34). What
has led to it is evidently the coincidence of the spring festival
with the exodus, already accepted by the older tradition, the
relation of cause and effect having become inverted in course of
time. The only view sanctioned by the nature of the case is that
the Israelite custom of offering the firstlings gave rise to the
narrative of the slaying of the first-born of Egypt; unless the
custom be pre-supposed the story is inexplicable, and the peculiar
selection of its victims by the plague is left without a motive.
The sacrifice of the first-born, of the male first-born, that is to
say--for the females were reared as with us--does not require an
historical explanation, but can be accounted for very simply: it
is the expression of thankfulness to the Deity for fruitful flocks
and herds. If claim is also laid to the human first-born, this is
merely a later generalisation which after all resolves itself
merely into a substitution of an animal offering and an extension
of the original sacrifice. In Exodus xx. 28, 29 and xxxiv. 19
this consequence does not yet seem to be deduced or even to be
suspected as possible; it first appears in xxxiv.
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