Today’s Passage: Exodus 11
We have come now to the hinge of the whole contest, the solemn night the LORD names before He acts, and I would have you read it quietly and without hurry, because it is a heavy chapter and we are not meant to pass through it lightly. After nine plagues and nine hardenings, the LORD tells Moses there will be one more blow, and this one greater than all the rest, and after it Pharaoh will not merely let the people go but will drive them out. Before the blow falls, the LORD does a gentle thing in the middle of a fearful passage: He gives His people such favor in the eyes of the Egyptians that they are sent out laden with silver and gold, the wages of four hundred years finally paid. Then Moses announces the terrible word. About midnight the LORD will pass through Egypt, and every firstborn son will die, from the palace of Pharaoh down to the servant girl at the mill, and even the firstborn of the cattle, until a great cry rises over all the land such as never was and never will be again. And over against that cry, the strangest, most tender detail of all: among the Israelites not even a dog will growl, so that everyone would know the LORD makes a difference between Egypt and Israel. Hold that near as you read, for the whole passage leans forward toward the next chapter, toward a lamb whose blood will stand between the destroyer and the door, and toward the day God would give up His own firstborn Son to bear the very judgment announced here.
As you read, hold this: The judgment that falls on every firstborn is the judgment a lamb will soon be given to bear in the firstborn’s place.
Context The world of Exodus 11
To feel the weight of this short chapter you have to remember where it stands. Nine plagues have already fallen, each one a blow against the gods of Egypt and the pride of her king, and nine times Pharaoh has hardened himself the moment the pressure lifted. Now the LORD announces that the contest is nearly over, and He announces it in the gravest terms He has yet used. There will be one more plague, and it will not fall on the river or the fields or the cattle only, but on the firstborn son of every house in Egypt, from the highest to the lowest. This is the blow the LORD had warned of from the very beginning, back when He first sent Moses to Pharaoh, and now the long-delayed word is about to come true.
Notice how the judgment reaches into every rank of the land, for the text is careful to spread it from top to bottom. It falls on the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on the throne, and on the firstborn of the servant girl behind the hand mill, the lowest and most forgotten worker in the kingdom, and even on the firstborn of the animals. No wealth could buy exemption and no lowliness could escape notice. The whole of Egypt, in one night, would learn that there is a God who judges, and that His hand reaches the palace and the mill alike.
In the middle of this darkness the LORD sets a bright and unexpected mercy toward His own people. He gives Israel favor in the eyes of the Egyptians, so that when the Hebrews ask their neighbors for articles of silver and gold, the Egyptians give freely, and the people go out enriched rather than empty. This was no theft but a reckoning long overdue, the back wages of generations of slavery paid at last by the very hand of God who turned the hearts of the masters toward the slaves.
And then there is the quiet marvel of the seventh verse, the promise that among all the Israelites not even a dog would growl at man or beast. On the same night that a great cry of grief tore through every Egyptian home, an unbroken stillness would rest over the houses of Israel, so complete that not a single dog would so much as bark. By that stillness, the LORD said, everyone would know that He makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel. Yet we must not soften the sober heart of the chapter. A judgment was coming that would fall upon the firstborn, and the only reason a firstborn of Israel would be spared is the reason the next chapter will unfold: a lamb given in the firstborn’s place, its blood upon the door.
Exodus 11:1-3 (BSB)
¹ Then the LORD said to Moses, “I will bring upon Pharaoh and Egypt one more plague. After that, he will allow you to leave this place. And when he lets you go, he will drive you out completely. ² Now announce to the people that men and women alike should ask their neighbors for articles of silver and gold.” ³ And the LORD gave the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians. Moreover, Moses himself was highly regarded in Egypt by Pharaoh’s officials and by the people.
Hear the LORD speak, and notice that He tells the ending before it comes. One more plague, He says, and after that Pharaoh will not only let you go, he will drive you out completely. The long struggle that has worn on through nine plagues is nearly finished, and the LORD says so plainly, so that when it happens Moses will know it came exactly as God foretold. There is comfort in that for anyone who has grown weary in a long trial, for the God who governs these things knows the end from the beginning and can say beforehand where the road comes out.
