Exodus 11
The Tenth Blow: Death
1The Lord said to Moses, “I will bring one more plague on Pharaoh and on Egypt; after that he will release you from this place. When he releases you, he will drive you out completely from this place.
Jehovah will send a tenth plague on Pharaoh that will cause him to drive Israel out of the land.
2Instruct the people that each man and each woman is to request from his or her neighbor items of silver and gold.”
Each Israelite was to ask the Egyptians for their back pay.
3(Now the Lord granted the people favor with the Egyptians. Moreover, the man Moses was very great in the land of Egypt, respected by Pharaoh’s servants and by the Egyptian people.)
No one is making fun of Moses’ speech impediment anymore. Moses is respected even by the Egyptians.
4Moses said, “Thus says the Lord: ‘About midnight I will go throughout Egypt,
The plague will start at midnight.
5and all the firstborn in the land of Egypt will die, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh who sits on his throne, to the firstborn son of the slave girl who is at her hand mill, and all the firstborn of the cattle.
Many of the firstborn of people and animals were dedicated to the Egyptian gods. Since Egypt had inflicted Israel (who was the firstborn of God), then God would inflict Egypt by taking away their firstborn. This was the kind-for-kind curse of the Abrahamic Covenant.
6There will be a great cry throughout the whole land of Egypt, such as there has never been, nor ever will be again.
Israel wept when Egypt killed her babies. Egypt would cry more than any nation in past or future history.
7But against any of the Israelites not even a dog will bark against either people or animals, so that you may know that the Lord distinguishes between Egypt and Israel.’
The Israelites in Goshen will not cry. It will be so silent, that not even a dog would bark in Goshen.
8All these your servants will come down to me and bow down to me, saying, ‘Go, you and all the people who follow you,’ and after that I will go out.” Then Moses went out from Pharaoh in great anger.
Israel would worship Jehovah at Mount Sinai, just as God had predicted.
9The Lord said to Moses, “Pharaoh will not listen to you, so that my wonders may be multiplied in the land of Egypt.”
Pharaoh would not listen to Jehovah. Pharoah's hard heart would cause Jehovah to move against him. Hard heart is a euphemism for an ungodly mental attitude.
10So Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh, but the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he did not release the Israelites from his land.
Jehovah gave Pharaoh nine chances, but Pharaoh was too evil and too totally depraved to recognize and give honor to God. This is a picture of the total depravity of man. If God leaves man alone, then man will harden his heart. The unregenerate man will reject any light that comes to him. Even if God blinked the universe out of existence and brought it back, the totally depraved and evil man would reject this revelation from God and explain it away with random chance.