Exodus 10:24–29

Exodus 10:24 — The Final Compromise Offer Pharaoh's fourth and last negotiating concession is also his most generous — and most revealing. He drops his earlier demand that only adults go (10:11) and now permits children to accompany the Israelites. Yet he insists that the "flocks and herds" remain in Egypt. This is not merely an economic demand; livestock in the ancient Near East represented wealth, identity, and cultic capacity. Without animals, Israel cannot sacrifice. Pharaoh is, in effect, offering the appearance of freedom while retaining the substance of control. He will let the people worship — but on his terms, with his hostages.

Exodus 10:25 — Moses Demands Total Release Moses' response is startling in its boldness: not only must Israel's animals go, but Pharaoh must actively supply sacrificial animals from his own herds ("You must also give into our hand sacrifices"). The Hebrew here (וְגַם־אַתָּה תִּתֵּן, wĕgam-'attāh tittēn) is emphatic — "you yourself must give." Moses is not merely refusing Pharaoh's terms; he is inverting the power dynamic entirely. The oppressor is being asked to fund the worship of the God who is breaking his power.

Exodus 10:26 — Not a Hoof Shall Be Left Behind This verse contains one of Scripture's most memorable declarations: לֹא תִשָּׁאֵר פַּרְסָה ("not a hoof shall be left"). The totality of the phrase is deliberate and theological. Moses gives two reasons: first, Israel needs animals to sacrifice; second, and more profoundly, Israel does not yet know what God will require. This is a statement of radical obedience — one cannot pre-negotiate with God about how much to give. The worshiper must come with everything, ready to offer whatever the Lord designates. The unknown nature of the worship requirement is not ignorance; it is the posture of total availability. This directly anticipates the later Mosaic legislation, where specific offerings for specific occasions would be revealed only at Sinai.

Exodus 10:27 — The Hardening of Pharaoh's Heart The narrator once again attributes the hardening to God (cf. 4:21; 7:3; 9:12; 10:1, 20). Catholic exegesis, following Augustine and Aquinas, understands this not as God arbitrarily causing evil but as God's permissive will: God withdraws the softening grace that might have moved Pharaoh toward repentance, allowing the king's own entrenched pride to harden into its definitive form. The hardening is judicial — a consequence of repeated, free refusals. Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 79, a. 3) explains that God hardens by not giving the grace of repentance, not by directly infusing malice.

Exodus 10:28 — The Death Threat and Expulsion Pharaoh's command — "See my face no more, or you shall die" — is an act of royal self-destruction. In Egyptian court culture, to be expelled from the royal presence was a form of civil death. Ironically, Pharaoh, who has the power of life and death over slaves, cannot silence the word of God. His threat echoes backward to the infanticide decree of Exodus 1 and forward to his own undoing at the sea. The king who killed Israel's sons will lose his own.

Exodus 10:29 — Moses' Sovereign Response Moses' reply — "You have spoken well. I will see your face no more" — is not submission but dignified agreement on his own terms. The Hebrew כֵּן דִּבַּרְתָּ ("you have spoken rightly/well") is a formal acknowledgment, almost judicial in tone. Moses does not flee; he departs. The rupture is complete, and Moses accepts it without fear. The man once slow of speech (4:10) now speaks with the authority of the God who sent him. Origen (Homilies on Exodus, VIII) sees in Moses here a figure of Christ, who, having delivered the divine ultimatum to the powers of this world, departs in sovereign freedom — not defeated, but fulfilling the plan of God.

Catholic tradition finds in this passage a rich theology of worship, totality of gift, and the mystery of divine hardening.

On total consecration: Moses' insistence that "not a hoof shall be left behind" resonates with the Church's consistent teaching that Christian worship cannot be partial. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that the virtue of religion, which belongs to justice, requires giving God what is wholly His due (CCC 2095–2096). St. Augustine writes in the City of God (X.6) that the true sacrifice is the total offering of the self to God — echoed in Moses' refusal to pre-determine what can be withheld. The Council of Trent similarly insisted that the Eucharistic sacrifice is a totum — a complete and unbloody renewal of the one sacrifice of Christ, holding nothing back.

On the hardening: The Catechism addresses the mystery of predestination and divine permission carefully (CCC 311–312, 1994). God neither desires nor causes sin, but permits it within the ordering of a greater good. The Church Fathers — notably Origen, John Chrysostom (Homilies on Exodus), and Augustine (Ad Simplicianum, I.2) — debated this intensely. Augustine's mature position, that hardening is God's just withdrawal of mercy from one who has repeatedly spurned it, became normative in Western theology and was affirmed by the Council of Orange (529 AD) against semi-Pelagianism.

On rupture as liberation: The expulsion of Moses from Pharaoh's court is, theologically, the moment Egypt releases its hold on Israel. Pope Benedict XVI (Verbum Domini, 42) notes that the Exodus narrative is paradigmatic for understanding how God's word creates a decisive break with the structures of enslavement — a break that must be total before the new covenant can be formed.

Pharaoh's strategy throughout the plague negotiations is the strategy of every power that fears total surrender to God: concede the visible while retaining the essential. He will let Israel go — but keep the livestock. He will permit religion — but only a managed, defanged version that leaves the worshiper dependent on his goodwill. Contemporary Catholics face the same pressure: a culture that accommodates a privatized, domesticated faith while demanding that the "livestock" — time, money, moral convictions, the formation of children — remain subject to other masters.

Moses' "not a hoof left behind" is a call to examine what we are unconsciously leaving in Egypt. Is it Sunday morning, given freely to God, but the rest of the week withheld? Is it financial generosity, offered in principle but hedged in practice? Is it the education of children, surrendered to secular formation while faith remains a weekend gesture?

The practical application is an examination of conscience modeled on Moses' logic: I cannot know in advance what God will require, therefore I must come with everything. The saint who embodies this most sharply is St. Ignatius of Loyola, whose Suscipe prayer — "Take, Lord, receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, my entire will" — is the New Covenant echo of Moses standing before Pharaoh: not a hoof left behind.