Exodus 7 God s highest mission on our behalf is our redemption. Genesis was largely about creation. Exodus is the first book centered around God s plan for our redemption. That redemption plan is developed throughout most of the rest of the Bible, culminating with the book of Revelation. I have made note of Genesis 15 throughout this study so far, and even opened this study the first night by studying in detail Genesis 15. I view that as the first active step in God s plan of redemption for mankind, and the foundation upon which all the rest of the redemption story is built. The foundation for establishing Jesus Christ. The foundation for establishing the cross. The Book of Exodus deals with the concept of redemption. Chapters 1 thru 6 show us our need for redemption. It shows us enslavement. In Exodus, the picture is of slavery to Egypt. In our case, it is an enslavement to sin. In chapters 7-11, we see God s might His ability to perform His redemption. We will see God create a theater in which He can then demonstrate His power. As we start this, look for a change in Moses style. Before, we saw him timid and weak of speech. Going forward we will see someone more confident and aggressive. I will make the argument he is being filled with the Holy Spirit here going forward. We see a similar transformation of Peter in the New Testament. Peter is loveable, impulsive, mistake prone, but not polished. But in Acts forward, when he is filled with the Holy Spirit, you see Peter as a spiritual dynamo. Where we are going isn t just two men arguing (Moses or Pharaoh) or two nations (Egypt and Israel) at odds with each other. This section has cosmic dimensions, and has its greatest message in portraying the cosmic struggle that God allows. Again, Egypt represents the world and sin. Pharaoh represents the power behind that; Satan. Pharaoh represents the origin of all the external opposition to God s people. He is typical of the power of evil, whether human or demonic, that sets itself against God s people precisely because they are God s people. I have always been intrigued why God allows Satan to have his say; that Satan has been found wanting, judged, and sentenced, yet that sentence has not yet been carried out, and in fact, Satan is given free rein to wreak havoc. God had the might to instantly crush Satan. But God is not interested in showing his might. Instead, he is interested in showing that He is right. And from that standing of being right, those who are intelligent enough to evaluate it then appreciate and acknowledge God s glory. And God is all about getting praise because of His glory.
Try and imagine yourself in a position where you are far-and-away more powerful than anything under your dominion. You have the power to instantly crush any rebellion or discord. Those who observe your judgment and action upon this rebellion will acknowledge your power, but will they acknowledge your wisdom? Will they acknowledge your fairness? Will they acknowledge your sensitivity? What glory is there in being the mighty crusher only because you can? On the other hand, what if instead of instantly crushing the rebellion, you instead move at a much slower pace for the purpose of playing out and exposing the righteous nature of your judgment? By going slow, the observers get to know who you are, what you are thinking, what the fallacies of the rebellion are, and why you are correct in what you do. That way, the observer learns to respect you and your judgments. And at the God level, we are talking about that building to a reverence that ultimately leads to acknowledging God s glory. Going slow also allows for the exposure of the fallacies of your enemies, or the fallacies of your underling s fruitless actions. Egypt, Pharaoh, Moses, Aaron, etc.; are models and types for God. Egypt models the world and its pervasiveness of sin. Pharaoh models Satan. Moses models Christ as an advocate and a deliverer. Aaron a prophet and stepping forth and working through God s power. Many struggle with God hardening Pharaoh s heart. If Pharaoh is a model of Satan, then by correlation, Satan is a model of Pharaoh. a = b then b = a. Therefore, it would behoove us to take a look at the character of Satan. Ezekiel 28 and Isaiah 14. You tell the kids to stay out of the cookie jar. When you get home you discover they were in it. You knew ahead of time that they were going to get in it, but that does not relieve their responsibility for having done it. You had the foreknowledge to know what they would do, but the action is of their own free will. What if you were trying to make some kind of point out of all of this; meaning you knew ahead of time the condition of the kid s character. Might you be wise to exploit this situation in order to make a point so you could teach others, or even teach the child? Revelation 17:17 For God has put it into their hearts [his enemies] to fulfill His purpose, to be of one mind, and to give their kingdom to the beast, until the words of God are fulfilled. Verse 8-10: The first time Moses and Aaron went into Pharaoh, God did not direct them to include a miracle. He had just directed the two to go into Pharaoh backed up by only their human nature.
