"And it was in the middle of the night" (Exodus 12:29). The tenth plague — the slaying of the firstborn — struck at midnight. But the Mekhilta, the tannaitic midrash on Exodus, raises a question that sounds almost scientific: how can anyone know the exact middle of the night?
The problem begins with Moses himself. Earlier, Moses told Pharaoh: "Thus said the Lord: When the night is divided, I shall go out into the midst of Egypt" (Exodus 11:4). Moses promised the plague would strike at precisely midnight. But is it possible for a human being — even Moses — to determine the exact midpoint of the night? Clocks did not exist. The hours between sunset and sunrise shifted with the seasons.
The Mekhilta concludes: "Its Creator divided it." Only God, who made the night, could split it in half with perfect precision. No human could identify the exact moment. Moses announced it, but God executed it. The One who created time was the only One capable of bisecting it.
This interpretation carries theological weight far beyond astronomy. The plague of the firstborn was not a natural disaster that happened to occur around midnight. It arrived at the mathematically precise center of the night because God — the architect of time itself — chose that exact instant. The Mekhilta insists that the timing was as supernatural as the plague. Only the Creator of darkness could carve it in two.