The Crime of the First Born

"The real question ... is what crime did the firstborn of Egypt commit? They were the ones killed not Pharoah. Your argument may have made killing Pharaoh just but not children who had no control over Pharaoh's actions." -- Ryk

That is a good question, Ryk.

As we know, the first born children had committed no crime. As far as Scripture reveals to us, that's not why God kills them. We don't find warrant in Scripture for us to think that is God's reason. So it must be something else.

Was it because God took pleasure in it? I don't think so. God says:

I take no pleasure in the death of wicked people. Ezekiel 33:11

So I don't think that's the answer either. I don't believe Gods reason is a lust for blood (in spite of how popular that idea seems to be), we again, don't find in Scripture anywhere there God takes delight in killing.

Why only first born children? Why only males, and not females? And why first born male cattle too?

I think one key to understanding is what God says when he proclaims the plague of the first born on Egypt:

I will execute judgment against all the gods of Egypt Exodus 12:12

Up to this point, God has reserved his judgment against Egypt, but now is the time for final judgment.

And the final judgment is informed by one of God's principles concerning justice, given in the Law, which we commonly hear as "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth." But look what comes immediately preceding this phrase:

you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth Exodus 21:23-24

The killing of the first born was God's just final judgment.

Let's recall what happened earlier in the story, back before Moses was born?

Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people: "Every boy that is born [to the Hebrews] you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live." Exodus 1:22 (NIV)

By the time we get to the tenth plague much later in the story, there has been an incredible turn of fortune. At the beginning of the captivity, the Hebrews were wailing to God. But the tide has now turned, and it is the Egyptians that are wailing.

I think it is right that we are disturbed by the killing of the first born. It's right that our stomachs are turned by it.

God's chosen people (the Hebrews) have been held in bondage, and now God is finally setting them free. But this freedom doesn't come without a cost. There is a great price to pay for that freedom.

This foreshadows the great cost of setting another people free. The sacrifice of God's own first born son, Jesus. The price paid to set me free from the bondage of sin.

With this final plague, it is finished. And the Hebrews are set free from their bondage.

But why is the cost so great, and why is it first born sons that are killed?

Again, it's a shadow of the cost that God himself will bear, the great ordeal and sacrifice of his own first born son, on the cross of Calvary.

It is right for us to be bothered by the enormity of the tragedy, the loss of human life, the huge cost paid by Egypt for God to set the Hebrews free from bondage.

Why couldn't Pharaoh have just let them leave? Why did the tenth plague have to be delivered on Egypt?

I think that's exactly what Moses was angry about when he left that final meeting with Pharaoh, before the tenth plague. Moses was angry that it had to take place. I am angered as well. Why does it have to be this way? Why could it not be some other way?

The enormous loss of human life disturbs me deeply.

But that disturbance also recalls in me the enormous cost that God paid to set me free from the bondage of sin. God sacrifices his own first born son.

I approach the cross with more sober appreciation for the enormity of the cost paid for my own freedom, to be freed from the bondage of my own Egypt.

Jesus bore the cost. The price is paid in full. It is finished.