The Passover
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Don't forget the part of the story where YHWH literally mind controls the pharoah into not letting people go explicitly to have an excuse to do this. "hardened his heart, and the heart of his servants, that I might shew these my signs before him"
If he wasn't going to give him a choice why bother with the asking bit?
He was just really itching to punish someone, but his own people were already in some pretty hard times…