Exodus 12:30
And Pharao arose in the night, and all his servants, and all Egypt: for there was not a house wherein there lay not one dead.
Open Exodus 12:30 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Surrexitque Pharao nocte, et omnes servi ejus, cunctaque Ægyptus : et ortus est clamor magnus in Ægypto : neque enim erat domus in qua non jaceret mortuus.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- καὶ ἀναστὰς Φαραὼ νυκτὸς καὶ οἱ θεράποντες αὐτοῦ καὶ πάντες οἱ Αἰγύπτιοι, καὶ ἐγενήθη κραυγὴ μεγάλη ἐν πάσῃ γῇ Αἰγύπτῳ· οὐ γὰρ ἦν οἰκία ἐν ᾗ οὐκ ἦν ἐν αὐτῇ τεθνηκώς.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וַיָּ֨קָם פַּרְעֹ֜ה לַ֗יְלָה ה֤וּא וְכָל עֲבָדָיו֙ וְכָל מִצְרַ֔יִם וַתְּהִ֛י צְעָקָ֥ה גְדֹלָ֖ה בְּמִצְרָ֑יִם כִּֽי אֵ֣ין בַּ֔יִת אֲשֶׁ֥ר אֵֽין שָׁ֖ם מֵֽת
Haydock's commentary
Pharao, who it seems was not the eldest son. Where the first-born of a family had a son, both were consigned to destruction. (Menochius)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Dionysius of Alexandria Extant Fragments, Epistle XII
1. To other men, indeed, the present state of matters would not appear to offer a fit season for a festival: and this certainly is no festal time to them; nor, in sooth, is any other that to them. And I say this, not only of occasions manifestly sorrowful, but even or all occasions whatsoever which people might consider to be most joyous. And now certainly all things are turned to mourning, and all men are in grief, and lamentations resound through the city, by reason of the multitude of the dead and of those who are dying day by day. For as it is written in the case of the first-born of the Egyptians, so now too a great cry has arisen. “For there is not a house in which there is not one dead.” And would that even this were all!
Eusebius The Church History of Eusebius, The Pestilence which came upon them
3. For as it was written of the firstborn of the Egyptians, so now ‘there has arisen a great cry, for there is not a house where there is not one dead.’ And would that this were all!
Theodoret The Ecclesiastical History of Theodoret, Narrative of events at Alexandria in the time of Lucius the Arian, taken from a letter of Petrus, Bishop of Alexandria
I am writing what is incredible, inhuman, awful, savage, barbarous, pitiless, cruel. But in all this the votaries of the Arian madness pranced, as it were, with proud exultation, while the whole city was lamenting; for, as it is written in Exodus, “there was not a house in which there was not one dead.”
St Jerome The Letters of St. Jerome, To Oceanus
1. I never supposed, son Oceanus, that the clemency of the Emperor would be assailed by criminals, or that persons just released from prison would after their own experience of its filth and fetters complain of relaxations allowed to others. In the gospel he who envies another’s salvation is thus addressed: “Friend, is thine eye evil because I am good?” “God hath concluded them all in sin that he might have mercy upon all.” “When sin abounded grace did much more abound.” The first born of Egypt are slain and not even a beast belonging to Israel is left behind in Egypt. The heresy of the Cainites rises before me and the once slain viper lifts up its shattered head, destroying not partially as most often hitherto but altogether the mystery of Christ. …