Pharaoh and all his officials and all the Egyptians got up during the night, and there was loud wailing in Egypt, for there was not a house without someone dead. Every house in Egypt has a dead person. The wailing Moses announced in Exodus 11:6 fills Egypt exactly as predicted. Pharaoh, who threatened Moses with death, rises in the night to find his own son dead. The officials who had begun to fear the Lord's word in Exodus 9:20 now discover the cost of their master's refusals. The Egyptian people who had shared their silver and gold with Israel (verse 36, anticipated in verse 35) are also mourning. The grief of Egypt is comprehensive and human — whatever its theological function in the narrative, these are real people who have lost real sons. The Exodus story does not minimize their suffering; it simply places it within the larger story of a God defending His people.

COMMUNITY REFLECTIONS

Publish a note on this verse