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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadJohn Kitto Morning Bible Devotions: April 15
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Exo_10:21-29; Exo_11:1-10; Exo_12:29-30
It is said that “they saw not one another, neither rose any one from his place for three days.” This probably means, that the heavy and humid state of the atmosphere rendered any kind of artificial light useless; and that every one was, during these awful days, prevented from leaving home to attend upon his usual business. The old Dutch artist to whom we lately had occasion to allude, has depicted this plague with considerable effect and force. He allows us, through the darkness which envelops his engraving, to discern the shadows of men stumbling along the way, running against each other, groping in vain to find their doors, coming full butt against monuments, falling over steps. Here and there are men with lamps; but they radiate no light—they are small white specks, and the men hold them close down to the ground to find their path; others, in some instances, are seen to be holding on behind to avail themselves of the guidance of the persons thus painfully and fearfully seeking the pathway. Meanwhile, in the distance, lies the favored land of Goshen under a flood of light, contrasting well with the Egyptian darkness. Until we saw this print, we had no idea that darkness could be historically depicted.
This visitation again compelled the king to send for Moses and Aaron. Nevertheless he is still bent on compromise. He will now permit the children to go, but the flocks must be left behind—he must still have some pledge for the return of the Israelites, by the retention of their property. This Moses meets by a plain and blunt refusal: “Our cattle also shall go with us; there shall not a hoof be left behind.” He assigned the very sufficient reason that from the flocks and herds the offerings must be made, and it could not be known what would be needed till they came to the appointed place. Pharaoh doubtless thought that he made a reasonable and moderate proposal, and the high-toned refusal of Moses strengthened his suspicions, and roused his indignation to the uttermost. “Get thee from me,” he said, “take heed to thyself; see my face no more, for in that day thou seest my face thou shalt die.” Moses accordingly left the presence with the ominous words, “Thou hast spoken well; I will see thy face again no more.”
The contest is now over, and Moses is directed to prepare for the last awful infliction—the crowning-stroke—which shall compel the king to let the oppressed go free; nay, to urge and command their immediate departure. This was to be no less than the sudden death, in one night—in one hour —at one fell swoop, of all the first-born of Egypt, “from the first-born of Pharaoh that sitteth upon his throne, even unto the first-born of the maid-servant that is behind the mill; and all the first-born of cattle.”
The mind needs here to pause to contemplate the length, the breadth, the depth, the fulness, of this terrible doom. This is one of the great matters that cannot be taken in at one impression. The mind must dwell on it—must rest on the details—must penetrate to the homes and hearts of the Egyptian people—must follow the course of this infliction from the throned Pharaoh to the poor bondwoman drudging behind the mill. This is not difficult. Here is no question of Egyptian antiquities or of peculiar customs. After all, the Egyptians were men of like passions as we are, and were subject to the same griefs and emotions, the same trials and struggles, by which we are affected. Even the obdurate Pharaoh had somewhere a heart; and even he was once a little child, who sucked from a mother’s bosom the milk of human kindness—who was horrified when he first looked upon death—who wept when he first saw blood—and who hated, once, wrong-doing and oppression. The “great cry” which arose at midnight, when every house was roused to the dying agonies of its first-born, was not different from that which would have been heard at the present day, had such a calamity befallen in London, New York, or Pekin. The heart—the human heart—was smitten and felt then, as it would, under the like circumstances, be smitten, and as it would feel now. It was a dreadful stroke. It was a blow that wounded where the heart was most susceptible. “The pride, the hope, the joy of every family was taken from it. The bitterness of grief in fathers and mothers, for their firstborn, is proverbial. Here, in every house, were Egyptian parents ‘weeping for their children, because they were not.’ It was a woe without remedy or alleviation. He that is sick may be restored. A body emaciated or ulcerated, maimed or enfeebled, may again recover soundness and strength; but what kindly process can reanimate the breathless clay, and give back to the arms of mourning affection an only son—a first-born—smitten with death. Hope, the last refuge and remedy under other evils, was here to be cut up by the roots. Again, the blow was to be struck at midnight, when none could see the hand that inflicted it, and most were reposing in quiet sleep. Had this sleep been silently and insensibly exchanged for the sleep of death, the circumstances would have been less overwhelmingly awful. But it was not to be so. Although for three days and three nights previously they had been enveloped in thick darkness, and none had risen up from their places; yet now they were to be roused from their beds, to render what fruitless aid they could to their expiring children, and to mourn over their slain.” Note: Bush, Notes on Exodus, i. 133. All this misery was, as the same writer remarks, crowned by the keen reflection, that it might have been prevented. “How would they now condemn their desperate madness in provoking a power which had so often and so forcibly warned them of their danger? If Pharaoh were not past feeling, how dreadful must have been the pangs which he felt in the thought, that after attempting to destroy, by unheard of cruelties, an innocent and helpless race of strangers, he had now ruined his own country by his obstinate perseverance in impiety and folly.” All the first-born, from the man in the vigor of manhood to the infant that had just been born, died in that one hour of night. The stay, the comfort, the delight of every family, was annihilated by a single stroke. Truly this was a pity and a grief. But let it not escape our notice, that in this there is a direct but mysterious retribution—delayed, but sure. The time was, when, by the order of this government, all the new-born infants of Israel were slain by the hand of man—rent pitilessly from the mother’s breast, and cast ruthlessly into the waters. And this was not the first-born only, but all—all that drew the breath of life. But now the hour is come, and Israel is in like sort signally avenged: and we may add this to a thousand instances, which prove that no public wrong, and especially no wrong against the truth of natural feeling, no savage wrong, ever fails of retribution. Scripture is full of incidents that prove it, and so is history.
Still there are some who will, with the light amid which we are privileged to live, be shocked at the general nature of this awful judgment. It may be urged, Pharaoh and his courtiers—those who had most notoriously sanctioned his miserable policy, might be thus punished; but why the whole of the Egyptians, many of whom had individually no part or voice in the matter? The answer must be, that in the common course of providence, it is in the nature and course of national sins to draw down national judgments. The sin of holding in slavery the Israelites, of destroying the innocent liberty of a free people, who had trusted themselves to their hospitality, was a crime of no common magnitude, and is chargeable upon the Egyptian nation as well as upon their monarch. He must have been countenanced and encouraged in it by their concurrence. It was a national sin, which, as far as justice was concerned, it was as fit that the Judge of all the earth should punish by some miraculous work, as by some merely providential infliction.