Wasn't the death of Egypt's firstborn a punishment of innocent children?

🔥The question: “Pharaoh was the one who did wrong, so why did the children of other households have to die?”

🛡️The Church's answer: The text describes the death of the firstborn not merely as collateral damage from Pharaoh's stubbornness but as God's judgment. So saying “Pharaoh was wicked” does not by itself make the death of innocent families fair, and we must not claim that we can fully explain why children had to die. Exodus testifies to a judgment on an empire that killed Hebrew infants and held slaves, and to the liberation of the oppressed, but it does not turn the victims' deaths into a good thing. The Church reads this difficult ancient judgment text not as a victory won by killing children but within the Paschal mystery of Jesus, who bore violence in his own body and opened life out of death.

🧐If they press further: “So are we supposed to say only that this scene was right?” — No. You can see that the text speaks of the gravity of oppression and of liberation, and still lament the suffering of the victims. No believer gains from this episode a right to punish an enemy's family.

✨In one sentence: “The tenth plague speaks of a severe judgment on a slave empire, but it does not make a child's death light or permit revenge today. The complete answer is revealed in Christ, who took violence upon himself.”