Exodus 12:32

Also take your flocks and your herds, as ye have said, and be gone; and bless me also.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(32) And bless me also.—Here Pharaoh’s humiliation reaches its extreme point. He is reduced by the terrible calamity of the last plague not only to grant all the demands made of him freely, and without restriction, but to crave the favour of a blessing from those whom he had despised, rebuked (Exodus 5:4), thwarted, and finally driven from his presence under the threat of death (Exodus 10:28). Those with whom were the issues of life and death must, he felt, have the power to bless or curse effectually.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

12:29-36 The Egyptians had been for three days and nights kept in anxiety and horror by the darkness; now their rest is broken by a far more terrible calamity. The plague struck their first-born, the joy and hope of their families. They had slain the Hebrews' children, now God slew theirs. It reached from the throne to the dungeon: prince and peasant stand upon the same level before God's judgments. The destroying angel entered every dwelling unmarked with blood, as the messenger of woe. He did his dreadful errand, leaving not a house in which there was not one dead. Imagine then the cry that rang through the land of Egypt, the long, loud shriek of agony that burst from every dwelling. It will be thus in that dreadful hour when the Son of man shall visit sinners with the last judgment. God's sons, his first-born, were now released. Men had better come to God's terms at first, for he will never come to theirs. Now Pharaoh's pride is abased, and he yields. God's word will stand; we get nothing by disputing, or delaying to submit. In this terror the Egyptians would purchase the favour and the speedy departure of Israel. Thus the Lord took care that their hard-earned wages should be paid, and the people provided for their journey.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Bless me also - No words could show more strikingly the complete, though temporary, submission of Pharaoh.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

32. also take your flocks, &c.—All the terms the king had formerly insisted on were now departed from; his pride had been effectually humbled. Appalling judgments in such rapid succession showed plainly that the hand of God was against him. His own family bereavement had so crushed him to the earth that he not only showed impatience to rid his kingdom of such formidable neighbors, but even begged an interest in their prayers.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse. Pray to God for me, that I may not perish by this or any other plague.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Also take your flocks and your herds, as ye have said,.... Which they had insisted upon should go with them, but he had refused, but now he is willing they should go with them:

and be gone; out of his city and country in all haste:

and bless me also; or pray for me, as the Targum of Onkelos; pray the Lord to bestow a blessing upon me also, as I have done well by you in suffering you to depart with your whole families, flocks, and herds. The Targum of Jonathan is,"I desire nothing else of you, only pray for me, that I die not;''and so Jarchi. As he found his firstborn, and the heir to his crown and kingdom, was dead, he might justly fear it would be his case next, and perhaps very soon; and therefore desires their prayers for him, that his life might be spared.

Geneva Study Bible

Also take your flocks and your herds, as ye have said, and be gone; and {p} bless me also.

(p) Pray for me.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

32. as ye have said] See Exodus 10:9; Exodus 10:26 (J).

and bless me also] viz. at the festival which you are about to hold: include me as well as yourselves in the blessings which you will then invoke.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 32. - Also take your flocks and your herds. Pharaoh thus retracted the prohibition of Exodus 10:24, and "gave the sacrifices and burnt-offerings" which Moses had required (ib. ver. 25). Bless me also. Pharaoh was probably accustomed to receive blessings from his own priests, and had thus been led to value them. His desire for a blessing from Moses and Aaron, ere they departed, probably sprang from a conviction - based on the miracles which he had witnessed - that their intercession would avail more with God than that of his own hierarchy. Exodus 12:32

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The very same night Pharaoh sent for Moses and Aaron, and gave them permission to depart with their people, their children, and their cattle. The statement that Pharaoh sent for Moses and Aaron is not at variance with Exodus 10:28-29; and there is no necessity to resort to Calvin's explanation, "Pharaoh himself is said to have sent for those whom he urged to depart through the medium of messengers from the palace." The command never to appear in his sight again did not preclude his sending for them under totally different circumstances. The permission to depart was given unconditionally, i.e., without involving an obligation to return. This is evident from the words, "Get you forth from among my people," compared with Exodus 10:8, Exodus 10:24, "Go ye, serve Jehovah," and Exodus 8:25, "Go ye, sacrifice to your God in the land." If in addition to this we bear in mind, that although at first, and even after the fourth plague (Exodus 8:27), Moses only asked for a three days' journey to hold a festival, yet Pharaoh suspected that they would depart altogether, and even gave utterance to this suspicion, without being contradicted by Moses (Exodus 8:28, and Exodus 10:10); the words "Get you forth from among my people" cannot mean anything else than "depart altogether." Moreover, in Exodus 11:1 it was foretold to Moses that the result of the last blow would be, that Pharaoh would let them go, or rather drive them away; so that the effect of this blow, as here described, cannot be understood in any other way. And this is really implied in Pharaoh's last words, "Go, and bless me also;" whereas on former occasions he had only asked them to intercede for the removal of the plagues (Exodus 8:8, Exodus 8:28; Exodus 9:28; Exodus 10:17). בּרך, to bless, indicates a final leave-taking, and was equivalent to a request that on their departure they would secure or leave behind the blessing of their God, in order that henceforth no such plague might ever befall him and his people. This view of the words of the king is not at variance either with the expression "as ye have said" in Exodus 12:31, which refers to the words "serve the Lord," or with the same words in Exodus 12:32, for there they refer to the flock and herds, or lastly, with the circumstance that Pharaoh pursued the Israelites after they had gone, with the evident intention of bringing them back by force (Exodus 14:5.), because this resolution is expressly described as a change of mind consequent upon renewed hardening (Exodus 14:4-5).