Exodus 11 (Death of the Firstborn Announced)

Exodus 11 as a Parenthetical Chapter in the Plague Narrative

Exodus chapter 11 is a very short chapter, so this will go fast. Exodus 11.

And let every man ask from his neighbor and every woman from her neighbor.

Articles of silver and articles of gold. 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.

Then Moses said, Thus says the Lord.

About midnight I will go out into the midst of Egypt, and all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die. From the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his throne, even to the firstborn of the female servant who is behind the anvil, and all the firstborn of the animals.

Then there shall be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as was not like it before, nor shall be like it again. But against none of the children of Israel shall a dog move its tongue, against man or beast.

That you may know that the Lord does make a difference between the Egyptians and Israel. Your servants shall come down to me and bow down to me, saying get out and all the people will follow you. After that I will go out.

And he went out from Pharaoh in great anger, but the Lord said to Moses, Pharaoh will not heed you so that my wonders may be multiplied in the land of Egypt. So Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh, and the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he did not let the children of Israel.

Go out of his land. Okay, so here's the thing about Exodus chapter 11. Not only is it very short, this chapter's a little different in that it is a parenthetical chapter. Okay, so it's outside of the overall timeline of the story.

So this is Moses going back and explaining how he felt and what the Lord told him prior, because if you remember, how did chapter 10 end? With them saying, basically, we're never going to see each other again.

Exodus 10 verse 28 says, then Pharaoh said to him, get away from me, take heed to yourself and see my face no more, for in the day that you see my face, you shall die. So Moses said, you have spoken well, I will never see your face again.

But then here in chapter 11, all of a sudden Moses and Aaron are back before Pharaoh. So this is parenthetical, it is not following the chronology of the story. Now, before we get into this chapter and go through verse by verse, it's a very short chapter, so we can afford to go through a little more closely verse by verse.

The Plague to End All Plagues

Before we do that, though, I'd like to read a statement from Dr. Votie Bauckham. How many of you are familiar with Votie Bauckham? Not a single one. All right, we got one. Okay. So here's what he says about this plague.

He says, this is the plague to end all plagues. Previously, we have seen the pattern of three sets of three plagues each, and in each set of three, they were distinguished by the fact that Moses first approaches Pharaoh in the morning.

Remember he met him at the rivers, almost like a casual type of a meeting. And then he would, Moses would approach Pharaoh in his official capacity later on in the day as king of Egypt. And then there would be a plague that was unannounced.

So a set of three plagues, another set and another set, and that's how it went in each set of three plagues. So this plague now stands alone. It's breaking away from the pattern and it stands alone outside of the cycles, but it also stands alone in terms of its outcome.

And of course, what does that refer to? What's going to be different about this plague? What's that? Firstborn. Well, Pharaoh is actually going to let him go after this plague. So that's the difference of the outcome.

Look at verse one. And the Lord said to Moses, I will bring one more plague on Pharaoh and on Egypt. Afterward, he will let you go from here. So that's the difference. And when he lets you go, he will surely drive you out of here all together.

So here's the thing to understand. This was the plan all along. The nine previous plagues were done for what reason? So that God's name would be magnified in the earth so that God could show his power in Pharaoh.

So the previous nine plagues were never meant, get this, they were never meant to change Pharaoh's mind. Now turn back to chapter four for a moment. Of course, the Lord predicted ahead of time that it would go this way, that Pharaoh would harden his heart, that the Lord would harden Pharaoh's heart.

So nobody should ever think that God tried nine times and failed. And then finally he succeeded at the last plague. You know, God was really throwing everything at Pharaoh that he could, and it just wasn't working.

No, that was never the intention. And we know that because God predicted it. So the interesting thing is that this final plague was mentioned first before any of the other plagues ever took place. Look at Exodus chapter four, starting in verse 21.

And the Lord said to Moses, when you go back to Egypt, see that you do all these wonders before Pharaoh, which I have put in your hand, but I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go.

Then you shall say to Pharaoh, thus says the Lord, Israel is my son, my what? My firstborn. So I say to you, let my son go, that is to Pharaoh, let my son go that he may serve me. But if you refuse to let him go, indeed, I will kill your son, your firstborn.

So this plague is mentioned all the way at the beginning. So this was the plan all along. Now, why the killing of the firstborn? Does anyone have a simple one or two sentence answer? Jim,.

You want to take it? In the idea of Pharaoh, firstborn would always inherit the throne or the position of the father. And then in the family life, the firstborn in Israel would be the priest. Okay. When they came out of Egypt as the firstborn son of the priest.

So there's.

Such a, such a difference here. Okay. Uh, first of all, let me say this, that the Lord, as we just read, refers to Israel as his firstborn, which when we talked about that, that means what preeminence, that's, that's the issue.

