Exodus 11:4-6 So Moses said, "This is what the Lord says: 'About midnight I will go throughout Egypt. Every firstborn son in Egypt will die, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh, who sits on the throne, to the firstborn son of the female slave, who is at her hand mill, and all the firstborn of the cattle as well. (Because of their continued stubborn rebellion, the final judgment against Pharaoh and Egypt is death, and no one will escape the judgment, from the highest and most powerful to the lowest and poorest. Even their livestock, some of which were worshiped and all of which were part of the wealth of the Egyptians, will suffer the judgment. Though the Egyptians had been warned and had already even suffered severe consequences, they refused to submit to the Lord's command. Such rebellion always results in judgment, always results in death. The death can be a literal, physical death or the death of life as it has been experienced up to the point of judgment, such as the death of relationships, the death of livelihood, the death of good health, the death of a job, the death of any number of things we hold dear.) There will be loud wailing throughout Egypt— worse than there has ever been or ever will be again.'" (The response to such desperately deep loss caused sounds beyond words, lamentations that burst from the mourner's core. Part of the desperate tragedy is that the judgment had spread beyond the people in power who had refused to obey and to their families, many of them innocent children. The horror of God's judgment is beyond what we can take in. This last plague is a picture of the grave and terrible judgment to which continued rebellion leads and which is its result. His judgment is terrifying and terrible, not to be ignored, but to be avoided at all costs, an escape from which He has mercifully and graciously made possible. Even now, had Pharaoh and his people relented, they would have, could have, avoided this outcome. Today, the Lord provides endless opportunities for us to escape the wrath of sin by simply turning away from sin and turning to Him Who is merciful.)
