Exodus11chapter 11

Exodus 11:1

God gives Moses the count before the last stroke falls, so the sequence ends on an announcement rather than on a surprise. The promise that Pharaoh will thrust you out hence altogether is reported as kept at 12:33, where the Egyptians are urgent upon the people, and at 12:39, where the dough has no time to rise. Genesis 12:17 records the LORD plaguing an earlier Pharaoh over an earlier Hebrew household, and the account of Egypt and the sons of Abraham closes here with the same word.

Exodus 11:2-3

The instruction repeats a promise made at the bush, where Exodus 3:21 and 3:22 said the people would not go out empty, and Exodus 12:35 reports it carried out. Adam Clarke argues at 3:22 that the English borrow misrepresents the Hebrew shaal, which is the ordinary verb for asking, so what the text describes is a request granted rather than a loan never repaid. Behind both stands Genesis 15:14, where God told Abram that afterward shall they come out with great substance. The favour is given by the LORD, and the same verse says the man who fled Egypt at 2:15 is now great in the sight of Pharaoh's own servants.

Exodus 11:4

The nine plagues before this one fall in three groups of three, each triad opening with a warning at the river in the morning, then a warning in the palace, then a stroke with no warning at all. The tenth stands outside that architecture. Moses announces it instead of being told to perform it, no rod is stretched out and no hand is lifted, and the LORD says he will go out himself. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read the going out as language used after the manner of men.

Exodus 11:5

Genesis spent fifty chapters putting the younger ahead of the elder, Isaac over Ishmael, Jacob over Esau, Ephraim over Manasseh, and Exodus turns and deals with the firstborn directly. The words answer Exodus 4:22 and 4:23, where God called Israel his firstborn son and told Pharaoh what a refusal would cost, so the last plague was named before the first one fell. The stroke reaches from the throne to the handmill, which puts it on the house that gave the order at 1:22 and on the house that grinds the grain. Exodus 13:2 will take up the survivors with sanctify unto me all the firstborn, and that is the first occurrence of sanctify in Scripture.

Exodus 11:6-7

The cry that goes up in Egypt answers the cry that went up from Israel at 2:23, where the people cried by reason of the bondage and their cry came up unto God, and 12:30 reports it fallen. Against Israel not a dog moves his tongue, which Adam Clarke reads as a proverb for going out without so much as a disturbance. The difference named here is the fifth the plagues have drawn, after the division at 8:23, the severing of the cattle at 9:4, the hail that missed Goshen at 9:26 and the light in Israel's dwellings at 10:23. Chapter 12 says what makes the difference on this particular night, and it is blood on a doorpost rather than descent.

Exodus 11:8

Moses tells Pharaoh that his own officials will bow and beg him to leave, and 12:31 to 12:33 reports it, with Pharaoh calling for Moses by night and Egypt urgent upon the people. This is the first place the text records Moses angry, and his anger returns at 16:20 over the manna kept overnight and at 32:19 over the calf. The speech that began at verse 4 is the tail of the audience in chapter 10, where at 10:29 Moses had said he would see Pharaoh's face again no more, and he walks out with no further interview.

Exodus 11:9-10

The word wonders goes back to the bush at 3:20, where God said he would smite Egypt with all my wonders, and verse 10 reports that Moses and Aaron did all of them. The order of the hardening across the book is checkable in the text, since God announces it at 4:21 and 7:3, the first five plagues put the act on Pharaoh or leave the verb stative, and 9:12 is the first place the words read that the LORD hardened the heart of Pharaoh, after which the subject stays the same through 14:17. Romans 9:17 quotes Exodus 9:16 and draws the conclusion at 9:18, whom he will he hardeneth. Sproul reads sovereignty and human responsibility as two true descriptions of one act, while the free will reading takes the sequence as God confirming a man in the direction he had already chosen, and both are held by teachers this site honours.