8 And Moses and Aaron were brought again unto Pharaoh: and he said unto them, Go, serve the Lord your God: but who are they that shall go?

9 And Moses said, We will go with our young and with our old, with our sons and with our daughters, with our flocks and with our herds will we go; for we must hold a feast unto the Lord.

10 And he said unto them, Let the Lord be so with you, as I will let you go, and your little ones: look to it; for evil is before you.

11 Not so: go now ye that are men, and serve the Lord; for that ye did desire. And they were driven out from Pharaoh’s presence.

I mentioned yesterday how Pharaoh’s question “…but who are they that shall go?” sounded to me like he felt a need to deny the Israelites something. Perhaps he couldn’t let them get away with everything that they wanted. Perhaps he had to find some lingering piece that he could hold onto to maintain his sense of pride and control.

And so when Moses responded that all of them would go: the young and the old, the sons and the daughters, even the flocks and the herds, Pharaoh might have felt compelled to limit that somehow. “Not so: go now ye that are men,” he told them, reducing it to the smallest demographic possible. None of the women, none of the children, none of the livestock, only the men. And then there was no further discussion. Moses and Aaron ware promptly “driven out from Pharaoh’s presence.”

Of course, Pharaoh might have seen this restriction as necessary to make sure that the slaves wouldn’t try to escape into the wilderness. Which, of course, was exactly what they planned to do, and what Pharaoh would ultimately have to submit to if he wanted the curses to end.

Pharaoh’s servants had pleaded with him to comply with the Israelites so that they could have relief from the plagues. Pharaoh had made an initial show of submitting to God, but couldn’t fully surrender himself in the end. He was still trying to restrict and control. I have to assume that he knew exactly what would follow: the Lord would refuse Pharaoh’s terms and send the promised plague. Pharaoh may not have wanted to fight, but he wasn’t ready to surrender, so he had to be broken even further.