BRAGADAYJAH 186

Death of the First-Born Arguably, the Pharaoh was playing a game of bluff with the Almighty. It would seem that after the second or third plague, Pharaoh conceived of the idea that God too, was bluffing; therefore he perceived God as weak and not willing to go to the ultimate, His mighty power notwithstanding. So even when Moses told him of the slaughter of the first-born, he held his bluff, saying to himself no doubt, that all he had to do was to feign repentance at the last minute, and God would somehow change his mind. Well, if such was Pharaoh’s thinking, he was wrong; dead wrong. For it came to pass, as Moses had warned, that on that very night at midnight, the Lord smote all the first-born in the land of Egypt, from the Pharaoh’s own son, down to the first born of the prisoner in the dungeon as well as the first-born of all the animals of the people of Egypt. And so it was, that when the Pharaoh rose up in the night, he and all his servants, and all the people throughout every Egyptian household, the report was the same; throughout all the land of Egypt, not one family escaped; for throughout there was death in every house from which came a sea of anguished cries. And so at last, Pharaoh called Moses and told and Aaron to get out. “Take your people and their sons and daughters and their cattle and all their belongings, and leave and get as far as you can away and from me and my people. In addition, faced with the grim reality that all their first-born were now lying dead, the people rose up, and urged the Pharaoh to get rid of the Israelites out of the land; for so they reasoned, “if we fail to get rid of these Israelites as a matter of great urgency, we would shortly all be dead men. “ So the children of Israel with Moses and Aaron in the lead packed up all their belongings, and with their flocks and their herds and all they could carry prepared to leave Egypt as a matter of great expediency. Also, at Moses suggestion, the children of Israel asked the Egyptians for clothing and jewelry and gold and silver, and supplies for the journey which the Egyptians gladly donated; and so without hindrance, the children of Israel after living in that land for over four hundred years, departed out of Egypt.