The Book of Exodus

Explanation

God tells Moses the struggle is nearly over: "one plague more," and Pharaoh will not simply permit Israel to leave, he will "surely thrust you out hence altogether," driving them out in haste. Then God instructs the people to ask their Egyptian neighbors for "jewels of silver, and jewels of gold," and He gives them favor in Egypt's eyes, so that the request is granted. This is not theft or trickery; it is the wages of centuries of unpaid slave labor, and the fulfillment of a promise. Long before, God had told Abraham that his descendants would serve in a strange land, "and afterward shall they come out with great substance" (Genesis 15:14). Now the promise comes true. Even Moses is "very great in the land of Egypt," respected by Pharaoh's own servants. The tide has fully turned.

Gospel Focus

"One plague more." God's patience is vast, but it is not endless. He had sent nine plagues, each a call to repent, and Pharaoh had spurned them all. Now the long forbearance reaches its appointed end. There is a solemn warning here: the God who is "longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish" (2 Peter 3:9) will not strive with a hardened heart forever. Every warning refused brings a man nearer the last one. Yet alongside the warning stands a beautiful grace. God brings His people out not empty but laden with silver and gold, the wages long denied them, exactly as He had promised Abraham. God keeps His word across centuries; what He speaks, He performs. And He is no man's debtor. Those who serve Him through affliction will not leave His hand empty-handed. The God who remembered Israel's unpaid labor remembers every hidden loss suffered for His sake, and in His time He repays with "great substance."

Hebrew Study

Explanation

Moses declares the last and heaviest plague. "About midnight will I go out into the midst of Egypt," God says, and this time He does not send frogs or flies or hail; He comes Himself. Every firstborn in Egypt will die, and the sentence spares no rank: "from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sitteth upon his throne, even unto the firstborn of the maidservant that is behind the mill," and even the firstborn of the beasts. The proud king who would not release God's firstborn son, Israel (Exodus 4:22), will lose his own. There will be "a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as there was none like it, nor shall be like it any more." The judgment that Egypt had brought on Israel's baby boys, drowned in the Nile, now returns upon Egypt's own sons. God's long-delayed justice falls at last.

Gospel Focus

The death of the firstborn is the darkest of the plagues, and it presses a truth we dare not soften: redemption costs a life. In the very next chapter God provides the way of escape, a lamb slain and its blood on the door, so that where the blood is seen, the firstborn lives. Egypt without the blood loses its firstborn; Israel under the blood is spared. This is the shadow that the gospel fills. "Christ our passover is sacrificed for us" (1 Corinthians 5:7); the death that our sin deserved fell on the Lamb of God, and all who are under His blood pass from death to life. And there is a deeper wonder still. God did not withhold at the last what Egypt could not keep: "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son" (John 3:16). The God who let Egypt's firstborn die to redeem His people would one day give His own life in the flesh to redeem the world. Salvation was never cheap. It cost the blood of the Lamb, and that blood is our only shelter on the night of judgment.

Explanation

While Egypt fills with a great cry of death, Israel will rest in such peace that "not a dog shall move his tongue" against them, not so much as a growling dog to break the quiet. The same midnight brings terror to one people and safety to another. And God states the reason plainly: "that ye may know how that the LORD doth put a difference between the Egyptians and Israel." This is the theme that has been building since the flies, the murrain, and the darkness, now brought to its fullest expression. The difference is not in Israel's worth but in God's choosing and, as the next chapter shows, in the blood of the lamb that marks their doors. God Himself draws the line and keeps His people on the safe side of it.

Gospel Focus

"The LORD doth put a difference." Here is the heart of what it means to be God's people. It is not that believers are naturally better than the world, but that God has set them apart to Himself and shelters them under the blood. On the night judgment fell, the difference between life and death was not intelligence, wealth, or effort; it was whether the blood was on the door. So it is still. In the day of God's wrath the one question is whether a soul is under the blood of Jesus Christ. Those who are, are as safe as Israel that midnight, kept in a peace so deep not a dog moves its tongue. "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus" (Romans 8:1). God still puts a difference, and He makes it plain to all: the world under judgment, His people under the blood. Let us be sure we are on the right side of the line God draws, not by our merit, but by the blood of the Lamb.

Hebrew Study

Explanation

Moses tells Pharaoh that his own servants will yet come bowing, begging Israel to leave, and "after that I will go out." Then Moses departs "in a great anger," the righteous indignation of God's servant at a king who has defied the living God through nine plagues and now stands under the shadow of the tenth. The chapter closes by drawing the whole plague narrative to a point: God foretold that "Pharaoh shall not hearken unto you; that my wonders may be multiplied," and so it came to pass. Moses and Aaron did all the wonders, and "the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart." What looked like failure, a king who would not bend, was in truth the unfolding of God's purpose to display His power fully before Egypt and all the earth.

Gospel Focus

Notice that even Moses' anger was righteous. The meekest man on earth (Numbers 12:3) left Pharaoh burning with holy indignation at hardened rebellion against God. There is an anger that is not sin, an anger that grieves at the dishonor done to God and the ruin men bring on themselves, and Moses felt it. "Be ye angry, and sin not" (Ephesians 4:26); the danger is not in feeling the fire but in letting it turn to malice or last past its cause. And the closing verse gathers up the great lesson of the plagues: God's sovereign hand was never absent. Pharaoh's refusals did not defeat God; they served Him, multiplying His wonders until His power was declared to all. What men mean for resistance, God weaves into His purpose. The believer can rest in this: no hardened heart, no closed door, no defiant Pharaoh can frustrate the plan of God. He turns even the "no" of His enemies into the multiplying of His wonders and the deliverance of His people.