Not so much a matter of the firstborn actually, because it's not an actual child. It's a people, it's a nation. So it's about the preeminence. So the Israelites were God's elect. The Hebrews were the chosen of God.

And we think of Christ as the elect of he's called the elect of God too. And Christ is called the firstborn. Remember in Colossians chapter one, Christ is the firstborn over all creation, uh, that in all things, firstborn from the dead, that in all things he might have the preeminence, right?

Colossians one. And here's the thing about Pharaoh. Pharaoh was considered the son or maybe even the firstborn, but the son of raw. Remember we talked about raw, the sun God. So raw is kind of the preeminent deity of Egypt, if you will.

And Pharaoh was considered to be Ross son. Of course, Jesus is the son of God, the image of the invisible God. So Pharaoh, you could say is almost like the image of the invisible sun God. And then Pharaoh's son was obviously the heir to the throne.

So by attacking what was the last plague, the darkness, which humiliated Ross power and now killing Pharaoh's son. So it's like going after your father, going after your son. And this is sending a very strong message that the Lord is exalting himself over the gods of Egypt.

Right now, go back to chapter 11. So by the time this is all over in chapter 15, verse 11, as far as the Lord exalting himself over the gods of Egypt, in the song of Moses, Moses will sing these words.

Who is like you? Oh Lord, among the gods. What's the answer to that? There's none like the Lord, our God. And look at verse two, the Lord says, speak now in the hearing of the people and let every man ask from his neighbor and every woman from her neighbor articles of silver and articles of gold.

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 all the people. So not only has the Lord been exalted because Moses is the spokesman for the Lord.

Who else has been exalted? Moses. Uh, so in the eyes of the people and the Lord's already said something to this effect, that to Pharaoh, Moses is like deity. Moses is like God and Aaron is, is his prophet.

So Moses, if you remember when he was born and in his upbringing, Moses was great in the land of Egypt for a different reason, because he was part of the Royal family. He was Pharaoh's daughter's adopted son, but now Moses is great in the land of Egypt, opposing the Royal family.

And it says that God, not only did he exalt Moses, God gave the Israelites favor in the sight of the Egyptians. So much so that what did the Egyptians do? This is really an incredible part of the story.

What do they do? Where did the Egyptians do for the Israelites? Give them all sorts of stuff, silver, garments. Now notice I said they give it to them, right? All right. Skip ahead to chapter 12 for a moment.

Just look at verse 35. Now it does say in at least two occasions that the Israelites plundered the Egyptians. Now, when you hear the word plunder, what does that make you think of? Taking, stealing, taking it by force, right?

They go in with their swords and it's like, you know, in the spoils of war, right? That's what it sounds like when you plunder something, but you notice I said they gave it to them. All right. Look at Exodus 12 verse 36.

The Israelites did as Moses instructed and asked. So they're asking very politely. I'm sure the Egyptians, they asked the Egyptians for articles of silver and gold and clothing. And the Lord made the Egyptians favorably disposed toward the people and they gave them what they asked for.

So they plundered the Egyptians. I mean, those two things don't normally go together. They gave it. It says they plundered it. So they plundered in a certain sense. All right. Not in the normal sense.

So that's the answer. Why, why did the Egyptians do this? Because this is probably never happened before in the history of the world. This type of scenario, they're our slaves. They serve us. They're below us.

They're leaving. And Hey, just take all my gold with you. Like this doesn't happen. There's only one explanation and that's the Lord. So we saw the answer. The Lord gave the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians.

So that's the answer. But the liberal skeptics I'm learning Marcus, not the liberal scholars, the liberal skeptics, this is what we're going to call them from now on. And the unbelieving, you know, seminary professors and all the rest, what do they like to do?

They love this story. And they love to take this and twist and pervert God's word on, on this as well. Even though it says that they gave them these things, guess what the skeptics say that the Hebrews went in and stole it.

And they've said that the Hebrews were actually, they were like a mercenary army and they were violent and they went in and they literally plundered like you would normally think. So that's what the, the liberal skeptics say.

And I've seen that on history channel and all those networks years and years ago, I stopped watching that stuff after a while. I finally smartened up, you know, it's sort of like the liberal Sunday school teacher we talked about last time, right?

Moses didn't part the red sea. He parted what the Reed sees. So it was just that the wind kind of dried out a few inches of water. And he said, of course, that doesn't explain how Pharaoh's entire army drowned in a few inches, inches of water.

That doesn't make sense, but you understand it doesn't matter if it makes sense, or this is what the Bible says. None of that matters. All that matters to them is that they deny the supernatural. All that matters to them is that they are committed to their unbelief and say, well, why, you know, why even bring this up?

