Tag: ten plagues

So They Will Know

Exodus 7-9

Moses does not believe that he can speak adequately, so what does God say? He does not tell Moses, “I am sorry. I picked the wrong man.” No. Instead He says, “I picked you for a reason. If you can not speak, then delegate that duty to Aaron.” God still says that He is going to speak through Moses, not Aaron. Once Aaron has received the words from Moses, then Aaron can speak them to Pharaoh. In fact, this is the way that religion is going to work for the rest of human history. God will pick a prophet, whether that prophet thinks he is capable or not, and will speak to the rest of humanity through that single person. God is also able to set up leadership through this prophet and the prophet can lead others and coordinate with them in order to achieve more and reach more people. This is what is established in the Levitical priesthood.

I recently heard an interesting interpretation on the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart. I have usually not been able to define the phrase “hardened heart” when I read it. This interpretation however, defines the hardening of a heart as making a man brave. Under this interpretation, God did not force Pharaoh to refuse to listen. Pharaoh first chose to ignore the words of God. Then, when he became fearful because of the plagues, he was willing to let the Israelites go. It is at this point that God makes Pharaoh brave, allowing the Pharaoh to hold to his original decision not to let them go. I think this interpretation has some merit and is interesting at least.

Why did God choose the plagues that he chose? Why did he turn the Nile to blood? He could have turned it to mud or dried it up or anything. Why did he send a plague of frogs? Why not crocodiles or giant river snakes or something a little more intimidating? Why gnats? Gnats are just tiny little things, a nuisance at worst. Well God is the mastermind behind all of this, so He must have known what he was doing. Let’s try to think about all of these plagues in the context of Egypt. We know that Egypt is full of sorcerers who have a handful of tricks. We also know that the Egyptians were polytheistic and had many zoomorphic gods. Finally, we know that the Pharaoh had been oppressing the Egyptians with hard work and even worse, had slaughtered all of their baby boys.

God could have just dried up all of the water in the Nile and it would have had the same effect. All the fish would die and begin to rot and stink. There would be no water to drink. Yet God chose blood. This relates to what I said yesterday about turning people by degrees. God is starting with a plague that the Egyptians think is mere magic. The same thing occurs for the frogs, but the magicians can not create gnats. There is definitely some symbolism to blood in the Nile, possibly referring to the Pharaoh’s slaughter of the newborns. I also think it has to do with the significance of the river to Egypt. That river was a large part of the economy for them, they relied on it. So God took it away. Man should rely on God because he is the source of life. Even at this point in history, people knew that blood is an essential part of life and thought that a person’s life was in their blood. Thus, by turning the river to blood, God is saying, “I give life and I take away life.”

The plague of frogs is a weird one for me. The way it is described makes it sound like an inconvenience; they are just everywhere. One commentator I read said that this was poking fun at the Egyptians gods Hapi and Heqt. God was directly challenging the gods of Egypt.

The gnats are particularly nasty. Have you ever been out on a run in the summer when all of a sudden your mouth is full of gnats? Maybe that is just me. It is one of the most unpleasant experiences. Now have you ever been in a dry, dusty field running around and kicking up dirt? That is also quite unpleasant. It gets tough to breath. One time I was in a situation like this and I had to keep blowing my nose until it stopped coming out black. Now replace the dust in this field with gnats. That is a nightmare.

I am going to stop there and ask that you ask yourself these questions and see if you can come up with an answer. Why flies? Why livestock? Why boils? Why hail? God has every tool imaginable at his disposal, yet He deems these to be the best plagues for this situation. Why is that?

Thanks everyone for starting this plan and sticking to it! If you started from the beginning, great job making it this far and if you are just joining, I hope that you are able to find a routine of your own or hop in with this one. There is nothing better for the mind than to focus on God’s word daily.

Thanks for reading,

Nathaniel Johnson

(originally posted for SeekGrowLove on February 1, 2020)

Reflection Questions

  1. Why do you think God chose the plagues that he did? At which plaque would you have let the Israelites go?
  2. How might you describe a hard/hardened heart? Where have you seen one before? Have you ever experienced one? When is there a downside to being brave?
  3. What were some of the truly miraculous things about the plagues – including the timing, the location, the extent of each? What were the Egyptians learning? What were the Israelites learning? What are you learning? Who can you pass this knowledge on to?
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The Plagues

exodus 6 7

After Moses goes back to Egypt and starts trying to get things going with the exodus it backfires on him and he is starting to have doubts (Exodus 5).  God replies

 

Exodus 6:6-8

6 “Therefore, say to the Israelites: ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. 7 I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. 8 And I will bring you to the land I swore with uplifted hand to give to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. I will give it to you as a possession. I am the Lord.’”

 

God is ready to go.  He is done with people doubting him, and he is ready to show his power.  To do this he sends the ten plagues on Egypt. (Exodus 7-11) Each of the plagues was very symbolic and directly attacked the gods and culture of the Egyptians.  I’ll cover just a few of them here and their symbolism.

