For I will pass through, etc. God now proceeds to give the reason for the institution of the new ceremony, and to explain the new term pesach. "I have commanded this rite," He says, "because I am about to go through the whole land of Egypt as a destroyer, executing judgment; I am about to smite and kill every one of the firstborn both of man and beast.
I shall enter into every house, and slay the first-born in it, unless I see upon the house the token of the blood of the lamb. In that ease I shall pass over the house, and you will escape the plague."
It would clear the sense if the opening words of Exodus 12:12 were translated—"For I shall go through," instead of "pass through." The word translated "pass through" has no connection at all with that rendered "pass over."
Against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment. These words are exegetical of the word "beast," which immediately precedes. Animal worship was an important part of the religion of the Egyptians.
At four great cities, Memphis, Heliopolis, Hermonthis, a sort of suburb of Thebes, and Momemphis in the Western Delta, animals were maintained, which were viewed as actual incarnations of deity—the Apis Bull at Memphis, a bull called Mnevis at Heliopolis, one termed Bacis or Pacts at Hermonthis, and at Momemphis a White Cow.
If any of these were at the time animals that had "opened the womb," death must have fallen upon them. Thus would judgment have been executed, literally, upon Egyptian "gods." But, besides these, the whole country was filled with sacred animals, regarded as emblematic of certain particular deities, and as belonging to them.
Sheep were sacred to Kneph, goats to Khem, cows to Athor, cats to Pasht, dogs and jackals to Anubis, lions to Horus, crocodiles to Set and Sabak, hippopotami to Taouris, cynocephalous apes to Thoth, frogs to Heka.
A sudden mortality among the sacred animals would be felt by the Egyptians as a blow struck against the gods to whom they belonged, and as a judgment upon them. It is scarcely necessary to understand literally the expression "all the gods," and to defend it by the assertion that "not a single deity of Egypt but was represented by some beast."
Such an assertion cannot be proved; and is probably not correct. It has often been remarked, and is generally allowed, that Scripture uses universal expressions, where most, or even many, of a class are meant.
I am the Lord. Rather as in Exodus 6:8, "Against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment, I, Jehovah."