Ep. 28. Exodus 9-10 | Even More Plagues
EPISODE 28
EVEN MORE PLAGUES: EXODUS 9-10
These two chapters give us five more plagues, and Pharaoh continues to harden his heart. But I don't want you to focus on that for these next few minutes. Pharaoh will reject God, plain and simple, so let's pull out a few other tidbits from today's reading.
First, I love that the next mention we have of the magicians is that they can't even stand before Moses because of the painful boils erupting all over their bodies. You'd think even if Pharoah is unconvinced, his magicians may be thinking more intentionally about the person and work of God.
More interesting is the idea that God could have wiped the Egyptians out in a breath and set his people at liberty, but that wasn't the plan. God wanted his name to be known throughout the earth. Of Pharaoh, God 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." Forty years later, as the Hebrews stand on the verge of the Promised Land, two spies converse with Rahab, a citizen of Jericho. She says, "I know the LORD has given you the land, and the fear of you has fallen upon us. We have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites." Rahab and all the inhabitants of the Promised Land not only knew what God had done but are still talking about it four decades later. That isn't nearly as impressive as what we see in First Samuel. When the Philistines go to war with Israel, they are fearful of the Ark of the Covenant, saying, "These are the gods who struck the Egyptians with every sort of plague in the wilderness." This is nearly four hundred years after the fact. Consider forty years of wandering in the wilderness, six years of conquest in the Promised Land, and about 350 years of judges before we get to 1 Samuel 4. God wanted his name to be known in the world, and he got glory over Pharaoh so powerfully it was talked about for centuries. I suppose if we consider this conversation you and I are having, it has been talked about for millennia.
Take special note of the first two verses of Exodus 10. God desires to have his glory and his power to be conveyed to the future generations of Israelites. Sadly, they will fail on this and many other fronts. We find in Joshua and Judges that as soon as this immediate generation of Hebrews died out, the next generation neither knew of God or his work. Now, you and I are not the Hebrews. You and I aren't on the verge of freedom from Egypt. You and I are not forty years away from an earthly inheritance. But you and I are witnesses to the mighty work of God through the person of Jesus Christ. You and I have benefited from his shed blood. And you and I would be amiss if we didn't pass these truths along to the next generations. So, while I don't advocate inserting ourselves into the narrative of Exodus nine and 10, I do encourage you to take a lesson from their folly. How long does it take for a a people to go from knowing God to knowing him not? One generation.
ADDITIONAL READING: Joshua 2, 1 Samuel 4:5-9, Psalm 71:18, Psalm 78:1-8, Joshua 24:31, Judges 2:8-10
