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Originally there was "no difference" between the Egyptians and Israel; both were descended from one source, both were tainted with sin. So too, originally, there was no difference between the Church and the world. St. Paul enforces this

(1)  as between Jew and Gentile (Romans 10:12);

(2)  as between individual members of the human family (Romans 3:22). Consider —

I. THE NATURE OF THE DIFFERENCE. There can be no doubt but there was a difference — that the Lord "put" one — between the Egyptians and Israel, and "that the Lord doth put" one between the world and the Church. What is this difference? God's choice. He chose Israel, He did not choose the Egyptians; He has chosen the Church, He has not chosen the world. Herein lies the "difference"; and because it is not a visible or even, in itself, a demonstrable one, the world now, as the Egyptians then, decline to believe in it, and a sign becomes in some sense necessary.

II. THE REASON FOR THE DIFFERENCE. Not merit on Israel's part, or sin on Egypt's part; but —

1. God's love for Israel's fathers (Deuteronomy 4:37).

2. God's oath (based upon God's love) to Israel's fathers (Deuteronomy 7:7, 8). So the Church was chosen because God loved her; though why God loved her, or how He loved her, in a certain sense we cannot tell.

III. THE SIGN OF THE DIFFERENCE. As said above, Pharaoh declined to believe in the difference, or, whilst tacitly acknowledging it, refused to act in accordance with it. A sign was given, in order that he might "know how that the Lord doth put a difference between the Egyptians and Israel." That sign consisted in the triumphant exodus of Israel without casualty of any kind, as contrasted with the family distress and national disaster which were about to happen to the Egyptians. Observe that the deliverance was a sign of the difference, not the difference itself. So salvation, in the ordinary but very partial sense of deliverance from future punishment, will be but a "sign" and a consequence of the choice which God has already made, of the "difference" which the Lord has already "put"; a choice and a "difference" about the existence of which the world is sceptical, but the reality of which all will be forced to acknowledge when the sign is given.

(E. Armstrong Hall, M. A.)

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KJV: And Moses said, Thus saith the LORD, About midnight will I go out into the midst of Egypt:

WEB: Moses said, "This is what Yahweh says: 'About midnight I will go out into the midst of Egypt,