Pharaoh has successfully completed a degree at the great school of the power of God. He has been taught that God is going to win. He refused to believe it, even after the punishing hail of the seventh plague, even after the soul-crushing darkness of the ninth plague. But now that he has seen his own son lying dead, he believes it. Pharaoh learned a lesson in the tenth plague. He learned that Yahweh God is the source of life and death, blessing and cursing. And though he has acted like a man in love with death and cursing throughout the 9 plagues, here, at the bitter end, he has the gumption to ask for blessing after all. Even Pharaoh wanted blessing. That was his motivation. Can he be blessed without repentance and submission? No. He could have been blessed by hiding under the lamb's blood in his own house. But to do that would have required him to admit that Yahweh was right and that his own son's life was forfeit. He wouldn't do that. He wouldn't walk that path of blessing. Yet he still wants the blessing enough to ask for it. Brothers and sisters, don't let that be you.