NOTES for Exo 10:1-29
A moment comes when even Pharaoh understands: something must be done, or his country will not survive the disasters falling on it one after another. For him this was a very unpleasant moment: he had to agree to what he did not want to agree to at all. His considerations were very different, including strictly political ones: letting a large mass of people go somewhere into the wilderness, where all these people would remain without supervision or control, was risky.
Pharaoh tries to find a way out: he wants to agree with Moses in advance on how many people will go with him and exactly who. Moses, on the contrary, gives Pharaoh no details. He asks that everyone be released, and with the livestock besides, because it is unknown exactly what from the herd God will choose for Himself as a sacrifice. Such an answer put Pharaoh on guard: he immediately supposed that Moses was plotting something bad.
Here, as in a drop of water, is reflected that universal problem, the problem of primordial mutual distrust, which poisons the life of fallen humanity. Looking at others, evaluating their plans, probing their designs, we are always inclined to suppose the worst. Moses really did intend in the end to lead his people out of Egypt; that is true, but he was hardly lying to Pharaoh about his intentions at the moment when he spoke about them.
Judging by how events developed later, one may think that the decision to leave Egypt and not return was made by Moses only when it became clear that Pharaoh would not accept the people in their new spiritual quality, the quality they would acquire after making a union-covenant with God. Had it been otherwise, even after the covenant was made at Sinai, the Hebrews might not have left the country immediately: after all, leaving as unexpectedly as they did, the fugitives turned out to be completely unprepared both for life in the wilderness and for the path after God.
Time was needed for preparation, time that, under other circumstances and with a different attitude from the authorities toward what was happening, could have been spent in Egypt. Pharaoh's position, however, made such a course of events completely impossible. When Pharaoh directly forbade Moses to appear before him again and to return to the question Moses had set before him, the prophet understood: the time for requests was over; now everything would proceed differently, according to another scenario.