12:30 Pharaoh got up74 in the night,75 along with all his servants and all Egypt, and there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was no house76 in which there was not someone dead.
tnHeb “arose,” the verb קוּם (qum) in this context certainly must describe a less ceremonial act. The entire country woke up in terror because of the deaths.
75
tn The noun is an adverbial accusative of time—“in the night” or “at night.”
76
sn Or so it seemed. One need not push this description to complete literalness. The reference would be limited to houses that actually had firstborn people or animals. In a society in which households might include more than one generation of humans and animals, however, the presence of a firstborn human or animal would be the rule rather than the exception.