![]() ![]() This conforms to P’s notion of where the Israelites live: according to P, they do not live apart from the Egyptians, but rather intermingled with them. Rather, God tells Moses and Aaron to instruct the Israelites to slaughter a lamb and put its blood on the lintels of their houses so that when God goes through Egypt he knows which houses are Israelite and which are Egyptian. In the P story, again as usual, there is no advance warning of the death of the first-born for Pharaoh or the Egyptians. They escape under the cover of night, in case Pharaoh might change his mind as he had done so many times before. Finally given the opportunity they had been waiting for since the beginning of the plagues narrative, the Israelites gather all of their possessions hurriedly, including their unleavened dough. And so it comes to pass: in the middle of that night God strikes the first-born of Egypt, and Pharaoh and his people urge the Israelites to leave at once. ![]() The Death of the First-BornĪfter the plague, Moses tells Pharaoh, all of Egypt will demand that we leave. This is largely because according to J the Israelites live separately from the Egyptians: the Israelites reside in the distinct territory of Goshen, as they have since the time of Joseph. In J, therefore, there is no need for the famous blood on the lintel to distinguish the Israelites from the Egyptians: God is capable of distinguishing them without such a sign. But Moses also announces, in advance, that the Israelites will be unaffected: “Not a dog shall snarl at any of the Israelites, at man or beast, in order that you may know that the Lord makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel” (11:7). The J narrative has Moses tell Pharaoh, as usual, that the plague is coming: “Thus says the Lord: Toward midnight I will go forth among the Egyptians, and every first-born in the land of Egypt shall die” (Exod 11:4–5). And again, neither J nor P tells the complete narrative as we have come to know it. The bulk of these chapters are taken up with the detailed instructions for the Passover festival, the first festival legislated in the Pentateuch and still among the most important holidays in the Jewish calendar.Īgain we have to reckon with multiple accounts of these final moments for the Israelites in Egypt. The plagues narrative comes to its climax in Exodus 11–13 with the final plague, the death of the Egyptian first-born, and with the subsequent departure of the Israelites from Egypt.
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