Exodus 11

1. And the Lord said, etc. Vers. 1-3 are to be taken as a parenthesis; either repeating what God had said to Moses before his last interview with Pharaoh, or recording a secret revelation made to him while in the monarch’s presence, which, after a short silence, he begins to utter (ver. 4) before he withdrew.

4 will I go out. This, which was the last and decisive plague, was also the one most plainly inflicted by direct Divine interposition, not only bearing no resemblance to any natural phenomenon, but occurring without intervention of any known agency.

5 all the firstborn. According to the original threatening to Pharaoh in ch. iv. 23.

behind the mill. The lowest slaves in the household ground the corn for the family in a hand-mill made of two stones.

beasts. So that even the childless would be smitten in the loss of the sacred animals.

6 a great cry. Egyptians are loud and vehement in uttering their grief.