Let My People Go

So Moses and Aaron went in to the king of Egypt and stood before his great throne, and they said, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Let my people go, so that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness.” And the king said, “Who is he, that I should listen to him? I do not know the Lord, and I am not letting Israel go.” That very day he made the work harder. Until then his masters had given the slaves straw to mix into their bricks. Now he said, “Give them no more straw. Let them go and find their own — and let them make just as many bricks as before. They are idle. That is why they are shouting about going off to their God.” So the people ran all over Egypt hunting for stubble, and they could not make enough bricks, and they were beaten for it. And they said to Moses and Aaron, “Look what you have done to us!” And Moses turned to the Lord and said, “Lord, why have you brought this trouble on your people? Why did you ever send me?” And the Lord said, “Now you will see what I will do to the king of Egypt. I am the Lord. I have heard my people groaning, and I have remembered my forever promise. I will bring you out. I will save you. I will take you to be my own people, and I will be your God.”

Moses and Aaron went back to the king. Aaron threw down the staff in front of him, and it became a great serpent. The king’s own wise men did a trick like it with their staffs — but Aaron’s staff swallowed up every one of theirs. And still the king’s heart stood hard, and he would not listen. So God sent wonders on the land of Egypt, one after another. In the morning, by the river, Moses lifted the staff and struck the water — and all the water in the river turned to blood. The fish died, the river stank, and no one in Egypt could get a drink from it. But the king turned around and walked into his house, and would not think about it at all. Then came the frogs. They hopped up out of the river in their thousands — into the houses, into the ovens, into the bowls of dough, onto the beds. The king called for Moses and said, ‘Pray to the Lord to take them away, and I will let your people go.’ Moses prayed, and the frogs died, and the land was quiet again. But as soon as the king had a little peace, he changed his mind. Then the dust of the ground became clouds of tiny gnats on people and animals, until the king’s wise men themselves said, “This is the finger of God.” Then came swarms of biting flies that filled every Egyptian house — but there was not one of them in Goshen, where God’s people lived. Then a sickness came on the cattle of Egypt in the fields; but not one animal belonging to the children of Israel died. Then sores broke out on the Egyptians and on their animals, so that the king’s wise men could not even stand up in front of Moses.

Then Moses stretched out his hand toward the sky, and the Lord sent thunder, and hail, and fire running along the ground — hail so heavy that nothing like it had ever fallen in Egypt. It broke the trees and beat down every green thing in the fields. Only in Goshen, where the children of Israel were, there was no hail at all. Then the king called Moses and said, “This time I have sinned. The Lord is righteous, and I and my people are in the wrong. Pray to the Lord, and I will let you go.” Moses went outside the city and spread out his hands to the Lord, and the thunder stopped and the rain stopped. But when the king saw that it was over, he hardened his heart again and would not let them go. So a wind blew all day and all night, and in the morning it brought the locusts. They covered the ground until you could not see it, and they ate every green thing the hail had left. And then the Lord turned the wind about and swept every locust into the sea. Then Moses stretched out his hand toward the sky, and darkness came down over the whole land of Egypt — a thick darkness you could almost feel. For three days nobody could see anyone else, and nobody got up from his place. But where the children of Israel lived, there was light. And the king of Egypt said to Moses, “Get away from me. Take care that you never see my face again — the day you come before me, you die.” And Moses said, “You have said it. I will not come before you again.”

Then the Lord told Moses that there would be one more thing — the last and the most terrible. In the night, death would go through the land of Egypt, and the oldest son in every Egyptian house would die, from the son of the king on his throne to the son of the servant girl at the mill. But God gave his own people a way to be safe. He told Moses and Aaron, “On this night every family is to take a lamb — a young one, with nothing wrong with it. Put some of its blood on the two doorposts and on the beam above the door of the house. Roast the meat over the fire, and eat it with bitter herbs and with bread made without yeast. Eat it with your belts tied and your sandals on your feet and your staffs in your hands, ready to go. And when I go through the land of Egypt, I will see the blood on your door, and I will pass over you, and no harm will come into that house. This night is the Lord’s Passover.” So Moses called all the elders together and told them, and every family did just as God had said. That evening they marked their doorways with the blood of the lamb, and they went inside and shut the door and ate together, ready for a journey, and nobody went out until morning. And in the middle of the night, it happened, just as God had said. In every Egyptian house the oldest son died, and a great cry went up all over Egypt — there was not one house without someone weeping. But in the houses with the blood on the door, God’s people were safe.

That very night the king sent for Moses and Aaron and said, “Get up. Get out from among my people, you and all the children of Israel. Go and serve your God, just as you said. Take your sheep and your cattle and go — and bless me too.” And all the Egyptians hurried them out of the land. The people picked up their bowls of dough before it had time to rise, wrapped them in their cloaks, and swung them onto their shoulders. Their neighbors gave them silver and gold and clothing to take with them. And so they went out — a great river of people, six hundred thousand men and all their families beside them, with their flocks and their herds, walking out of Egypt in the morning light. Four hundred and thirty years they had lived in that land. Now they were free, and they were going home. And Moses carried the bones of Joseph with him, because long ago Joseph had made his brothers promise: when God comes to bring you out, carry my bones up with you.