The LORD said to Moses, "Yet one plague more I will bring upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt. Afterward he will let you go from here. When he lets you go, he will drive you away completely. Speak now in the hearing of the people, that they ask, every man of his neighbor and every woman of her neighbor, for silver and gold jewelry." And the LORD gave the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians. Moreover, the man Moses was very great in the land of Egypt, in the sight of Pharaoh's servants and in the sight of the people. So Moses said, "Thus says the LORD: 'About midnight I will go out in the midst of Egypt, and every firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his throne, even to the firstborn of the slave girl who is behind the handmill, and all the firstborn of the cattle. There shall be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as there has never been, nor ever will be again. But not a dog shall growl against any of the people of Israel, either man or beast, that you may know that the LORD makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel.' And all these your servants shall come down to me and bow down to me, saying, 'Get out, you and all the people who follow you.' And after that I will go out." And he went out from Pharaoh in hot anger. Then the LORD said to Moses, "Pharaoh will not listen to you, that my wonders may be multiplied in the land of Egypt." Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh, and the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he did not let the people of Israel go out of his land.
Exodus 11:1-10
The time has now come for Israel to be delivered from their bondage in Egypt. Pharaoh’s time is up, and the judgment announced in this chapter no longer has the intent of changing his attitude towards Israel; it is penal in its design, and is the bitter fruit of his long resistance against the will of God. But in the divine economy, what was his judgment was also to be Israel's deliverance; the stroke that devastated Pharaoh and Egypt set free the children of Israel into a glorious liberty. To read 2 as the AV renders it raises a problem about the ethical worthiness of such an action on Israel's part when they knew they would never repay what they had borrowed. But the RSV substitutes 'ask' for 'borrow', and this puts an entirely different construction upon the matter. We are told in 3 that the Lord gave the people favour in the sight of the Egyptians. This may mean that in view of all the sufferings of Israel under their harsh bondage there had arisen some measure of sympathy for them, which doubtless would have been heightened by the display of superior power by Israel's God in the series of miracles they had witnessed in the land. It was this, it seems, that moved the Egyptians to give of their gold and silver to the children of Israel when they asked. There is a certain irony - and it is in keeping with the general emphasis on the sovereignty of God throughout the story (cf 2:9) - in the fact that the Egyptians are constrained by God to subsidise the Israelites' journey into freedom. God certainly does not do things by halves!