The plague of the firstborn fell at midnight and the Bible told us in the passage we studied yesterday that there was not a house among the Egyptians where there was not someone dead. The Lord has triumphed over all the false gods of Egypt and over Pharaoh who was worshiped as a god. The Lord has shown His complete sovereignty over the waters, over the land, over the animal kingdom, and over human life itself. Now at last Pharaoh will let the people go. On this dark night he feels defeated now that death has come into his home and taken the life of his son and heir. Things didn't have to get this bad, but the king's heart was filled with so much sin and stubbornness that it took a great tragedy to get him to relent.
"During the night Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, 'Up! Leave my people, you and the Israelites! Go, worship the Lord as you have requested. Take your flocks and herds, as you have said, and go. And also bless me.'" (Exodus 12:31-32) The Lord had predicted that Pharaoh would not allow the people to leave until he suffered personal tragedy, and the Lord was correct. The Lord also said that when the time came to let the people go, Pharaoh would drive them out. The Lord's word is coming true right now because the king wants them to leave immediately.
Pharaoh is either not a firstborn son or else the plague of the firstborn was not intended to take Pharaoh's life. But if he continues to hold out there will be an eleventh plague, and since death has already entered his doors, he can only suppose that the next plague will kill him. I think this is why he asks Moses to bless him in verse 32. Pharaoh fears the God of the Israelites. He has seen what God can do. He has witnessed the inability of Egypt's deities to defend the nation or to undo anything God has done. Is Pharaoh's fear causing him to repent and turn to the Lord for forgiveness and salvation? I wish that were the case! I wish we could read on the pages of the Bible that Pharaoh turned into a godly man and that all the citizens of his country gave their hearts and lives to the Lord and served Him for the rest of their days. But this is not what happened. I think some of the Egyptians very well may have come to the conclusion that they've been serving nonexistent gods and they may have given their allegiance to the Lord, but by and large the pagan religious system of ancient Egypt remained intact. If Pharaoh had come to a saving faith in the Lord then I think things would have turned out quite differently, but he did not as we will see in our study later this week.
Pharaoh isn't the only one who fears he will die next. "The Egyptians urged the people to hurry and leave the country. 'For otherwise,' they said, 'we will all die!'" (Exodus 12:33)
"So the people took their dough before the yeast was added, and carried it on their shoulders in kneading troughs wrapped in clothing. The Israelites did as Moses instructed and asked the Egyptians for articles of silver and gold and for clothing. The Lord had made the Egyptians favorably disposed toward the people, and they gave them what they asked for; so they plundered the Egyptians." (Exodus 12:34-36) Back in Exodus 3, while the Lord was speaking with Moses at the burning bush, He told Moses: "I will make the Egyptians favorably disposed toward this people, so that when you leave you will not go empty-handed. Every woman is to ask her neighbor and any woman living in her house for articles of silver and gold and for clothing, which you will put on your sons and daughters. And so you will plunder the Egyptians." (Exodus 3:21-22) The Lord's word comes true in our passage today as Moses instructs the women to ask for these items and the Egyptians hand the items over.
We typically think of plunder as things which are taken from the enemy after defeating them in battle, but no Israelite had to fight any Egyptian in order to obtain these valuable items. The Lord is the only one who fought a battle in Egypt---and He won it! Now His people leave the country of their oppression loaded down with goods that the Egyptians willingly give them. The Egyptians are so eager to see them go that they'd give them anything they ask for if they will only depart from the land as hastily as possible.
"The Israelites journeyed from Rameses to Sukkoth. There were about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children. Many other people went up with them, and also large droves of livestock, both flocks and herds." (Exodus 12:37-38) In Genesis and again in Exodus we were told that the land of Goshen lay within what was called the district of Rameses, so Moses uses the location names of Goshen and Rameses interchangeably here in verse 37.
Scholars estimate as many as two million people made the exodus journey. There are six hundred thousand grown Israelite men in the group, and if we assume each man had a wife, then we come up with 1,200,000 Israelite adults. If we assign just one child to each married couple then we need to add another 600,000 to the number, bringing us to a total of 1,800,000 individuals. In ancient times we'd expect fertile couples to produce multiple children, so I think there were at least 2,000,000 Israelites in the group that made the exodus from Egypt. Many other people made the exodus with them, according to verse 38. Who are these people? It's possible part of them were Egyptian citizens who didn't have it very well in Egypt and who decided to throw in their lot with the Israelites and their powerful God. I think also that Pharaoh may have set other slaves free at the same time he told the Israelites to leave his country. To him all foreigners were alike, so if he released the Israelites from slavery he very well may have released all the others at the same time. To him all foreign gods may have seemed the same, and he may have thought the God the Israelites worshiped was the same god the other foreign slaves worshiped. If so, we can easily understand why he would set all the slaves free, fearing that God would bring further troubles upon him if he didn't.
But Pharaoh is going to start second-guessing himself once his slave laborers are gone. He's going to regret allowing them to leave and he will assemble soldiers to pursue them. Before long we'll find him going back on his word.
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