18:9. For the just children of good men were offering sacrifice secretly, and they unanimously ordered a law of justice: that the just should receive both good and evil alike, singing now the praises of the fathers.
Of good men. . .Viz., of the patriarchs. Their children, the Israelites, offered in private the sacrifice of the paschal lamb; and were regulating what they were to do in their journey, when that last and most dreadful plague was coming upon their enemies.
18:10. But on the other side there sounded an ill according cry of the enemies, and a lamentable mourning was heard for the children that were bewailed.
18:11. And the servant suffered the same punishment as the master, and a common man suffered in like manner as the king.
18:12. So all alike had innumerable dead, with one kind of death. Neither were the living sufficient to bury them: for in one moment the noblest offspring of them was destroyed.
The noblest offspring. . .That is, the firstborn.
18:13. For whereas they would not believe any thing before by reason of the enchantments, then first upon the destruction of the firstborn, they acknowledged the people to be of God.
18:14. For while all things were in quiet silence, and the night was in the midst of her course,
18:15. Thy Almighty word leaped down from heaven from thy royal throne, as a fierce conqueror into the midst of the land of destruction,
18:16. With a sharp sword carrying thy unfeigned commandment, and he stood and filled all things with death, and standing on the earth, reached even to heaven.