I’m torn two ways on how to respond to this reading:

• on one side, a great opportunity to explain Passover, the great festival that celebrates God as liberator, saviour and enimy of powerful oppressors
• on the other, when I read (the Bible or the News…) I tend to sympathise with those who suffer, and while in earlier chapters that’s the Israelites, here I feel the pain of bereaved Egyptian parents – how can the God who we have discovered so far in Genesis commit such a barbarous act?

There is a fascinating discussion between ardent Christians and a pained unbeliever at The Paraclete Forum. I can “see” both sides of this debate, and won’t have time in this podcast to begin to deal properly with the topic 🙁

PS: See also an interesting response on ?????: The 10th Plague and the Problem of Evil (Jonathan’s posts are alomost always worth mulling over 🙂