One more plague was coming on Pharaoh and his people, and it was a terrible one. All the first born—the oldest one in every family in all the land of Egypt—were to die at midnight of a certain day. Not one would escape, from the king’s oldest child to the oldest child of the very poorest people, and even the first born of the beasts were to die. It makes us think of the day of judgment when all the unsaved will stand before the throne of the Lord Jesus; none will be spared then. They might have been saved during their life time, but would not listen to the pleading voice of the Lord Jesus. Just so it was with the people of Egypt; they might have escaped all the fearful punishment that God visited upon them, but they would not obey Him; would not do what He asked— “Let My people go.” They hardened their hearts, again and again, when He sent to them, and after a while God, Himself hardened their hearts.
“Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment.”
The first verse of the next chapter is a good one for us to remember too: “Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth.”