There is a famous drash about the timing of the 10th plague, the slaying of the first born. Moshe tells Paroh (Shmos 11:4): Thus says HaShem: כחצות הלילה/at midnight, I shall go out.... Chazal note the change from how the actual event is described (Shmos 12:29): It was בחצי הלילה/at midnight... Both בחצי הלילה and כחצות הלילה mean exactly at midnight. The description of the event uses a phrase that means "at the middle of the night", whereas Moshe's proclamation to Paroh means "when the night is divided" (see Rashi and ArtScroll on both). Nonetheless, since the כ as a prefix can mean "approximately", Chazal tell us that Moshe used that term so that the Egyptians would understand it is "about midnight". Why? Lest Paroh's astrologers/scientists err and get the time wrong by a few seconds and say that Moshe made a mistake.
Cool. However, the Torah tells us (Shmos 12:31) that there was not an Egyptian house without a corpse. So many firstborns? No... see Rashi who explains: (1) The word בכור/firstborn can also sometimes mean oldest or most important. (2) The Egyptian women were not faithful to their relationships, and there could be four or five firstborns in the house, from her pool-boys, gardeners, etc. In fact the Egyptians (Shmos 12:33) rushed the Jews out because they were worried that a lot more than firstborns were dying. What happened to being worried about even a miscalculation of a few seconds?! This seems much worse, no?
No; it's not worse at all. Egypt was a very woke society. I once heard a comedian who had worked as a high school teacher. She said, "This generation will respect your pronouns, but they won't respect you as a person." The Egyptians were not about to let Moshe tell them that they had to believe in his One True G-d. Oh no... You can't tell me what to believe! The problem with the scientific calculations being off by a few seconds was not a matter of not believing that people were going to die. The issue is that they wanted to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Moshe was not speaking for HaShem. They wanted and needed fervently to believe that Moshe was doing magic, or knew something about science that they didn't... anything but actually believe there was a Creator and that He cared what was going on in this world.
The problem with lots of people dying besides the apparent firstborn? Not a problem; they knew their wives and they knew themselves and they knew their society. They certainly knew that their marriage vows were anything but sacred. That's why they didn't know who else might die... no one knew. Actually, the fact that those children that didn't look like them were dying was actually chilling proof that Moshe was speaking for HaShem. So they hustled the Jews out as fast as they could.
Death? Suffering? No problem... That is the human condition. Believe in a Loving Creator who cares deeply about those who love Him? Oh no, no, no....
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