DAY EIGHTEEN: 

The Ten Plagues 

Exodus 6:28-11:10 

We left Moses standing before the burning bush, barefoot before the God who identified Himself as I AM. The Lord has a job for Moses. He is to go back to Egypt and lead the Children of Israel out of their bondage and into the land promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob hundreds of years before. Surely Moses responded eagerly, recognizing that God's providence in his life was perfect preparation for this great task. And Moses surely had complete faith in God's power working in him to accomplish this work. You might think so, but no, it didn't happen that way.

Moses offered up two objections. First, neither the Egyptians nor the Israelites will believe what I'm telling them. No one will believe that God spoke to me out in the middle of nowhere and said to lead the slaves out. God had an answer to this objection. "What's that thing in our hand, Moses?" "My staff." "Throw it on the ground." Moses did, and it turned into a snake! Moses freaked and ran! God told him to pick it up by the tail and it turned back into his staff. "Now, Moses, put your hand inside your robe." Moses did, and when he brought it back out it was white with leprosy! "Put it back in." When he did so and took it out it was back to normal! And if they don't believe these two miracles, just take some water from the Nile and pour it out on the ground. It will turn to blood. These great miracles should convince anyone!

Moses had a second objection: "Oh, my Lord, I am not eloquent, either in the past or since you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and of tongue." (Exodus 4:10) Literally, Moses said that he had a heavy tongue. Maybe he stuttered or lisped. Maybe he just fumbled over his words. In any event there was no way he could speak before crowds. God's answer: I made your mouth, I can make it work! God was angry with Moses for his unbelief. Yet He also made provision for Moses in his weakness. Moses' older brother Aaron, who does speak well, will help him. The Lord said, "See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron shall be your prophet."

So Moses set off to Egypt! He's been gone for a long time. When he left he was a member of the royal family. Now he's returning as a lowly shepherd. Yet not really as a shepherd. He is the emissary of the Lord God Almighty, endued with God's authority to command Pharaoh to let Israel go.

Things didn't go as Moses thought they would. Pharaoh wasn't impressed. "But Pharaoh said, 'Who is the LORD, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, and moreover, I will not let Israel go.'” (Exodus 5:2) Not only did Pharaoh not release the slaves, he made their lives harder. They had been making bricks with mud and straw, and now they'd have to go and find their own straw and still make the same number of bricks. Moses' own people were furious with him and were ready to stone him! But God had told Moses that this would happen. He had hardened Pharaoh's heart so that He could prove Himself to both Israel and Egypt. This is where we pick things up today.

Pharaoh wouldn't let the Israelites go. So God struck the Egyptians with a series of ten plagues, each worse than the one before. Here's the list of the first nine:

1. The water in the Nile River became blood. All the fish died and its water was undrinkable. But Pharaoh's magicians did the same thing and Pharaoh was unmoved;
2. Next great masses of frogs climbed out of the Nile and got into everyone's houses and even into their food. Again the magicians could do the same. They could bring frogs out but they couldn't get rid of them. Pharaoh had to ask Moses and Aaron to get rid of them. They died and the whole nation of Egypt reeked of rotting frogs;
3. When Pharaoh refused to let Israel go, God brought clouds of gnats that covered everything and everyone. This time the magicians were unable to do the same thing, and said that this was the "finger of God." Still Pharaoh refused;
4. Next came flies that darkened the skies over Egypt, but not in Goshen, where the Hebrews lived;
5. Then the Lord struck the livestock and the sheep, goats and cattle died. Again, God spared Goshen and the Hebrews didn't lose a single head;
6. After that God struck the land with painful boils. Pharaoh's magicians couldn't even come to the palace because of the boils;
7. Hail was the next plague- a hailstorm like the world had never seen before or since! Some of the Egyptians had learned their lessons and they took what livestock they had left and their slaves into shelter. Anything and anyone outside were pounded into the ground. Vineyards, orchards and field crops were destroyed, but again not in Goshen;
8. By now Pharaoh's advisers were begging him to let the Hebrews go, but he still refused. So God sent locusts (not the 17-year locusts or cicadas but a grasshopper-like insect) that blew in from the desert and fell upon the fields. They ate what the hail hadn't destroyed;
9. The next-to-last plague was darkness. Not only did the sun not shine in Egypt, no lamps or other artificial lights could give light. This darkness lasted for three days, again sparing Goshen. Now just one more plague, more fearsome than all that went before, remained.

God told Moses that He would strike the firstborn child of every family in Egypt in one night, and that once again He would spare His people. We'll deal with this last, most terrible plague tomorrow as we consider the Passover. 

A quick visual summary of the ten plagues.

This passage is all about the power of God. We began our study with the Creation. God made everything that is out of nothing! If that's not power, I don't know what is. But God really isn't a show-off. He prefers to work behind the scenes, through Providence, to accomplish His will. He didn't cast the "ites" out of Canaan so that Abraham could possess it. He didn't spring Joseph from his slavery and imprisonment with a great miracle. God has worked and continues to work in this world to accomplish His perfect will within the laws of nature. 

This doesn't mean that God cannot or does not break into our world with signs and wonders. The plagues He inflicted on the Egyptians are an example. In the weeks ahead we'll see many other examples, like the miracles that Jesus performed. Miracles reveal God's power in an undeniable way.

Let's remember, though, that faith is believing before seeing. Hebrews 11:1 says, "Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." Abraham believed God's promise of a son for many years before it came to pass. And let's also remember that seeing is not always believing. The Jewish leaders witnessed Jesus' miracles, yet said that He healed the sick by the power of the Devil. In the story of the rich man and Lazarus, Jesus said that even if Lazarus were to come back from the dead and appear to the rich man's brothers that they would not believe, because they had not believed God's written Word. Jesus refused to do miracles on demand to prove who He was. 

Tomorrow we'll see the aftermath of the tenth plague and how God's angel of death "passed over" the Israelites. I leave you with a clip from the animated movie Prince of Egypt: