After Pha'raoh had made his threat against the life of Mo'ses, the prophet of God lingered for a short time with the king in order to tell him what course the LORD would now follow. During these tragic moments in the presence of the great king, The LORD spoke secretly to Mo'ses. He said that this was to be the last meeting between Pha'raoh and Mo'ses, and that He would visit the land with a final plague which would force the cruel king to let the Is'ra-el-ites leave his country.
Mo'ses said to Pha'raoh: "The LORD'S mercy has now reached its limit. For weeks and months He has been patient, showing mercy time after time. True, He has brought calamities of increasing severity upon the land, but has offered to show mercy whenever you obey His command and let Is'ra-el depart. While His patience with you has been exhausted, He still has further means of punishment. There shall be one more curse sent upon the land which shall bring you to your knees. About midnight, within a few days, the LORD will send the Angel of death throughout the land of E'gypt, and the oldest child in every home shall suddenly die; there shall also be taken the oldest of all the cattle and sheep and other animals still left from previous plagues."
The last plague upon E'gypt was to be so terrible that not even the hard-hearted Pha'raoh could fail to be moved by it. Without being ill, the oldest child in every family and in every home was to be taken by death. The Pha'raohs of E'gypt had slain the male children of Is'ra-el during a long period of persecution, and now the LORD was to cause the death of the firstborn in every E'gyp-tian home. This fatal blow was to reach every family, the highest as well as the lowest. The royal prince who expected to take Pha'raoh's place upon the throne was doomed to sudden death, and the oldest child in the home of the lowest peasant was to suffer the same fate. From the palace to the dungeon, from the splendid home of the rich to the tent of the poorest of the land-through every family in E'gypt this plague was to travel; and at the stroke of midnight all through the land death would come to every firstborn child.
Mo'ses then went on to say to Pha'raoh , "But against the children of Is'ra-el shall not a dog move his tongue, against man or beast; that ye may know that the LORD doth put a difference between the E'gyp-tians and Is'ra-el." God's chosen people were to be sheltered by the protecting wings of the Great God of Heaven and of earth. The pestilence which was to walk through the darkness of the night should not come near them. While the oldest child of the wicked lay still in death, all the children of the good would be unharmed. At the time when the lamentations of the E'gyp-tians were rending the midnight air of the whole country, the hearts of the righteous would be filled with peace, hope, and joy.
But Pha'raoh remained stubborn and unrelenting, and Mo'ses left him to carry out the instructions of God in preparing all Is'ra-el for the great tragedy that was to befall the E'gyp-tians, and for the birth of an Is'ra-el-ite nation. The children of Is'ra-el had been spared from the nine previous calamities inflicted upon the people of E'gypt, but there were certain Divine instructions which they must carefully follow if they were to escape this final plague. Is'ra-el was facing an extremely important crisis, a supreme moment in the history of their formation as a free, united people, and great issues depended upon the promptness and wisdom with which they obeyed the LORD'S command.
