The Egyptians Urged Israel Out Crying We Are All Dead Men

"And the Egyptians pressed hard upon the people" (Exodus 12:33) — teaching that [the strength] fell to them. And it appeared so to Pharaoh, and they would leave their dead and their slain and bury them in the corners and in wagons. "To hasten to send them out of the land" — and not to the land of Canaan; so it says, "A three days' journey we will go into the wilderness" (Exodus 5:3). "For they said: We are all dead men" (Exodus 12:33). They said: Moses told us that firstborn die, yet we see both firstborn and those who are not firstborn [dying], and they did not know that they were all steeped in licentiousness: one man came upon ten women and they bore him ten sons, so that all of them were firstborn of their mothers; ten men came upon one woman and ten sons were born to them, so that all of them were firstborn of their fathers. Therefore they said, "We are all dead men."