.

“They were to give the firstborns the same way they were to give their oxen and lambs,” Christian said. “You’re right, Grace, it’s right there in the text.”

“That would be funny if the oxen and lambs became priests,” I said.

“That’s not what’s happening in the text,” Christian said. “The key is the seven days with the mother, isn’t it?”

“I think so,” Grace said.

“What about it?” I asked.

“What would happen to a baby lamb or ox taken away from its mother that soon,” Grace said.

“Somebody would have to bottle-feed it,” I said.

“Maybe the priests had bottles,” Grace said, “but I have my doubts. What would happen to an infant taken from his mother that soon.”

“Or her mother,” I said.

“No, it specifically says firstborn sons. Grace’s pronoun use is correct,” Christian said.

“Mostly, I appreciate you being gender-inclusive, Cole,” Grace said, “but not this time.”

“You don’t believe women can become priests?” I said.

“It’s right there in the text,” Christian said.

“Wait,” I said. “You don’t think they were sacrificing baby boys, do you? I know that’s wrong because Cain got in trouble for sacrificing Abel.”

“Abel was a grown man,” Grace said. “And he wasn’t firstborn.”

“Hold on,” I said. “You don’t believe they actually killed boy babies, do you?”

“God is demanding human sacrifice,” Christian said. “Firstborn baby boys.”

“Now I get why they rebelled,” I said. “But it has to be a copyist error.”

“Infant sacrifice happened in the region,” Christian said, “but there’s no evidence in the archaeological or historic record that the ancient Israelites practiced this law on a widespread basis. Earlier cultures in the region did.”

“Yet, the law still exists,” Grace said.

“I think you’re reading it wrong,” I said. “Maybe they meant for the ox and lambs to work for the priests in the fields, kind of like boys becoming priests.”

“Can I tell him about the redemption laws?” Christian said.

“Sure,” Grace said.

“Early in the book, God gives nearly the same instruction before Moses climbs Mt. Sinai. The law is nearly the same, but there is a redemption clause that allows the firstborn sons to live. The ritual is meant to be a reminder of the Passover and the killing of the Egyptian firstborn boys. Families would pay the priests a ransom to save their children from slaughter.”

“Oh, so that’s good,” I said.

“God hardened Pharaoh’s heart,” Grace said. “Those Egyptian children didn’t need to die. If God hadn’t hardened Pharaoh’s heart, those children could have lived.”

“Oh,” I said.

“And then what happens when Moses comes down from the mountain?” Grace said.

“The people are worshiping a golden calf,” I said. “They had to drink it.”

“And what did the Levites do?” Grace said.

“I don’t remember,” I said.

“Probably something not appropriate for little children to hear in school,” Christian said. “Exodus 32. Good. We’ll have something to talk about next week.”

In state legislatures across the country, Christian fundamentalists are passing laws meant to force the teaching of the Christian Bible in public schools. From the posting of textually inaccurate iterations of the Ten Commandments on the walls of classrooms to the incorporation of the “Trump Bible” across multiple pedagogical disciplines, these laws and mandates are sweeping the reddest parts of this nation.

The height of hypocrisy is banning books in the name of “protecting children” while mandating one particular book rife with numerous acts of sexual violence and scenes of graphic violence and genocide.

Book bans are dangerous. The Bible is worth reading and exists online and in public school libraries across the country, but proponents of mandating its formal teaching in public schools need to know what it actually says.

Some themes in my books below might not be appropriate for children.