Recall what the book of Exodus recounts concerning the death of the firstborn, when God “at midnight struck every firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on the throne, to the firstborn of the prisoner in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the beasts.” At that point they did not feign to want to allow the Israelites to leave, as they had before, but openly asked the people of God to leave Egypt quickly, saying, “We are all going to die.”
Source: ON ECCLESIASTICUS