PLUNDER!

 Six-hundred-fifty years before the Exodus, God made a promise to Abraham. “Know this for certain: Your offspring will be resident aliens for four hundred years in a land that does not belong to them and will be enslaved and oppressed. However, I will judge the nation they serve, and afterward they will go out with many possessions” (Genesis 15:13–14).

God, the Great Promise-Keeper, kept His promise! After four-hundred years of slavery, God set them free. But, they were poverty-stricken slaves. Did they leave Egypt with “many possessions”?

Yep!

The tenth plague came, just as Moses had predicted. “At midnight the Lord struck every firstborn male in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the prisoner who was in the dungeon, and every firstborn of the livestock. During the night Pharaoh got up, he along with all his officials and all the Egyptians, and there was a loud wailing throughout Egypt because there wasn’t a house without someone dead” (Exodus 12:29–30).

Moses gave instructions to the Hebrews “that both men and women should ask their (Egyptian) neighbors for silver and gold items” (Exodus 11:2).

As grief gripped the hearts of the Egyptians, they “pressured the (Hebrews) in order to send them quickly out of the country, for they said, ‘We’re all going to die!’ ” (Exodus 12:33).

As the Egyptians urged the Hebrews to go away, “the Lord gave the people such favor with the Egyptians that they gave them what they requested. In this way they plundered the Egyptians” (Exodus 12:35–36). The Egyptian families quickly emptied their jewelry cases and their lockboxes of all their valuables. “Take it all! Now leave before we all die at the hands of your vengeful God! Go!”

God fulfilled His promise. Egypt’s great wealth was carried away in the pockets of the Hebrew slaves!

“… think on these things” (Philippians 4:8, KJV).