Exodus 12:30

30 Pharaoh and all his officials and all the people of Egypt woke up during the night, and loud wailing was heard throughout the land of Egypt. There was not a single house where someone had not died.

Exodus 12:30 Meaning and Commentary

Exodus 12:30

And Pharaoh rose up in the night
Being awakened by the uncommon noise he heard:

he and all his servants, and all the Egyptians;
he and his nobles, and ministers of state, courtiers, and counsellors, and his subjects in common, perhaps everywhere in his kingdom, but particularly in the metropolis:

and there was a great cry in Egypt;
throughout the whole land, the firstborn being everywhere slain, which caused a most dreadful lamentation of parents for their eldest son, of brethren and sisters for their elder brother, and of servants and maidens for the principal and heir of the family; a cry so loud and general as perhaps was never heard before or since, and under which distress they could have no relief, or any to be their comforter, since all were in the same circumstances: for there was not a house wherein there was not one dead; for if there was no firstborn in it, as it can hardly be thought there should be in every house, though some have been of opinion that it was so ordered in Providence that there should; yet the principal or most considerable person in the family, that is next to the master, might be called the firstborn, as Jarchi notes from ( Psalms 89:27 ) . Though this may be taken as an hyperbolical expression, or, as Aben Ezra observes, it being usual with the Scripture to say that of all, which is true of the greatest part.

Exodus 12:30 In-Context

28 So the people of Israel did just as the LORD had commanded through Moses and Aaron.

29 And that night at midnight, the LORD struck down all the firstborn sons in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh, who sat on his throne, to the firstborn son of the prisoner in the dungeon. Even the firstborn of their livestock were killed.

30 Pharaoh and all his officials and all the people of Egypt woke up during the night, and loud wailing was heard throughout the land of Egypt. There was not a single house where someone had not died.

31 Pharaoh sent for Moses and Aaron during the night. “Get out!” he ordered. “Leave my people—and take the rest of the Israelites with you! Go and worship the LORD as you have requested.

32 Take your flocks and herds, as you said, and be gone. Go, but bless me as you leave.”