The ten plagues of Egypt

The Plague of The Death of the Firstborn and the Passover

The tenth plague · Exodus 11-12 · The book of Exodus

The tenth and final plague struck down every firstborn in Egypt at midnight, from Pharaoh's son to the captive's, and there was a great cry through the land. But wherever the blood of a lamb was struck on the doorposts, death passed over, and Israel went free. This is the night of the Passover, and the New Testament declares that Christ our passover is sacrificed for us.

And it came to pass, that at midnight the LORD smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon; and all the firstborn of cattle.Exodus 12:29 (KJV)

What happened

The LORD announced the last and heaviest plague: about midnight he would go out into Egypt, and all the firstborn in the land would die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh on his throne to the firstborn of the servant behind the mill, and all the firstborn of the beasts. There would be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as there had never been nor would be again. This was the final answer to a king who had refused every warning, and who had once drowned the sons of Israel in the Nile.

And it came to pass at midnight that the LORD smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the firstborn of the captive in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the cattle. Pharaoh rose in the night, he and all his servants and all Egypt, and there was a great cry, for there was not a house where there was not one dead. That very night Pharaoh called for Moses and said, Rise up, get you forth from among my people, and go. Egypt urged them to be gone in haste, and Israel went out, hundreds of thousands strong, at last a free people.

The night of the Passover

But death did not fall on everyone, and the difference was the blood. God had given Israel a way of salvation. Every household was to take a lamb without blemish, a male of the first year, kill it at evening, and strike its blood on the two side posts and the upper doorpost of the house. Then they were to eat it roasted, with unleavened bread and bitter herbs, dressed and ready to travel. And the LORD said, When I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you. Where the blood was, death passed over; where it was not, the firstborn died. It was not that Israel was innocent and Egypt guilty; the same judgment threatened every house, and the only shelter anywhere was the blood of the lamb.

God commanded that this night be remembered forever. The Passover became the founding feast of Israel, kept every year, with the unleavened bread recalling the haste of their going, so that parents could tell their children, It is the sacrifice of the LORD's passover, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel when he smote the Egyptians and delivered our houses. The rescue was to be retold in every generation, a memory that made a people.

The gods of Egypt judged

Of this night the LORD said plainly, against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the LORD. Here at last the text itself names what the earlier plagues had been building toward. Pharaoh was worshiped as a god and his firstborn son as a god in the making, the future divine king, and the striking of that son was the toppling of Egypt's whole claim that its rulers were divine. The nation's gods, from the Nile to the sun to the god-king on the throne, were shown to be nothing before the living God. This time the judgment on the gods is not merely a reasonable interpretation; it is the word of Exodus itself.

What it revealed about the LORD

This final plague revealed the LORD as the God of all the earth, before whom the mightiest empire and its god-king are helpless, and who will surely deliver the people he has claimed. It revealed his justice, long-suffering but not endless, falling at last on a nation that had enslaved and murdered his people. And it revealed, in the blood on the door, the astonishing heart of his mercy: that he would provide a way for the guilty to be passed over, that judgment and salvation would meet at a doorpost marked with the blood of a lamb. The God who judged Egypt is the God who sheltered every house that trusted his word.

A feast to be kept for ever

God did not let this night be a memory that would fade. He wove it into the very calendar and life of Israel, commanding that the month of the exodus be the first of months to them, and that the Passover be kept every year, with a week of unleavened bread following it. The haste of that first night, when there was no time to let the bread rise, was to be tasted again in every generation, so that the deliverance would never grow distant or abstract.

And he tied it to teaching. When your children shall say unto you, What mean ye by this service, the LORD instructed, you shall answer, It is the sacrifice of the LORD's passover, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt when he smote the Egyptians and delivered our houses. The rescue was made into a story to be told at a table, parent to child, year after year, so that a people would be formed who knew by heart that they had been slaves, and that the LORD had brought them out. The night of judgment became the night of memory, and the memory made a nation.

Christ our Passover

The whole of the New Testament reads this night as the shadow of the greatest rescue of all. Paul writes to the Corinthians, Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, for even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us. John the Baptist pointed to Jesus and said, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. Peter writes that we were redeemed not with silver and gold but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. Jesus is the true Passover Lamb, without blemish, whose blood, applied by faith to the doorposts of the heart, causes the judgment we deserve to pass over us.

The parallels are deep and deliberate. As the lamb had to be without blemish, so Christ was sinless. As not a bone of the Passover lamb was to be broken, so at the cross the soldiers did not break Jesus' legs, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. As it was the blood, not merely the lamb, that saved, so it is by his blood that we are brought out of the far deeper bondage of sin and death. Jesus kept the Passover with his disciples on the very night he was betrayed, and took the bread and the cup and gave them a new meaning, his body broken and his blood shed, and then he went out to become the sacrifice himself. The exodus that began with a river of blood ends, in the fullness of time, at a cross, where the Lamb of God opens the way out of every Egypt, through the waters, and home to God. This is why the story of the ten plagues is not only ancient history but the shape of the salvation offered to you: there is a Lamb, there is blood on the door, and all who take shelter there go free.

A note on reading the plagues: this account follows Exodus faithfully and does not add to it. The idea that each plague confronted a particular Egyptian god or power is a widely held and often persuasive reading, and it is presented here as an interpretation, not as a certainty. Except on the final night, where Exodus itself says the LORD executed judgment against all the gods of Egypt, the text names no specific deity. What Scripture states plainly is that the LORD alone is God, that he heard the cry of his people, and that he brought them out with a mighty hand.

Related: The plague of darkness · The ten plagues · Who is Jesus?