שמות, פרק י״א, פסוק ה׳

Moses delivers his final, most devastating warning, announcing a sweeping and unavoidable decree that will strike every layer of Egyptian society. This upcoming plague is designed to shatter both the physical and spiritual might of Egypt. It serves as a direct, measure-for-measure punishment for their cruel treatment of the Israelites, whom God lovingly refers to as His own firstborn [רש״ר הירש, אור החיים].

The decree is absolute, encompassing any firstborn child, whether firstborn to the father or to the mother [העמק דבר, חזקוני, רבנו בחיי]. Interestingly, the warning implies that the victims will simply die rather than being actively struck down. This suggests that the death will occur naturally as a result of their exposure to the Divine presence. The firstborns represent the absolute peak of Egyptian vitality, and encountering the sheer intensity of God's revelation will simply drain the life force right out of them [אור החיים].

The devastation will span the entire social hierarchy, from the most exalted figure to the absolute lowest. At the top is Pharaoh's own heir, the crown prince destined to sit on the throne [אבן עזרא, רלב״ג, קאסוטו]. At the very bottom is the child of the lowly maidservant who labors behind the millstones. Pushing the heavy wooden beams to grind grain was an exhausting and degrading form of manual labor, typically forced upon slaves and prisoners [שד״ל, קאסוטו].

There is an apparent shift between the people Moses warns and those who actually suffer the plague later on. Moses directs his warning toward the laborers at the millstones, yet the eventual plague is recorded as striking the captives in the dungeons. The primary approach among commentators is that these are actually the exact same people, just at different times of the day. During daylight hours, these slaves worked the grinding stones, but at night, they were locked away in pits to prevent them from escaping. Since Moses delivered his warning during the day, he referenced their daytime labor, whereas the plague itself struck at midnight while they were imprisoned [כלי יקר, רבנו בחיי, הכתב והקבלה].

Another perspective suggests that these were two completely different groups. Moses specifically warned the sons of the maidservants because, despite their own low status, they actively participated in the oppression of the Israelites or at least celebrated their suffering. However, when the plague struck, it also killed foreign captives held in Egyptian dungeons who had never harmed the Israelites. God struck these foreigners so they would not mistakenly believe that their own pagan idols had avenged their imprisonment, thereby proving to the entire world that the plague came exclusively from God [רש״י, מזרחי, גור אריה]. A third viewpoint harmonizes these ideas, suggesting that when the maidservants' sons heard the impending decree, they attempted to flee. They were subsequently caught, thrown into the dungeons as punishment, and ultimately died there [חזקוני, ריב״א].

Finally, the plague extends beyond human life to include the firstborn of all animals. This is because the Egyptians worshipped animals as deities. It is a fundamental principle that when God brings judgment upon a nation, He first or simultaneously punishes its gods to expose their absolute worthlessness [רש״י, רבנו בחיי, מלבי״ם]. The destruction of the firstborn animals is specifically intended to uproot the core of Egyptian spiritual impurity and completely dismantle their belief in these false idols [אור החיים].