Then, right in the middle of announcing the most terrible of all the plagues, the LORD turns aside to a work of quiet grace toward His people. Tell them, He says, to ask their neighbors for articles of silver and gold. And the third verse tells us how it came to pass: the LORD gave the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians. Think of the wonder in that word favor. For four hundred years the Egyptians had used Israel as slaves, and now, on the eve of their going, God softens the hearts of the masters so that they load their departing slaves with treasure. This is the reckoning God had promised Abraham long before, that his descendants would come out of their bondage with great possessions. The same God who was about to judge Egypt was, in the same breath, providing for His people, turning even the hearts of their oppressors to bless them. He does not need to choose between justice and provision, for His one hand can carry both at once.
Exodus 11:4-6 (BSB)
⁴ So Moses declared, “This is what the LORD says: ‘About midnight I will go throughout Egypt, ⁵ and every firstborn son in the land of Egypt will die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his throne, to the firstborn of the servant girl behind the hand mill, as well as the firstborn of all the cattle. ⁶ Then a great cry will go out over all the land of Egypt. Such an outcry has never been heard before and will never be heard again.
Now Moses speaks the word itself, and we must not rush past it or dress it up, for the Bible states it soberly and so should we. About midnight the LORD Himself will go throughout Egypt, and every firstborn son will die. This is the blow the whole long contest has been building toward, the final and heaviest stroke of a righteous God against a kingdom that has set itself against Him for so long and steeled itself against every warning. Egypt had begun its cruelty by drowning the sons of Israel in the Nile, and now, after nine mercifully lesser plagues went unheeded, the judgment comes to the sons of Egypt. God is slow to anger and long in His patience, but He is not mocked forever.
See how the fifth verse carries the judgment across the whole of Egypt, from the very top to the very bottom, so that none could think himself beyond its reach. It falls on the bekor, pronounced beh-KOR. Strong's H1060, firstborn. The word bekor means the firstborn, the eldest son, and in the world of the Bible this was no small thing but the very center of a family’s hope. The firstborn carried the birthright and a double portion of the inheritance, the honor of the house and the promise of its future; he was, in a real sense, the strength and the continuation of his father. So when the LORD says that every bekor in Egypt will die, He is striking at the heart of each household’s hope, at the very life on which its future rested. But hold this word carefully, because it is the word that turns the whole story toward the gospel. Egypt’s firstborn are under judgment, and the only way a firstborn of Israel will be spared that night is by a substitute, a lamb slain and its blood upon the door, dying in the firstborn’s place. And there is more, for the LORD had already called Israel itself His firstborn son, and this same word will one day rest upon the Lord Jesus, called the firstborn over all creation and the firstborn from among the dead. The judgment that fell on the firstborn of Egypt, and the lamb that stood in the place of the firstborn of Israel, were both pointing forward to the day when God would give up His own beloved firstborn Son to bear, once and for all, the judgment that we deserved. of Pharaoh who sits on the throne, the heir of the greatest house in the land, and it falls just as surely on the firstborn of the servant girl behind the hand mill, the humblest laborer in the kingdom, and even on the firstborn of the cattle in the field. No crown could shield the prince and no obscurity could hide the servant. And so the sixth verse foretells the sound that would follow, a great cry rising over all the land of Egypt, an outcry such as had never been heard and would never be heard again. It is a fearful thing to hear this announced, and we are meant to feel its weight. Yet even here, in the shadow of such a word, the mercy of God is already moving toward the door, for He would not leave His people to face that midnight without a refuge, and the refuge He was about to give would be a lamb.
Exodus 11:7-8 (BSB)
⁷ But among all the Israelites, not even a dog will snarl at man or beast.’ Then you will know that the LORD makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel. ⁸ And all these officials of yours will come and bow before me, saying, ‘Go, you and all the people who follow you!’ After that, I will depart.” And hot with anger, Moses left Pharaoh’s presence.
Set the seventh verse beside the great cry of the sixth and feel the distance between them, for it is one of the most striking contrasts in all of Scripture. On one side of the line, an outcry over all of Egypt such as the world had never heard. On the other side, among all the Israelites, a stillness so deep that not even a dog would growl at man or beast. Picture it: the same midnight hour, and in one part of the land nothing but grief and wailing, and in the other part a quietness so complete that the very dogs are silent. By that silence, the LORD says, you will know that the LORD makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel. He does not deal with the world in one undivided mass. He knows His own, and He can send judgment sweeping across a whole country and hold it back utterly at the threshold of the people He has claimed.
