Seeing, then, that Ra was immanent, pervasive, and the principle back of all deities, he was the chief object of Jehovah’s enmity, and the real subject of the contest and conflict. In all the other plagues the _parts_ of Ra were defeated, and now at last the two ideas are locked in the final struggle. It was preposterous to the Egyptians that any god or power could be superior to Ra, as the sun is the source and seat of all power. But the plague of darkness left him shorn of power and greatness, and prostrated him before the feet of _Jehovah_ forever. Three theophanies had Ra, and God desecrated every one of them! Ra appeared in the form of the sun: so that was blotted out of the sky for three days. Sometimes he walked the earth in the form of the first-born of a cow, if that first-born was a bull. So the first-born of all the cattle died, and Ra was covered with shame. Occasionally he was supposed to visit men in the form of a ram. The first-born were all sacred to him and dedicated to him from birth: yet when all the first-born of Egypt died, the babes of Israel, with their cattle and flocks were all safe, because they were under the shed blood of what was Ra’s chief theophany, next to the sun! The application of the blood to the lintel and the doorpost was an act of blasphemy against Ra, yet in that very defiance the Hebrews were acknowledging at last that _Jehovah_ should be their God forever, in that He had proved His power. [Illustration: Amon-Ra] The Tenth Plague intrudes into the sphere of the ninth. The death of the first-born was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back, as far as the Egyptian resistance to Jehovah was concerned. This is still aimed primarily at Ra, although there were notable deities other than he that suffered defeat in this last and awful skirmish. When the Children of Israel left Egypt, bribed to depart by a people who were prostrated with grief, the mourning Egyptians pressed upon them the cattle and the flocks, the gold and the jewels requested. Anything to get rid of the devotees of the awful Being who left every home in Egypt bowed in sorrow, and who had slain, as well, every particle of faith the people had in the once-powerful gods of the land of captivity!