After four hundred years of slavery in Egypt, the time had come for God to fulfill His promise to Abraham. The Israelites had grown into a great nation, but they groaned under the harsh oppression of Pharaoh and his taskmasters.

God heard their cries and remembered His covenant. He called Moses from the burning bush and sent him with his brother Aaron to demand freedom for His people.

The Demand for Freedom

Moses and Aaron stood before the mighty Pharaoh in his golden palace. The throne room gleamed with treasures from across the empire, and guards in bronze armor flanked the royal seat.

“Thus says the Lord God of Israel,” Moses declared boldly, his voice echoing through the vast chamber, “‘Let My people go, that they may hold a feast to Me in the wilderness.’”

Pharaoh’s eyes flashed with anger. He leaned forward on his throne, his elaborate headdress catching the light. “Who is the Lord, that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, nor will I let Israel go!”

“The God of the Hebrews has met with us,” Aaron replied firmly. “Please, let us go three days’ journey into the desert and sacrifice to the Lord our God, lest He fall upon us with pestilence or with the sword.”

But Pharaoh’s heart was hard as stone. “Moses and Aaron, why do you take the people from their work? Get back to your labor!” He turned to his overseers with a cruel smile. “You shall no longer give the people straw to make brick as before; let them go and gather straw for themselves. But you shall require of them the same quota of bricks as before.”

The Ten Plagues

When Pharaoh refused to listen, God sent ten terrible plagues upon Egypt. The Nile River turned to blood, frogs swarmed the land, gnats and flies filled the air, and livestock died. Painful boils covered the Egyptians, hail destroyed their crops, locusts devoured what remained, and darkness covered the land for three days.

With each plague, Moses would stand before Pharaoh and declare, “Thus says the Lord: ‘Let My people go!’” And each time, though Pharaoh would seem to relent when the plague was at its worst, his heart would harden again once the suffering passed.

The Final Plague and Passover

Before the tenth and final plague, God gave Moses special instructions for the Israelites. “Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth of this month every man shall take for himself a lamb, according to the house of his fathers, a lamb for a household.”

Moses gathered the elders of Israel in the dim light of evening. Their faces were weathered from years of hard labor, but hope flickered in their eyes.

“Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it in the blood, and strike the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood that is in the basin,” Moses instructed them carefully. “And none of you shall go out of the door of his house until morning. For the Lord will pass through to strike the Egyptians; and when He sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over the door and not allow the destroyer to come into your houses to strike you.”

That night, the angel of death passed through Egypt. In every house where blood was not on the doorposts, the firstborn died - from Pharaoh’s own son to the firstborn of the captive in the dungeon, and even the firstborn of livestock.

The Great Departure

At midnight, a great cry arose in Egypt such as had never been heard before. Pharaoh arose in the night, he and all his servants and all the Egyptians; and there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where there was not one dead.

Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron in the darkness. His voice broke with grief and fear. “Rise, go out from among my people, both you and the children of Israel. And go, serve the Lord as you have said. Also take your flocks and your herds, as you have said, and be gone; and bless me also.”

The Egyptians urged the people to hurry and leave the land quickly. “For,” they said, “we shall all be dead.”

The Israelites took their dough before it was leavened, having their kneading bowls bound up in their clothes on their shoulders. They asked the Egyptians for articles of silver, articles of gold, and clothing. The Lord had given the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so they granted them what they requested.

The Journey Begins

That same night, about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides children, went out of Egypt. They had lived in Egypt four hundred and thirty years, and on this very day, all the armies of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt.

God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near; for God said, “Lest perhaps the people change their minds when they see war, and return to Egypt.” So God led the people around by way of the wilderness of the Red Sea.

Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, for Joseph had placed the children of Israel under solemn oath, saying, “God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from here with you.”

And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so as to go by day and night. The pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night never departed from before the people.

Freedom at Last

As the great multitude moved across the desert, men, women, and children looked back at the land where they had been slaves. Some wept with joy, others with relief, and many with wonder at the mighty power of God who had delivered them.

Old men who had dreamed of this day but never dared believe it would come hobbled along with walking sticks, their eyes bright with tears. Mothers carried babies who would never know the sting of the taskmaster’s whip. Young men who had bent their backs under heavy burdens now stood tall and free.

“Sing to the Lord,” the people began to chant as they walked, “for He has triumphed gloriously! The horse and its rider He has thrown into the sea!”

The Exodus had begun - the greatest deliverance in the history of God’s people. Behind them lay four centuries of bondage; ahead lay the promised land of freedom. And above them, the pillar of cloud by day and fire by night assured them that the God who had brought them out would lead them home.

Though the wilderness journey would test their faith many times, this night they had learned the power of the God who hears the cries of the oppressed and sets the captives free. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had proven Himself to be the God of impossible deliverances, and His people would never forget the night He brought them out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.