Verses 21-23
Exodus 4:21-Isaiah : J. The Death of Pharaoh’ s Firstborn is Threatened.
Exodus 4:22 f. seems to have been moved back hither from before Exodus 10:28 to serve as a general introduction to the Plagues, receiving Exodus 4:21 as preface. The “ portents” of Exodus 4:21 are not the “ signs” of Exodus 4:2-1 Samuel : J, to be done for Israel’ s benefit, but those of Exodus 4:17 E, to be done with the rod before Pharaoh.— With Exodus 4:22 cf. Hosea 11:2. The prophetic intuition which saw Yahweh’ s love for Israel as a father’ s for his firstborn became one of the grand commonplaces of Heb. religion. We find it “ christened” in Galatians 3:26-Joel :. It may have had its root in a cruder notion, found outside the OT, of a physical relation between a people and a divine ancestor, but in Israel, as Driver points out, the idea was spiritual.
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