Exodus 11--A Final Plague Threatened

A Final Plague Threatened
11 The Lord said to Moses, “Yet one plague more I will bring upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt. Afterward he will let you go from here. When he lets you go, he will drive you away completely. 2 Speak now in the hearing of the people, that they ask, every man of his neighbor and every woman of her neighbor, for silver and gold jewelry.” 3 And the Lord gave the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians. Moreover, the man Moses was very great in the land of Egypt, in the sight of Pharaoh's servants and in the sight of the people.

4 So Moses said, “Thus says the Lord: ‘About midnight I will go out in the midst of Egypt, 5 and every firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his throne, even to the firstborn of the slave girl who is behind the handmill, and all the firstborn of the cattle. 6 There shall be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as there has never been, nor ever will be again. 7 But not a dog shall growl against any of the people of Israel, either man or beast, that you may know that the Lord makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel.’ 8 And all these your servants shall come down to me and bow down to me, saying, ‘Get out, you and all the people who follow you.’ And after that I will go out.” And he went out from Pharaoh in hot anger. 9 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Pharaoh will not listen to you, that my wonders may be multiplied in the land of Egypt.”
​
10 Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh, and the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he did not let the people of Israel go out of his land.

---

We see here that the LORD is in complete control of the timing--this was never a contest, but it's not over until He says it's over.  He knows that this will be the grand finale as He says "Yet one more plague I will bring upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt..."  And God was going to cause the Egyptians to drive them out and pay them to leave--this would provide them with most of the resources they would need to build the Tabernacle later on.

Instead of sending Moses and Aaron to Pharaoh to ask him to let the people go, God send Moses and Aaron to the people of Israel to given them instructions for what is about to come because even God's people need to prepare for this final judgment.  They would be promised deliverance, but there was only one way and that was by way of the Passover (we'll learn about that in the next couple chapters).

God's final judgement is to take the firstborn of man and beast.  Remember how God said that Israel was His firstborn son, and that if Pharaoh did not let God's people go then he would pay with the life of his firstborn son?  This is the fulfillment of that prophecy.  If you don't remember, here it is--Exodus 4: 21-23

21 And the Lord said to Moses, “When you go back to Egypt, see that you do before Pharaoh all the miracles that I have put in your power. But I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go. 22 Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the Lord, Israel is my firstborn son, 23 and I say to you, “Let my son go that he may serve me.” If you refuse to let him go, behold, I will kill your firstborn son.’”

I say that to say that God gave Pharaoh plenty of warning.  This should not have caught him by surprise and he gave Pharaoh many, many chances and Pharaoh made up his mind that he would never submit to God's authority and obey His word, long before we see God actively working to harden Pharaoh's heart, but even so God knew the results from the very beginning.   And why did God choose to work in this way?  Look at what the LORD says to Moses in verse 0, “Pharaoh will not listen to you, that my wonders may be multiplied in the land of Egypt.”

This reminds me of something from the book of Romans--a passage not a lot of people like to talk about, but I think it's fitting that we talk about "the elephant in the room" here.  Why is it that God is judging the whole nation for the sins of Pharaoh, and why is it that God is judging Pharaoh for what appears to be an outcome that the LORD was in complete control of and aware of the results from the beginning?

Here are some passages to read regarding this:  Jeremiah 18 and Romans 9.  God uses the the example of soft clay in a potter's hand to say that He can make nations into whatever He desires and if he doesn't like what they are becoming, he can destroy them or make them into something new--He is completely sovereign.  If the nation repents He may spare them the destruction that was promised, or if a nation with His blessing rebels, He may withhold His blessing or even punish them or destroy them.  This is not just true for nations as we see in Jeremiah, but with each individual as we see in the book of Romans.  God is in complete control, and yet we are still responsible for our personal choice on what we do with the gospel.  But Romans 9 made the point that even if God did predestine some people for condemnation and chose for them to not be saved in order to bring about His greater good and bring about more glory to Himself by showing His righteous and just judgment, He would not cease to be good.  So, we see that God is fully within His right to punish all of Egypt because He knows exactly what it will take to break Pharaoh and the people of Egypt to let His people go and God is fully righteous and good even if He assisted in hardening Pharaoh's heart so that He could bring about more plagues that would reveal more of His character and nature to His people and to Egypt and the surrounding nations so that they would understand His glory and power and majesty and worship Him in spirit and in truth.  It would be clear to all people--but especially the people of Israel--that this was a miraculous Exodus and that "the battle belongs to the LORD."

There is a very close parallel between this story and the story of God's plan of salvation--this is another one of those moments where God's plan of salvation is made clear to us on this side of cross--just like Noah and the ark, or Abraham and Isaac on Mount Moriah, but this is probably the most obvious reference to the future salvation that would be provided by Jesus that God gave His people in the Old Testament, and it was one of their holiest days that they were never to forget and always to celebrate so that they would be looking back to their escape from the physical slavery that they were in in Egypt, but that they were always looking forward to their need to be freed from their spiritual slavery from sin and for God to send them "The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world" so that they could be led out their spiritual captivity and led into the Promised Land of the kingdom of heaven (the new heaven and the new earth that we see in the book of Revelation).