The tool that saved Israel was the humblest plant in the garden. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 12:22 says that each household took a bunch of hyssop, dipped it in the lamb's blood in an earthen vessel, and brushed the blood onto the upper bar of the door and the two side posts. Then no one was to cross the threshold until morning.
Hyssop is a low, wild shrub. It grows in cracks of walls and on stony hillsides. The rabbis noted the humility of the choice: no cedar, no myrrh, no gold. A scrubby weed that anyone could pick. The Midrash reads this as a statement about who gets saved. Not the grand. Not the well-equipped. The low and the ordinary mark their doors with the lowest plant on the hill, and that plant is what the Lord sees.
The vessel holding the blood is earthen — cheres, clay. Another humble material. Not silver, not bronze. Clay shatters easily and absorbs the blood it holds. The whole ritual is conducted with objects that speak of fragility and nearness to the earth. Israel does not save itself by claiming cosmic power. Israel saves itself by marking the door with a weed dipped in clay.
The final instruction — no one leaves the house until morning — is also telling. The plague is moving through the streets, and the only safe place is inside the marked room. The rabbis read this as a meditation on faith in close quarters. When judgment passes, the wise stay put.
Takeaway: Salvation came through hyssop and clay. The weapons of deliverance were the least impressive objects available.