על חיי משה, ספר א כ״דOn the Life of Moses, Book I 24
א׳
1[134] After this came the tenth and final judgement, transcending all its predecessors. This was the death of the Egyptians, not of the whole population, since God’s purpose was not to make a complete desert of the country, but only to teach them a lesson, nor yet of the great majority of the men and women of every age. Instead, He permitted the rest to live, but sentenced the first-born only to death, beginning with the king and ending with the meanest woman who grinds at the mill, in each case their eldest male child.
ב׳
2[135] For, about midnight, those who had been the first to call their parents father and mother, first to be called sons by them, all in full health and robust of body, were suddenly cut off wholesale without apparent cause, and no household, as we are told, was spared this calamity.
ג׳
3[136] When dawn came, every family, seeing their dearest thus unexpectedly dead, who, up till the evening, had shared their home and board, were naturally struck with profound grief and filled the whole place with their lamentations. And so, since in this general disaster the same emotion drew from all a united outcry, one single dirge of wailing resounded from end to end of the whole land.
ד׳
4[137] And, as long as they stayed in their houses, everyone, ignorant of his neighbour’s evil plight, bewailed his own only; but, when they came forth and learned what had befallen the rest, their grief was straightway doubled. To the personal sorrow, the lighter and lesser, was added the public, greater and heavier, since they lost even the hope of consolation. For who could be expected to comfort another if he needs consolation himself?
ה׳
5[138] And, as so often happens in such circumstances, they thought that their present condition was but the beginning of greater evils, and were filled with fear of the destruction of those who still lived. Consequently, bathed in tears and with garments rent, they rushed together to the palace and cried out against the king as the cause of all the dire events that had befallen them.
ו׳
6[139] If, they said, at the very beginning, when Moses first entreated him, he had suffered the people to go forth, they would have experienced none at all of these happenings; but, as he indulged his usual self-will, the rewards of his contentiousness had been promptly reaped by themselves. Then they exhorted each other to use all speed in driving the people from the whole country, and declared that to detain them even for a single day, or rather only for an hour, would bring upon them a deadly vengeance.