They had said back in chapter 5, verse 3; The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Please, let us go three days journey into the desert and sacrifice to the Lord our God, lest He fall upon us with pestilence or with the sword. They aren t going in then as God s representatives. They are afraid of both Pharaoh and God. Look, if you won t do this for us, then God is going to do that to us. You see a triangle of personalities here; God, Pharaoh, and the brothers. Now we see only Pharaoh and God, with the brothers acting as the face of God to Pharaoh. No more saying that God will rise against the brothers. The brothers are God. We see in verse 2 that what they are speaking is being directed solely from God. The only thing we know that the brothers say when they walk in this time is And Aaron your brother shall tell Pharaoh to send the children of Israel out of his land. We see in verse 9 that God knows Pharaoh will demand a miracle to lay down the gauntlet as to why he should listen to these two clowns and their god. After all, since they claim to be speaking on behalf of a god, then they would be able to call on that god to show his power and authority. So they did the rod-changes-to-serpent trick that Moses saw at the burning bush. Verse 11: Then Pharaoh called in his advisors and the sorcerers. When we are talking about sorcerers, we are talking about black magic; about Satanic-inspired power and miracles. Verse 12: The magicians are able to replicate the miracle. 2 Timothy 3:8 Now as Jannes and Jambres resisted Moses, so do these also resist the truth This event has plagued scholars as to what exactly these magicians did. There seems to be two camps here: Either an optical illusion, a slight of hand, or paralyzed snakes. Others see it as a real, Satanically-inspired miracle. Those who cling to the former view build it upon their view that Satan and the demonic world cannot produce life. The latter option (a Satanic miracle), I believe, is biblically real. 1 Thessalonians 2:9, in speaking of the coming Antichrist, Paul says: The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders. We see in Revelation where the image of the beast is made and it becomes alive. 1 John 4:1-3; Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world.
Many of the papyri preserved from ancient Egypt deal with rites and incantations that were used to influence nature, people, and gods. Throughout the ancient world, magic was inseparable from religion, and in every court there were priests who practiced black magic. Nebuchadnezzar was perplexed by his dream, and brought in his magicians, enchanters, sorcerers and astrologers. We see demonic angels whose job it is to influence nations. Daniel 10:20 When God was giving the Israelites instructions on how they were to live before Him, he made note of this type of occult activity. Deuteronomy 18:9-12: When you come into the land which the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominations of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, or one who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. For all who do these things are an abomination to the Lord, and because of these abominations the Lord your God drives them out from before you. Would God be so concerned about engaging in such activities if it wasn t real? Imitation is Satan s tactic. He imitates the actions of God. He is all about deceit. He mimics God s actions, but his desire is to attribute the actions to anything you will accept other than God or Jesus Christ. Verse 12: Whatever was happening, God finished it off by showing He was in control. Moses snake swallowed up the magician s snakes. We know that God s action was supernatural. Let s assume the magicians were too. This would just be another reiteration that God s power in the supernatural is greater than Satan s power in the supernatural. Verse 13: No matter what really happened via the Egyptian magicians, Pharaoh was not impressed with what Aaron had done, and therefore his heart remained hard. God had said it was going to take a lot to break up Pharaoh s heart.