Because that's what surrounds us. It's everywhere. And if we don't know that going in, we don't want to be blindsided. So they're committed to their unbelief in the view that the Bible is not trustworthy.

So here's the point. You either believe the Bible or you don't, you either can trust in God's word or you can't. There's no middle ground here. You either have faith in God or you don't. So we want to make that clear to everybody.

Either you believe it all or how can you believe really much of any of it? So this is a miracle. The fact that the Egyptians gave them silver and gold and articles of clothing. There's no other explanation than it's a miraculous God changing of their hearts.

The Hardening of Pharaoh’s Heart and the Limits of Unbelief

All right. Any comments or questions.

On that? Dennis. This afternoon in some of our discussion between prayers, there was Ken Ham who was brought up and he makes that statement where if you cancel out Genesis chapter one and two, then why don't you just throw the whole book out?

Right. Because, and then we've got generations of kids brought up with evolution and no wonder that the rest of the word of God and the interest is small because the Bible is stupid. It's got this silly story at the beginning because they've been convinced of that and it's just terrible.

Right. Yeah.

Yep. If you can get people to not believe the first few chapters of the Bible, and of course the book of revelation is assaulted too with the final judgment. So if you can undermine the beginning and the end, guess what?

Everything you've undermined everything in between. So that's.

Their strategy. Marcus. I was just thinking about this. I'm not sure why, except that it seems so hard for me to understand why people are so blind. And then I was thinking, well, does the devil harden people's hearts?

And we're reading here how God hardens people's hearts. And we think sometimes we harden our own hearts. And nothing positive is going to take place unless the Holy Spirit, it is the Holy Spirit who convicts people.

Right. It is. And I don't know. I don't understand it. I don't even understand my own. I don't understand why I'm not more wholehearted than I wish I was. Mark, if I could remind you of second Corinthians chapter four, verse four.

Don't hold that one. It says, but if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the God of this age, small g, has blinded, who do not believe lest the light of the gospel, the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.

That, I think, is the answer to your question. Yeah. They're blind. And you know, if somebody, I'm sort of preaching to the choir, you know, right now. No, you're preaching to the prayer meeting. We don't have a choir technically, but, but if somebody is watching this later on online a week from now, a year from now, understand, uh, I say this because we want to convince people, okay.

People living in darkness or people that have been blinded and don't believe these things. We're not looking to just beat up on people. Cause you, you know, you're wrong. We're trying to convince you that this is the word of God.

And you can trust every, every word. And along those lines of twisting the word of God, this account of the Egyptians giving silver and gold, this is especially relevant, um, in the time period we're living in right now, because this text is being used, uh, right at this very moment.

And I don't want to get too sidetracked on this topic, but this is very common right now. It's being used right now to basically promote that the Bible supports reparations for slavery. So if you haven't heard this in the culture, you will, okay.

You can understand to some extent because they were enslaved and now they're going out of slavery and the Egyptians give them all this, all this stuff. So the argument is that simple. The Israelites were enslaved in Egypt.

God is freeing them. The Egyptians as they leave Egypt are giving them silver and gold as reparations for slavery. Um, hold on one second. Uh, first, I just want to make two points about this, right? First, this was prophesied.

God told Abraham back in Genesis 15, Genesis 15, 13, and 14, the Lord speaking to Abram, he said, no, certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs and will serve them.

And they will afflict them 400 years. And also the nation whom they serve, I will judge and afterward, they shall come out with great possessions. And I just want to point out that, uh, in regards to the issue of reparations, number one, the gold that they receive, isn't going to do them a whole lot of good because they waste most of it building the golden calf.

If you ever wondered where do they get all this gold to make this idol? Well, they got it from the Egyptians and it ends up being ground into powder, tossed in the river. And, uh, there you go. That's the end of that.

So it didn't do them a whole lot of good, at least with the gold that's number one. And then number two, just for the sake of argument. Okay. If this is a form of reparations and the Lord is paying them back for all the hard work where they really were not compensated fairly, if this is reparations and if that's what they're receiving, God bless them.

But here's the difference. The Israelites who received the gold, they were actually slaves and the Egyptians who gave them the gold and silver were actually part of that generation that oppressed them.

Okay. So that's the big difference. So if somebody wants to, uh, support reparations as some sort of, uh, secular topic or political topic, that's up to you, but you cannot use the events in Exodus because comparing Exodus to what's going on right now, or what's being suggested right now.

It's like.

Comparing apples and oranges. Okay. Larry, I was just going to say, why do they, I mean, they obvious, they use the Bible and twist it to say what they want it to, right. In regards to reparation. Right.

You know, if you don't believe the Bible, why are you using the Bible?

And that's the irony because typically the ones supporting this don't believe the Hebrews were ever actually enslaved. You touch them at another moment, but that's, that's the way that goes. All right.

