Exodus 12:29-36

2. The death of the first-born and the release of Israel 12:29-36

The angel struck the Egyptians at midnight, the symbolic hour of judgment (Exodus 12:29; cf. Matthew 25:5-6), when they were asleep ". . . to startle the king and his subjects out of their sleep of sin." [Note: Keil and Delitzsch, 2:23.] Pharaoh had originally met Moses’ demands with contemptuous insult (Exodus 5:4). Then he tried a series of compromises (Exodus 8:25; Exodus 8:28; Exodus 10:8-11; Exodus 10:24). All of these maneuvers were unacceptable to God.

There is evidence from Egyptology that the man who succeeded Amenhotep II, the pharaoh of the plagues, was not his first-born son. [Note: See Unger, Archaeology and . . ., pp. 142-44; Gleason Archer, A Survey of Old Testament Introduction, p. 218; and Pritchard, p. 449.] His successor was Thutmose IV (1425-1417 B.C.), a son of Amenhotep II but evidently not his first-born. Thutmose IV went to some pains to legitimatize his right to the throne. This would not have been necessary if he had been the first-born. So far scholars have found no Egyptian records of the death of Amenhotep II’s first-born son.

"Thutmose IV claimed that when he was still a prince he had a dream in which the sun god promised him the throne; this implies that he was not the one who would be expected to succeed to the throne under normal circumstances." [Note: Gispen, p. 113.]

Remember Joseph’s dreams.

In contrast to the former plagues, this one was not just a heightened and supernaturally directed natural epidemic but a direct act of God Himself (cf. Exodus 12:12-13; Exodus 12:23; Exodus 12:27; Exodus 12:29).

We need to understand "no home" in its context (Exodus 12:30). There was no Egyptian home in which there was a first-born son, who was not a father himself, that escaped God’s judgment of physical death.

"This series of five imperative verbs [in Exodus 12:31], three meaning ’go’ (dlh is used twice) and one meaning ’take,’ coupled with five usages of the emphatic particle mg ’also’ . . ., marvelously depicts a Pharaoh whose reserve of pride is gone, who must do everything necessary to have done with Moses and Israel and the Yahweh who wants them for his own." [Note: Durham, p. 167.]

Pharaoh’s request that Moses would bless him is shocking since the Egyptians regarded Pharaoh as a god (Exodus 12:32; cf. Genesis 47:7).

The reader sees God in two roles in this section, representing the two parts of Israel’s redemption. He appears as Judge satisfied by the blood of the innocent sin-bearer, and He is the Deliverer of Israel who liberated the nation from its slavery.

Redemption involves the payment of a price. What was the price of Israel’s redemption? It was the lives of the lambs that God provided as the substitutes for Israel’s first-born sons who would have died otherwise (cf. Isaac in Genesis 22, and Jesus Christ, the only-begotten of the Father). The first-born sons remained God’s special portion (Numbers 8:17-18). The Egyptian first-born sons died as a punishment on the Egyptians. The Egyptians had enslaved God’s people and had not let them go, and they had executed male Israelite babies (Exodus 1:15-22) possibly for the last 80 years. [Note: Ramm, p. 79.] God owns all life. He just leases it to His creatures. God paid the price of Israel’s redemption to Himself. He purchased the nation to be a special treasure for Himself and for a special purpose (Exodus 19:5).