And notice what the LORD foretells in the eighth verse, that Pharaoh’s own officials, the proud men of his court, will come and bow before Moses and beg him to take the people and go. The contest that Pharaoh has fought so long will end with his own servants pleading for the very thing he refused. Then Moses, who has stood before this king again and again with such patience, turns and leaves the palace hot with anger. We should not think this a sinful outburst but the righteous grief of a man who has borne with hardness of heart until it has become unbearable, who feels in his own spirit something of God’s holy indignation against a king who would rather ruin his whole nation than bend his neck to the LORD. There is a time to be angry at sin, and Moses, on the very edge of judgment, feels the full weight of it and walks out.
Exodus 11:9-10 (BSB)
⁹ The LORD said to Moses, “Pharaoh will not listen to you, so that My wonders may be multiplied in the land of Egypt.” ¹⁰ Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh, but the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart so that he would not let the Israelites go out of his land.
The chapter closes by drawing back, as it were, to let us see the whole of it from God’s side, and what we see there is meant to steady us. Pharaoh will not listen to you, the LORD tells Moses, and He says it not with surprise but as a thing long known and folded into His purpose, so that My wonders may be multiplied in the land of Egypt. The king’s refusal, dreadful as it was and truly his own, did not defeat God’s plan for a single moment; it served it. Every hardening of Pharaoh’s heart only made room for another wonder, another display of the LORD’s power, until Egypt and Israel and the watching nations would all learn beyond forgetting who the LORD is. God was never on the back foot in this contest. Even the stubbornness set against Him was made to magnify His name.
So the tenth verse gathers up the whole long story into one solemn summary. Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh, and the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he would not let the Israelites go. Let us handle this last line with reverence and not pretend it is simple. Pharaoh had hardened his own heart again and again, and now, in righteous judgment, God gives him over to the hardness he has chosen, confirming him in it. We stand here at the very edge of the night of the Passover, and the door has closed on every other way. Egypt will not repent, and judgment will come. And yet even now the mercy of God is preparing its answer, for the same chapter that announces the death of the firstborn is the doorway into the chapter that gives us the lamb. Read on, and you will find that the God who judges is the same God who provides the very refuge from His judgment, and that everything here has been leaning toward a substitute given in the firstborn’s place.
Study notes Going deeper
The judgment announced in this chapter did not come without warning, and it did not come without an answer. Go back to the very first errand God gave Moses, at the burning bush and the road down into Egypt, and you will find these words already spoken, the promise now about to be kept.
"Then tell Pharaoh that this is what the LORD says: ‘Israel is My firstborn son, and I told you to let My son go so that he may worship Me. But since you have refused to let him go, behold, I will kill your firstborn son!’”" Exodus 4:22-23 (BSB)
Hear how far back the word reaches. God had called Israel His firstborn son and warned Pharaoh from the beginning what refusing Him would cost. Everything in Exodus 11 is that ancient warning coming true at last, the patience of God exhausted, the long-delayed judgment arriving on the firstborn just as He said. God is not rash, and He does not strike without warning; He had told Pharaoh the end at the very start, and given him plague after plague and mercy after mercy to turn back before it came.
But the deepest thing this chapter is doing is preparing us for a lamb. The next night, every firstborn of Israel would be as much under the sentence of death as every firstborn of Egypt, except for one thing: a lamb slain, and its blood struck on the doorposts, so that the destroyer would pass over that house. The firstborn did not escape because he was better; he escaped because something died in his place.
"By faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, so that the destroyer of the firstborn would not touch Israel’s own firstborn." Hebrews 11:28 (BSB)
There is the horizon toward which this whole solemn chapter leans. The judgment on the firstborn was real and terrible, but God had already provided the way through it, a substitute given, a lamb whose blood stood between the firstborn and the destroyer. And that Passover lamb was itself a shadow of the true Lamb still to come, for God would one day give up His own beloved firstborn Son to bear the judgment we deserved, that everyone sheltered under His blood might pass from death into life. So carry the one truth of this chapter home with you. The judgment that falls on the firstborn is real, and none of us could stand under it on our own; but the God who announces the judgment is the same God who provides the Lamb, and He has given His own firstborn Son to stand in our place.