Any other questions or comments? No, just as well look at verse four. Moses said, thus says the Lord about midnight. I will go out into the midst of Egypt and all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sits on his throne, even to the firstborn of the female servant who is behind the hand mill and all the firstborn of the animals.

Then there shall be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as was not like it before, nor shall be like it again, but against none of the children of Israel, shall a dog move its tongue. This is a strange thing to say against a man or a beast that you may know that the Lord does make a difference between the Egyptians and Israel.

So in other words, on this night, there's going to be great crying and weeping and wailing throughout Egypt, but among the Israelites, they won't even hear a dog bark. There's going to be tranquility and peace.

So God is making once again, that distinction between Egypt, which will receive judgment because they lack faith and they don't do what God tells them to do. They have, they have a way to get out of this, right?

I mean, all throughout they they've had a way Pharaoh's had a way out. Uh, but the Israelites once again are spared. Marcus, they received grace.

The thought came, uh, there'll be a great crying throughout all the land, such as was not like it before, nor shall be like it again. I was thinking of when, because I'm reading now in the New Testament, where Herod killed all the firstborn two years old and under, and there was, was that, is that less of a tragedy than this?

Um, just, was it less of a tragedy? Well, it says it,.

Nor shall it be like it again, but I would think this would be on a wider scale. This was on a.

Wider scale, rather than, yeah. Was it just all in Nazareth or just in Nazareth or just in Galilee? Bethlehem. Yeah. And I think you could say, this is talking about Egypt, not Bethlehem. Yeah. So in other words, nothing like this will ever happen again in Egypt.

Oh, such a cry. That's how I would.

Take that. Yeah. Yeah. And here's another thing that sets this plague apart. It's not frogs going throughout the land. It's not lice going throughout the land. It's not locusts going throughout the land.

It's who it's, it's the Lord going throughout the land. All right. The death angel. I'm glad you brought that up because I was thinking about that. I'm like, okay, where is, where is this verse? And I get off the search engine because that's quicker, right?

Death angel enter zero results.

Where's the death angel mentioned? When the people went into the land, God said, there's going to be places of refuge for somebody that maybe committed a heinous crime or crime against someone else. So that person would have to make an exit and get to that village before the angel of death caught up with him.

Okay. Where's the chapter and verse? Well, it's in, it's actually in, um, it's in, um, in the law. I think it'll take me a second.

Who's sort of the death angel going throughout the land of Egypt? Oh, everybody. I don't know about that. I have. Okay. Okay. Give me the chapter and verse somebody. Okay. We'll give you a moment to find it.

Um, Google yet. Pull out,. Hey, pull out your phones. I'll give you permission. Make sure your ringer is off. Pull out your phones. Where's the death angel?

Right. Oh, the Lord.

Uh, maybe I'll cut this out of the video later on. You've heard of the Mandela effect. How many of you have heard of this where people, they swear that this happened or they swear something was in the Bible.

And then when they go and look, it ain't there. It's like, I've heard this my whole, and I'm not saying I believe in that. Okay. But, um, yeah, I I've heard of the death angel and I was thinking that, okay, I'm going to talk about that.

And then where is that in the scripture? And I, I'm not finding it. Maybe it was in the 10 commandments, Charlton Heston. Anyways, I could be wrong. Maybe it's in there some, but, uh, I couldn't find it.

So, and I'm not picking on you, Mark, cause I thought the same thing when I was preparing. And then I looked again, it was like, I guess the takeaway from this is when you think, oh, I know what the scripture says about this.

You know, I can just kind of go along the check, double check because you might find out that you have a detail wrong, or it's always good to go back and look. All right. So that's the difference. That's another difference with this plague that it's the Lord himself.

That's what it says. Okay. That the Lord himself will go out through the land. And then look at verse eight and all these, your servants shall, this is the Lord speaking, shall come down to me and bow down to me saying, get out.

And all the people who follow you that I will go out. Then he went out from Pharaoh in great anger. So remember it's a parenthetical chapter. This is describing the prior meeting that Moses had before Pharaoh.

And what did Pharaoh do? Pharaoh says, basically get out of here. And then he threatens Moses life. And we don't see any details from Moses until now after the fact where we see that Moses was furious.

And one commentator says this for once his acquired meekness failed and the hot natural temper of his youth blazed up. His life had been threatened. He had been shamefully dismissed. He had been deprived of his right of audience for the future under such circumstances, he did well to be angry.

So at least this commentator says, yeah, Moses was justified with this anger. Other times Moses wasn't justified in his anger, but here we can understand. And then the chapter ends with verse nine versus nine and 10.

But the Lord said to Moses, Pharaoh will not heed you so that my wonders may be multiplied in the land of Egypt. So Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh and the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart.

And he did not let the children of Israel go out of his land.