Exodus 11

God has had it with Pharaoh and his duplicity, so He has Moses introduce the plague of the firstborn. Apparently, Moses is pissed off at Pharaoh too, for he leaves in a huff, "hot with anger" (verse 8). If I were in Moses's position, I would be absolutely apoplectic that Pharaoh, through his intractability, has led so many of his subjects to death.

God specifies that only the firstborn sons will die (verse 5), not the daughters. I don't want to turn this into a gender politics post, but in many societies, the firstborn son did receive all the inheritance. Their parents lavished all their adulation on him, leaving their daughters and all subsequent sons rather forsaken. Of course, it's wrong to think this way, but we still find traces of this "Boys are most important" attitude in modern Western society. When a young boy acts rambunctious and obnoxious, some people say, "Oh, how cute! He's going to be a real athlete and charismatic leader when he grows up! That's right; go on trying to trip that blind man, you adorable little rapscallion!" When a girl acts this way, these same people turn around and say, "Shut your pie hole, you little brat, and stop being so annoying! Be a lady, why don't you!" I don't mean to give all guys grief--I'm one myself, after all, and a firstborn at that--but while I think we've made some progress in how we treat the sexes, we still have some ways to go.

I admit that the plague on the firstborn makes me uncomfortable. Sure, the other plagues hurt or inconvenienced some innocent Egyptians, but this plague involves outright death. Natural disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis, and hurricanes cause their fair share of death and devastation, but we can't say that God sent any of these calamities for a particular purpose. Then we have human-created disasters--oil spills, gas pipe explosions, Miley Cyrus--but at least for those, we can blame fallible humans.

But here, we have God directly causing death, and I'm willing to bet that most of those killed were not God-fearing--after all, they were Egyptians. Therefore, they probably didn't go to heaven when they died. What troubles me most is that some of those killed must have been kids. I wonder--why would God kill them and offer forgiveness to a screw-up like me? "God works in mysterious ways" is the non-answer that comes to mind, but I don't find it satisfying. I can only find small consolation in realizing that no one really knows exactly what happens when we die, especially in regards to those born before the advent of Christ. I don't want to gloss over events in the Bible that cause me unease or for which I don't have answers, and this is certainly one of those events.