SEV Biblia, Chapter 11:5
y morirá todo primogénito en tierra de Egipto, desde el primogénito del Faraón que está asentado en su trono, hasta el primogénito de la sierva que está tras la muela; y todo primogénito de las bestias.
Clarke's Bible Commentary - Exodus 11:5
Verse 5. The first-born of Pharaoh, &c.] From the heir to the Egyptian throne to the son of the most abject slave, or the principal person in each family. See the note on "Exodus xii. 29". The maid-servant that is behind the mill] The meanest slaves were employed in this work. In many parts of the east they still grind all their corn with a kind of portable mill- stones, the upper one of which is turned round by a sort of lever fixed in the rim. A drawing of one of these machines as used in China is now before me, and the person who grinds is represented as pushing the lever before him, and thus running round with the stone. Perhaps something like this is intended by the expression BEHIND the mill in the text. On this passage Dr. Shaw has the following observation:-"Most families grind their wheat and barley at home, having two portable mill-stones for that purpose, the uppermost of which is turned round by a small handle of wood or iron that is placed in the rim.
When this stone is large, or expedition required, a second person is called in to assist; and as it is usual for women alone to be concerned in this employment, who seat themselves over against each other with the mill-stone between them, we may see, not only the propriety of the expression (ver. 5) of sitting behind the mill, but the force of another, (Matt. xxiv. 41,) that two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left."-Travels, p. 231, 4to edit. These portable mills, under the name of querns, were used among our ancestors in this and the sister kingdoms, and some of them are in use to the present day. Both the instrument and its name our forefathers seem to have borrowed from the continent. They have long existed among the inhabitants of Shetland, Iceland, Norway, Denmark, &c.
Matthew Henry Commentary
Verses 4-10 - The death of all the first-born in Egypt at once: this plague had bee the first threatened, but is last executed. See how slow God is to wrath. The plague is foretold, the time is fixed; all their first-bor should sleep the sleep of death, not silently, but so as to rouse the families at midnight. The prince was not too high to be reached by it nor the slaves at the mill too low to be noticed. While angels slew the Egyptians, not so much as a dog should bark at any of the children of Israel. It is an earnest of the difference there shall be in the grea day, between God's people and his enemies. Did men know what difference God puts, and will put to eternity, between those that serv him and those that serve him not, religion would not seem to them a indifferent thing; nor would they act in it with so much carelessnes as they do. When Moses had thus delivered his message, he went out from Pharaoh in great anger at his obstinacy; though he was the meekest of the men of the earth. The Scripture has foretold the unbelief of man who hear the gospel, that it might not be a surprise or stumbling-bloc to us, Ro 10:16. Let us never think the worse of the gospel of Chris for the slights men put upon it. Pharaoh was hardened, yet he wa compelled to abate his stern and haughty demands, till the Israelite got full freedom. In like manner the people of God will find that ever struggle against their spiritual adversary, made in the might of Jesu Christ, every attempt to overcome him by the blood of the Lamb, an every desire to attain increasing likeness and love to that Lamb, wil be rewarded by increasing freedom from the enemy of souls __________________________________________________________________
Original Hebrew
ומת 4191 כל 3605 בכור 1060 בארץ 776 מצרים 4714 מבכור 1060 פרעה 6547 הישׁב 3427 על 5921 כסאו 3678 עד 5704 בכור 1060 השׁפחה 8198 אשׁר 834 אחר 310 הרחים 7347 וכל 3605 בכור 1060 בהמה׃ 929
