Death Of The Firstborn

Death of the Firstborn

Surely the most devastating plague of the ten that God brought on Egypt was the death of the firstborn. He warned, “Every firstborn son in Egypt will die, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh, who sits on the throne, to the firstborn son of the slave girl, who is at her hand mill, and all the firstborn of the cattle as well” (Exodus 11:5, NIV).

How could God bring about such a terrible plague? If we look at the whole story in the book of Exodus, we see that Pharaoh had issued a decree that all male Hebrew babies be killed. The Hebrew midwives were ordered to kill them immediately upon birth. So there was justice in this punishing plague.

But while we may be able to accept that God would punish the Egyptians with the death of their firstborn sons, it seems surprising that the Israelites were under the same sentence of death. The same night God brought death to every house in Egypt, he also visited the home of every Israelite family with the purpose of killing their firstborn sons.

All the previous plagues had left the Israelites unscathed. While chaos engulfed their oppressors, the Israelites watched from the safety of Goshen. While they might have thought that God was protecting them because they were more righteous than the Egyptians, this final plague made it clear that they, too, were sinners deserving death.

But while God justly delivered judgment, in his great mercy he also provided a way for his people to escape death. He told them to “slaughter their lamb . . . [and] take some of the blood and smear it on the sides and top of the doorframes of the houses. . . . When he sees the blood on the top and sides of the doorframe, the LORD will pass over your home. He will not permit his death angel to enter your house and strike you down” (Exodus 12:6-7, 23).

Though they deserved divine judgment, the firstborn Israelites were saved by grace through faith as they placed the blood of a lamb over their doorposts. Though there was no way they could see clearly what this pictured, they put the blood of the lamb over their doors in faith. God would one day offer the blood of his own firstborn as a sacrifice for sin. The death angel would not pass over him but strike him down.

Firstborn over all creation, because your blood was shed, the death angel cannot take my life from me. Your blood painted across my life marks me as forgiven, justified, saved, secure.