 

The plague of blood turned the water of the Nile river into blood, which killed the fish and other things in the river.  The Nile was the source of life in Egypt and was represented by the god Osiris. God shows that he is more powerful than Osiris and that refusing him brings death.

 

The plague of gnats/lice was a really fun time.  The dust became gnats that covered everything. This was an insult to the god Set who was the god over the desert.  This also was directed towards the priests and magicians who prided themselves on being pure and clean, but God was pointing out their sin and uncleanness to everybody.

 

The plague of livestock involved all of the Egyptian cattle dying. This attacks many of the Egyptian gods because many of them take the form of cattle.  This came right after Moses says that the Egyptians would stone the Israelites for sacrificing cattle and livestock to God. God is telling Pharaoh that he can either give up some of his cattle to God, or lose them all.

 

The plague of the firstborn involved an angel of God killing all of the firstborn in Egypt that were not covered by the passover blood of the lamb.  This obviously killed a lot of people but it also was a direct attack on Pharaoh who was supposed to be a god in Egypt but could not protect his own son from the wrath of God.

 

Each of these plagues tore down a god or aspect of Egyptian society that the Israelites had adopted and showed that it did not bring life or an escape from sin, but only brought death in the end and that only God is worthy of being worshiped and followed.

 

I hope that once we come to Christ it is obvious which aspects of our old lives were only bringing sin and pain.  Sometimes though we do not realize which things in our society are against God and many Christians continue to live in their old ways.  We need to pray and be wise in our life choices to make sure we are not putting any idols before God, because one day Christ will return and most parts of the book of Revelation make the plagues look like a walk in the park.

 

On that happy note, I’ll see you guys back here tomorrow 🙂

Chris Mattison

Yahweh against Egypt’s Gods (Exodus 8-10)

God brought the ten plagues upon Pharaoh and Egypt for a reason.  He wanted them to know certain truths:

  • “that you may know that there is no one like Yahweh our God” (8.10)
  • “that you may know that I am Yahweh in the midst of the earth. (8.22)
  • “that you may know that there is none like me in all the earth.” (9.14)
  • “that you may know that the earth is Yahweh’s.” (9.29)
  • “that you may know that I am Yahweh.” (10.2)

The ten plagues were the means by which God came to show the whole world who he is and how he is superior to all other so-called gods.  He could have just killed Pharaoh and his people with pestilence, but he says, “For this purpose I have raised you up, to show you my power, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth” (Exodus 9.16).  Furthermore, he wants his own people to “tell in the hearing of your son and of your grandson how I have dealt harshly with the Egyptians and what signs I have done among them, that you may know that I am Yahweh” (Exodus 10.2).  The ten plagues are a big deal.

Even so, have you ever asked yourself why these plagues and not something else?  Here is a list of them:

  1. Nile turned to blood
  2. frogs
  3. lice
  4. flies
  5. livestock disease
  6. boils
  7. hail
  8. locusts
  9. darkness
  10. death to firstborn

Are those the miracles you would have chosen to demonstrate your power?  What’s the point of turning water to blood?  Why should God use frogs, lice, or flies to annoy the Egyptians?  Why not speak audibly from heaven or cause an earthquake?  Well, as it turns out, these strange plagues are not as much about the true God as they are about the Egyptian gods.  I hinted at this yesterday when I said, “Yahweh is the God who can slit the veins of Osiris, the protector of the Nile, and cause him to bleed.”  Here is a more comprehensive list, correlating the plagues with Egyptian gods.

  1. Nile to blood
    • Khnum: guardian or river’s source
    • Hapi: spirit of the Nile
    • Osiris: Nile was his bloodstream
  2. frogs
    • Hapi & Heqt frog goddesses related to fertility
  3. lice
    • Seb: the earth god
  4. flies
    • Uatchit: fly god
  5. livestock disease
    • Ptah, Mnevis, Hathor, Amon: associated w/ bulls and cows
  6. boils
    • Sekhmet: goddess of epidemics
    • Serapis & Imhotep: gods of healing
  7. hail
    • Nut: sky goddess
    • Isis & Seth: agriculture deities
    • Shu: god of atmosphere
  8. locusts
    • Serapia: protector from locusts
  9. darkness for 3 days
    • Ra, Amon-re, Aten, Atum, Horus: sun gods

Pharaoh had asked the question, “Who is Yahweh, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go?” (Exodus 5.1).  These plagues answer that question.  Who is Yahweh?  Yahweh is the God who can take over Nut, the sky goddess, and cause hail to fall on the plants that Isis and Seth are supposed to protect.  Who is Yahweh?  Yahweh is the God who can make a mockery of Heqt, the frog god, by multiplying frogs in the land until the Egyptians are disgusted with them.  Who is Yahweh?  Yahweh is the God who can take out Ra, the sun God, so that he does not get into his chariot for three days and pull the sun across the sky.  Yahweh is not just the God of the Hebrews!  He’s the “God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God” (Deuteronomy 10.17).  He’s the creator and the sustainer so you better let his people go.