רֶ֤גַע ׀ יָמֻתוּ֮ וַחֲצ֪וֹת לָ֥יְלָה יְגֹעֲשׁ֣וּ עָ֣ם וְיַעֲבֹ֑רוּ וְיָסִ֥ירוּ אַ֝בִּ֗יר לֹ֣א בְיָֽד׃
Sa isang iglap ay namamatay sila; sa hatinggabi ay nayayanig ang bayan at pumapanaw, at inaalis ang makapangyarihan nang hindi sa kamay ng tao.
Rabbeinu Bahya
In fact, the plague did begin at that moment as G’d does not bother to interfere with laws of nature unless there is a compelling reason. Whenever He can accomplish His purpose by utilizing the existing norms He does so. In this instance He was desirous of utilizing one of His regular servants, i.e. the planet Mars in order to kill His enemies. We find something similar in connection with the deluge. The Talmud Berachot 59 explains that in order to orchestrate the deluge G’d took two stars out of the constellation Pleidas and as a result there developed the deluge. [In other words, G’d used mechanisms existing in nature in order to produce certain hitherto unknown phenomena. Ed.] The plague of the dying of the firstborn would have remained a most powerful plague even if Moses had not changed G’d’s wording seeing that even the scoffers would not have credited Mars with the power to effect more than a few deaths at a time, especially seeing this was not the time of year the influence of this planet was at its height. The demonstration of maybe a million Egyptians dying and all of them being firstborns at that would surely have enhanced G’d’s image rather that diminished it. It would have been demonstrated beyond doubt that such an occurrence could not be credited to horoscopic influences at all.
Nonetheless, all the believers in horoscopic influences are convinced that the majority of children born after a nine-month pregnancy owe their live birth to the influence of the planet Jupiter. This prompted Moses to word G’d’s warning in such a way that if the dying occurred at a time which was governed by the planet Jupiter the phenomenon would appear to contradict accepted concepts even more than if he had announced that it would take place when the planet Mars was the dominating planet in the skies. It would prove once and for all that the power over life and death was firmly rooted in G’d’s domain not in a domain which He had delegated to the planetary system. When we read in Job 34,20: “some die suddenly, in the middle of the night people are in turmoil and pass on,” the expression יגועשו used in the verse in Job is similar in meaning to Psalms 18,8 ותגעש ותרעש הארץ, “then the earth quaked and rocked.” The word ויעבורו “and pass on” in that verse in Job referred to the Israelites to whom Pharaoh had said: “rise and leave my people, etc.” The last words in that same verse in Job: “even great men are removed -not by human hands,” are a reference to the Egyptians who up until that moment had exerted fear upon the Israelites, an emotion which evaporated as if it had never existed without human force accounting for this.
Nonetheless, all the believers in horoscopic influences are convinced that the majority of children born after a nine-month pregnancy owe their live birth to the influence of the planet Jupiter. This prompted Moses to word G’d’s warning in such a way that if the dying occurred at a time which was governed by the planet Jupiter the phenomenon would appear to contradict accepted concepts even more than if he had announced that it would take place when the planet Mars was the dominating planet in the skies. It would prove once and for all that the power over life and death was firmly rooted in G’d’s domain not in a domain which He had delegated to the planetary system. When we read in Job 34,20: “some die suddenly, in the middle of the night people are in turmoil and pass on,” the expression יגועשו used in the verse in Job is similar in meaning to Psalms 18,8 ותגעש ותרעש הארץ, “then the earth quaked and rocked.” The word ויעבורו “and pass on” in that verse in Job referred to the Israelites to whom Pharaoh had said: “rise and leave my people, etc.” The last words in that same verse in Job: “even great men are removed -not by human hands,” are a reference to the Egyptians who up until that moment had exerted fear upon the Israelites, an emotion which evaporated as if it had never existed without human force accounting for this.