Verse 5, when God went against /over Egypt.
This is a reference to the ten plagues etc, so cannot be about setting up a festi Al while in Egypt.
Agreed, the language of God visiting, or going over, etc is judgment language. Though, of course, with God, judgment is always coupled with redemption, hence the visitation of YHWH among the people (in the Incarnation) means both judgment and salvation. As we recall our Lord Jesus saying clearly that judgment has already come, "men loved darkness over the light, for their deeds were evil"; and yet judgment against this world also means redemption, the salvation wrought by Christ to us. So that we are brought through judgment to life. Passing through the fire and kept on the other side: Grace. Even as Judgment comes to the world on the Last Day when all must stand before the Throne; and on that Day of Judgment shall also be the Day of Rescue: "New heavens and new earth".
For fire works in two ways: It destroys and cleanses, as when a lump of metal is heated in the fire--the impurities are burned away leaving only the pure lump. So it is when God sets the world ablaze at Judgment. Even as, in the days of Pharoah, it was through the plagues that the wickedness of Egypt was brought down and redemption came to Israel--the blood of the lamb on the doorposts preserving them from the angel of death. So is the blood of the Lamb of God what passes us through death of night to the life of a brand new day.
The new day of Christ's resurrection, the everlasting day; the "eighth day" as the Church has often described it.
I kind of went on a rant here, but I do think it's important to recognize how Judgment and Salvation come hand-in-hand with God's visitation, with God coming. Prefigured in the judgments and redemption of Israel from Egypt and later from Babylon and fully realized in Jesus Christ: both His first coming in suffering, and His second coming in glory. This is the Day of YHWH, the day of the Incarnation, the day of salvation and of judgment, the day of promise for the poor and the vulnerable and the day of woe for the rich and the powerful "Blessed are the poor... Woe to you who are rich" "Blessed are the hungry ... Woe to you who are already full" etc. Today, and that yet-still-future day.
-CryptoLutheran
