Exodus 10:8
And Moses and Aaron were brought again unto Pharaoh: and he said unto them, Go, serve the LORD your God: but who are they that shall go? And Moses and Aaron were brought again unto Pharaoh: and he said unto them, Go, serve the LORD your God: but who are they that shall go?
Before this verse Pharaoh's servants, who were his rulers and counselors under him, urged him to let Israel go because Egypt was destroyed. Their cattle were dead, and lightning and hail mingled with fire had nearly ruined the land, broken down forests, destroyed fruit and nearly all grain, left everything in ruin, and caused the loss of all that had been gained through Hebrew labor. In this verse Pharaoh had Moses and Aaron brought back to him and told them to go serve the Lord their God, while asking who would go. The offer and question showed contempt for God's command, giving only the appearance of permitting worship while intending a limited release rather than letting the people go as a whole.
The limitation was that only the men might go to serve God, while the little ones, wives, families and the rest of Israel must stay behind. He pretended a special interest in their welfare and tender care for their little ones, treating the children as not needed and the wilderness journey as too dangerous an expedition for wives and little children, though he had oppressed Israel with hard labor to destroy them. He openly declared that God's requirement to take their families into the wilderness should not be obeyed, because God meant only to lead them out to destroy them so their bodies would lie in the wilderness. He intended to keep the families behind as a pledge that the men would return.
He yielded only a little under grievous affliction and only as far as dreadful judgment compelled him, making only reluctant, temporary concessions. He acted as a proud and idolatrous king, very slow to meet the requirements of the God of heaven, persisting in rebellion even after Egypt was ruined. This offer for the men alone was the second step in that sequence: he first allowed sacrifice to God inside the land of Egypt, then allowed the men alone to go, then after Egypt had been nearly destroyed by the plague of the locusts allowed children and wives to go also but still would not let the cattle go. This verse belongs to the account of the plagues that challenged Pharaoh's resistance to Israel's release, which were designed to expose the powerlessness of Egypt's idols, show Jehovah's supremacy, and insist on Israel's deliverance.