The Plagues What we are about to see in the various plagues are God s miracles. That is how the Bible is presenting them, and I believe they are to be looked at in that vein. But you probably wouldn t have to dig very far to find people out there who cannot buy the miracle aspect of the Bible. These people, I believe, have too deep a root into the religion of science than they do the power of God. Science does not have any room for miracles. That s too bad, because the beauty and the power of science is to discover and outline the natural. Once done, then God s miracles can be appreciated for what they are; that God is beyond science and not limited by science. Some of the arguments against miracles go like this: High flood waters brought sediment into the Nile discoloring it. An outbreak of bacterial poisoning then killed the fish. This further polluted the water driving out the frogs. When they died from lack of food, then vermin like lice multiplied. Flies and mosquitos bred in this environment, carrying disease to the livestock. These views do not derive from Scripture. They do expose the condition of that philosopher s heart toward the Scriptures. It has its roots in a world view that direct divine action is ruled as impossible. Having said all that, let us do take a look at the naturalness of these actions. In many respects, what occurred was similar to natural disasters that have afflicted Egypt from time to time. They have had locusts, disease, and hail. But the scale of the disasters are without precedent. The timing of the disasters are clearly dictated by God. They came and went at God s command; and most were stated in advance. The selectivity of the disasters also revealed God s control. The Israelites and the land of Goshen were excluded from the impact of the final plagues. We also see the orderliness of the plagues. Each one moves to a higher and higher level of intensity. What we have is a series of divinely instituted and controlled events that were so structured as to display conclusively that the Lord is in control of all the forces of the world He created. The purpose of doing that was to establish the Godness of God. What God is doing in each of these plagues is attacking the non-godness of Egypt s gods. This is not a battle between Moses and Pharaoh; or Egypt and Israel. This is a battle between God, and the gods of Egypt (and the power behind those gods).
A study of ancient Egypt and its culture reveals that Egypt was just about the most polytheistic people in the ancient world. We are not sure as to how many gods Egyptians actually worshipped or acknowledged, but most scholar s lists will include at least 80. Read from Moses and the God of Egypt, pg. 87. The Egyptians were very dedicated to their gods. This is evident from their elaborate temples and platforms to gods. Their gods weren t particularly nasty like some of their neighboring culture s gods. We don t see children sacrificed on alters or burned, no dripping human hearts, or the annihilation of opposing peoples. The Egyptians are sacrificing to these idols. 1 Cor. 10:19-20 What am I saying then? That an idol is anything, or what is offered to idols is anything? Rather, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to demons and not to God, and I do not want you to have fellowship with demons. There are two Scriptural references that show this is how we should be understanding this. Exodus 12:12 Numbers 33:3-4 What is at stake is recognition of the power and the supremacy of the Lord. Jethro Exodus 18:11-12 The plagues were a punishment on Pharaoh and the Egyptians for the way in which they had treated the Israelites. Genesis 15:14 And also the nation whom they serve I will judge; afterward they shall come out with great possessions. The terror of the Egyptians from these judgments is the mechanism that pushed the Israelites out of Egypt from the point of view of the Egyptians. The plagues were probably also designed to move the Israelites. They were a pretty beaten down and demoralized group. They were destined to spend eternity in Egypt. They weren t going to rise up on their own. But by seeing the power of God and the vulnerable state of the Egyptians, and with the Egyptians pleading with them to get out, they were finally willing to move. In Exodus 16:3 and again in Numbers 11:5, we see them ruing their comfortable times around the dinner pot back in Egypt.
There is a pattern to the plagues. They seem to be in three blocks of three. In each case, the first two plagues are announced ahead of time to Pharaoh. Then each of the third plagues are not announced, but instead just done. There is a general increase in severity of the plagues, especially in the last group. The first set of plagues affected Egyptians and Israelites alike, but the Israelites were spared the subsequent plagues. The importance of religion in Egypt brought forth a professional class. These are the wise men, sorcerers, magicians, and priests we just saw imitating the work of Aaron. These professionals were very much a part of the Egyptian bureaucracy. Although these professionals were able to imitate a few of Moses early miracles, the whole gambit of plagues exposed the inability of the priests to function within and to the power of their gods. Their inability to change the conditions that God was imposing upon Egypt was exposed. Their power and council was limited and made known. Pharaoh himself was considered a god. Pharaoh did not rule for the gods; he was a god. His birth was a divine act. He was counted specifically as the child of certain deities, and thus possessed the properties of deity. As to his physical existence, he was begotten by the god Amon-Re upon the queen mother. As to his divine potency, he was Horus, the son of Hathor. What that in mind, when we relook at Exodus 5:2, when Moses and Aaron initially ask Pharaoh to let the people go, Pharaoh says: Who is the Lord, that I should obey is voice The plagues exposed the futility and impotency of Pharaoh as a god. To the Egyptians he was the protector of their peace and prosperity. He was deity. But the plagues lowered his standing deeply in the eyes of the Egyptians. By plague seven, some Egyptians are hiding their servants in livestock in anticipation of God s announcement that He will rain down hail, and at plague eight, his wise men are tell Pharaoh to yield to the God of Moses. Another factor the plagues were designed to do was to show to the Israelites the ineffectiveness of idol worship and false gods. It was to show the power of the true God. That was probably the ultimate lesson. But that turned out to not be the case. It was only two months after leaving Egypt and walking through the Red Sea that the Israelites returned to idols and false gods, when Aaron made them a golden calf.
