And Moses said, Thus saith the LORD, About midnight will I go out into the midst of Egypt:
Thus saith the Lord, About midnight - i:e., not midnight of that day, but of the day referred to in the divine communication. Here is recorded the announcement of the last plague made in the most solemn manner to the king, on whose hardened heart all his painful experience had hitherto produced no softening, at least no permanently good effect.
Will I go out - language used after the manner of men. But it is designed to intimate that, in the execution of this dreadful judgment which yet impended over Egypt, God would, as it were, throw aside the veil of nature, and with his unbared arm directly inflict the fatal blow. The preceding plagues had been brought on through the instrumentality of Moses and by the wave of his rod. This last plague, which was to strike a decisive blow, was not to be inflicted through human agency, or by the employment of material means, but to proceed directly from the judicial hand of God.