Before the seventh plague falls, the Lord gives an instruction that reveals His character. "Now send, gather together thy flocks, and all that thou hast in the field," the warning runs (Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 9:19). "Upon all men and cattle that are found in the field, and not gathered together within the house, will the hail come down, and they will die."
The Aramaic paraphrase, preserved in the Targum attributed to Yonatan ben Uzziel, notes that this warning goes out through Moses to Pharaoh — but it applies to every Egyptian, not only the king. Any servant, any farmer, any stable-boy who heeded the word of a God he had never served could save his animals and his own life.
And the next verse, as the plain text tells it, records that some did. The God-fearing among Pharaoh's servants brought their cattle inside. Those who mocked left their livestock in the fields.
The Maggid teaches: even in judgment, the Holy One leaves a door open. The Exodus is not a story of collective punishment. It is a story of individual choices made in the shadow of a giant warning. Every Egyptian had the same information. Each household decided what to believe.
That is the hinge on which mercy turns even in the middle of wrath.