It underscores that miracles themselves are not the final answer to weak faith. Back to the text Nile turns to blood Verse 14-25: In this first plague, God is going after the water within Egypt, turning it into blood. In particular, He strikes the Nile. The Nile was of incredible importance to Egypt. The flooding of the river brought new soil to the river s banks, and thus new growing capacity. It was the very existence of Egypt. There are few places in the world where the very existence of life in that country is as dependent upon a river like Egypt is. Of course, this had a god attached to it. That god was Hapi. Since the annual Nile flood brought new fertile soil to the Egyptian growing plain, Hapi was a god of fertility. The Egyptians would pray to Hapi that he would send them a good flood; a good inundation that would stimulate a good growing season. One of the greatest Egyptian gods was Osiris, the god of the underworld. The Egyptians believed that the Nile River was his bloodstream. Since God is attacking the Egyptians gods, one can see a connection here. It would appear that Pharaoh habitually went to the Nile each morning; probably for some religious ritual. Three times Moses would met Pharaoh at the Nile to announce a plague; the first, fourth, and seventh plagues. Did the water actually turn to blood, or did the water just look that way? In Joel 3:4, it speaks about the moon turning to blood during the great and terrible day of the Lord. An eclipse makes the moon look red; thus the blood moon. It would appear though that from a straight-up reading of the text that the waters turned to actual blood. All the fish died, and the river developed a terrible odor. Verse 15: Moses is instructed to take the rod with him, and then we see in verse 19 that Aaron uses this rod to stretch out over the waters to turn them to blood. God established in the snake confrontation that this rod represents His divine power. So God is making sure Moses has it with him. Verse 19: streams, rivers, ponds, pools of water, buckets and pitchers Speaks to the pervasiveness of where God struck the Egyptian water. Verse 21: So there was blood throughout all the land of Egypt. I believe it was actual blood. I haven t found anyone who has put this together yet, but the first and the last plagues involve blood. The last plague was real blood, so what not the first also?
Verse 22: The hard part here is that the magicians were able to replicate this event. Obviously not on as grand of a scale, though. And what water was it that they turned red? Probably some of the water that the Egyptians dug up in verse 24. What the magicians did though didn t help the situation. Egypt didn t need more blood. What Pharaoh really needed out of his magicians was to change the bloody water back into useable water. But they did not have that kind of power. In the end, Pharaoh was not impressed. Pharaoh s heart grew hard implies that this hardening was done by the natural condition of Pharaoh. Plague of frogs Egypt worshipped the frog. This god was Heqet. Heqet was a goddess of childbirth or fertility. She was depicted as a frog, or a woman with the head of a frog. It was thought that her priestesses were trained midwives. Verse 7: Note that the magicians were able to bring up more frogs. Again, they were not able to make the frogs go away. The frogs were a pest. They could only add to the misery, not relieve it. I believe that is something worth noting. Verse 8: Here is the first of Pharaoh acknowledging the power of the Lord. It is also the first of his many statements where he says he will let the people go if God will take away the plague. Verse 9: Is Moses being nice here, or is he establishing to Pharaoh the complete control that God has on the situation. You pick the time, and God will make it go away. Because in verse 10, Moses says Let it be according to your word Why? that you may know that there is no one like the Lord our God.