“The discordant cry of their enemies
Echoed back.
Their piteous lament for their children
Was spread abroad.
The slave was punished
With the same penalty as the master.
The commoner suffered
The same loss as the king.
They suffered all together,
By the one form of death.
They had corpses too many to count.
The living were not sufficient
Even to bury them.
In one instant,
Their most valued children
Had been destroyed.
Even though they had disbelieved everything
Because of their magic arts,
Yet when their first-borns were destroyed,
They acknowledged your people
To be God’s child.”
After this deadly event, the Egyptians were upset. Here there seems to be sense of the horrific action here that took place that was not present in the original Exodus story. The cries of these parents echoed throughout the land. Their lament went throughout the world. Every first born child in Egypt had been killed. It did not matter whether they were slave or master, king or common person. They all suffered the same with their dead children. There were too many corpses to count and not enough people to bury the dead. These precious children had been killed. On the positive side, these disbelievers (ἀπιστοῦντες), who just had their children killed, acknowledged that the Israelites were God’s children or sons (Θεοῦ υἱὸν λαὸν εἶναι).