How was the tenth plague, which caused the death of Egypt's firstborn, just in the eyes of God?

From verse 4 to 8 Moses gives Pharaoh his final warning, as directly from the Lord's lips. God had spoken, saying that at about midnight He would intervene in the midst of Egypt's family life, and all the firstborn in the land of Egypt would die, the firstborn of Pharaoh included, together with the firstborn of the lowest of the people, and also the firstborn of beasts. Why the firstborn? Because they are those who ought to be devoted to the Lord, since He is the Creator and the best is rightly His (Ex. 13:1-2). But Egypt had persistently rejected God's claims as regards Israel, whom He called His “firstborn” (Ex. 4:22-23). Now it was true that Pharaoh's firstborn would be taken from him.

The awful story has a living voice for men to-day. God was acting in His judicial character as the avenger of sin. Pharaoh and his people had openly defied His commandments. Spite of plague after plague they still refused to let Israel go. Even divine long-suffering has its limits. Accordingly we have Jehovah in Exodus 12 carrying into effect His original threat as given in chapter 4:22-23: "Thou shalt say to Pharaoh, thus says Jehovah, Israel is My son, even My firstborn; and I say to thee, Let My son go, that he may serve Me; and if thou refuse to let him go, behold, I will slay thy son, even thy firstborn." Are men more subject to the voice of God in our day than in Pharaoh's time? Is it not a fact that His every commandment is outraged amongst us, and His authority everywhere challenged? As surely then as He desolated Egypt in ages past, so will He desolate the whole earth shortly. None will escape His avenging hand but those who are sheltered beneath the Saviour's blood.

Men's threats are sometimes mere idle words or empty bombast; not so the predicted judgements of God. At no stage in the worlds history has the Creator threatened judgement which He had no intention of executing. There have been occasions when His hand has been averted by the repentance of the people. The sparing of Nineveh in the time of Jonah an example of this. It is part of the declared ways of God to withdraw sentence when men humble themselves before Him. Jer. 18:7-8 shows this plainly. It is also true that He is "slow to anger," leaving until the last an open door for repentance; but even the long-suffering of God has its limits. This was solemnly proved by the defiant Egyptians in the days of Moses. At the commencement of Moses' mission Jehovah said to Pharaoh: "Israel is My son, even My firstborn and I say to thee, Let My son go that he may serve Me, and if thou refuse to let him go, behold, I will slay thy son, even thy first born (Ex. 4:22-23). The patience of God being now exhausted after various appeals and preliminary judgements, this dread sentence took effect on the night of Israel's Passover. It came to pass that at midnight Jehovah smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon; and all the firstborn of cattle. And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he, and all his servants, and all the Egyptians; and there was a great cry in Egypt; for there was not a house where there was not one dead" (Ex. 12:29-30). There was thus no respect of persons. The royal palace, in every country shielded to the utmost from the calamities which befall the lowly, was no more immune that night than the prison cell or the stable. The king's heart was torn with anguish as well as that of the meanest of his subjects. Truly, it is a terrible thing to defy the God of judgement!

All their gods became a source of shame and misery. Thus in the very first plague, we see the river become blood. They worshipped the Nile. The magicians (lid the same with their enchantments, so that if by them other water than the river became blood, they were but extending and intensifying the judgment of God. The river brings forth frogs; their god tormented them. At the fourth miracle the magicians attempted the same, but could not. At the fifth, God expressly severs His people from the Egyptians. This seems to imply that Israel suffered in common with them from the previous plagues. And if so, justly; for Joshua in later times tells them they had served the gods of Egypt. And they must learn experimentally the sin and folly of idolatry. But now having taught His people that the gods of Egypt were no gods, God puts a difference between them and their oppressors. They are not tormented with flies; they have light in their dwellings; their cattle died not; there was no hail in the land of Goshen. In the death of the first-born we see retributive judgment upon the Egyptians, whose king had sought to destroy all the male children of Israel by commanding them to be cast into the river. The measure they had meted is now re-meted to themselves. The angel of death passed through the land, and the cry from every house of Egypt told how the God of Israel took vengeance upon them and their cruel king.

The King of Egypt, fearful of the growing numbers of the children of Israel, ordered their male children to be cast into the river, thus to destroy the race. The Egyptian nation further afflicted the Israelites with grievous burdens, their lives were made bitter with hard bondage. When blow after blow fell upon the guilty nation did they realise that God was requiting them? Their bodies, their possessions, came under the awful government of Divine wrath. Last of all Pharaoh, who had ordered the death of the male children, found his own eldest slain by the hand of God in his own palace. Every Egyptian house had one dead, and there was “a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as there was none like it, nor shall be like it any more” (Ex. 11:6). What a sowing! What a reaping! Pharaoh did not escape, nor the guilty nation.

The eleventh and twelfth chapters bring us to another point. What is it? The utter impossibility of any soul having to do with God, save on the ground of death, because death is upon every man, as the judgment of sin. There could be no relationship between our souls and God, save upon that ground. In the eleventh chapter you find God saying, "All the first-born in the land of Egypt shall die" (Ex. 11:5); and then "that the Lord doth put a difference between the Egyptians and Israel" (Ex. 11:7). What was the difference? Were not all equally sinners? Surely. The difference was this, that the blood of the lamb sheltered Israel but not the Egyptians — the world. The Egyptians were in opposition to God's mind, and were His foes opposing His work, while Israel is looked at here as being the people of God, standing in the full value of the blood, as God knows its efficacy.

At the commencement of Moses' mission Jehovah said to Pharaoh: "Israel is My son, even My firstborn; and I say to thee, Let My son go that he may serve Me, and if thou refuse to let him go, behold, I will slay thy son, even thy first born" (Ex. 4:22-23). The patience of God being now exhausted after various appeals and preliminary judgments, this dread sentence took effect on the night of Israel's Passover. "It came to pass that at midnight Jehovah smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon; and all the firstborn of cattle. And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he, and all his servants, and all the Egyptians; and there was a great cry in Egypt; for there was not a house where there was not one dead" (Ex. 12:29-30). There was thus no respect of persons. The royal palace, in every country shielded to the utmost from the calamities which befall the lowly, was no more immune that night than the prison cell or the stable. The king's heart was torn with anguish as well as that of the meanest of his subjects. Truly, it is a terrible thing to defy the God of judgment!

Yet while desolation thus spread itself throughout the land of Egypt, the houses of the Israelites were absolutely unharmed. This was due solely to the fact that they obeyed Jehovah in faith, and sprinkled the blood of the slain lamb outside their dwellings. Neither good conduct nor religious orthodoxy saved them that night, but the blood of the lamb alone. Under the shelter of this they could eat and drink in peace, with girded loins and staff in hand, prepared to march out of a scene which was in no sense their home.

We have seen in the former part of this book the actings of God on behalf of a people who were in bondage in what is to us the Egypt of this world. He acts from Himself, but, nevertheless, according to their wretched condition. "I have heard their groanings, and am come down to deliver them." In order to effect this deliverance in righteousness - for they were sinners equally with the Egyptians - He sheltered them by the blood of the Passover lamb from the judgment which fell upon the firstborn. The tenth plague differed from the others in that it was no longer by the rod of Moses that the Lord smote the Egyptians, but, as it were, God was Judge Himself. "I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn." Having sheltered them as sinners by blood from His own righteous judgment, He can now be their Deliverer, and as such He opened a way through the Red Sea, thus delivering them from Egypt that He might bring them to Himself in the power that redeemed and delivered them. This was fully effected when they encamped at the mount of God, and we have seen that up to this point all had been grace in the actings of God on their behalf. The history is entirely a record of this grace. Their wants and murmurings only brought out what He was for them. The question of what they were, who were recipients of such favour, had not yet been raised.

God appears as a Judge, as One who is of holier eyes than to behold iniquity and to whose holy nature sin in all its aspects is completely abhorrent. This momentous question therefore affected the children of Israel not less than the Egyptians. But how was this question to be resolved? It must be met in such a way as to glorify God, to vindicate the holiness of His nature, while displaying His righteousness in showing mercy to the children of Israel, while his hand was stretched forth in judgment upon the firstborn of the Egyptians. The sprinkled blood of the Paschal Lamb is the blessed answer to every question which sin has raised. For while the slaying of the firstborn is spoken of as a plague, it is of an infinitely more solemn character than the preceding plagues since it brought into prominence other requirements on God's part which were not affected by those preceding plagues.

But again there would be exemption for the Israelites, for the Lord was going to put a difference between them and the Egyptians. There was no fundamental difference between them; had there been it would not have been needful for the Lord to put a difference. Here then we have foreshadowed the "no difference doctrine" of Romans 3:22-23. The Israelites were sinners as the Egyptians were, and equally subject to the death sentence, and God is no respecter of persons. Hence if God puts a difference, it must be done in a righteous manner. We have to pass on to the next chapter to discover how the difference was to be put.