Coromandel Baptist Church

Sunday 19 April 2009 Exodus 7:8-25; Exodus 8:16-24

God Visits Egypt (1)

In the last set of notes we commented that the first five verses of Exodus 7 act as the first part of an inclusio (i.e. literary ‘bookends’) the closing part of which is found in Ex. 11:9-10. Contained within these ‘bookends’ is the narrative of the great judgments of God’s visitation to Egypt, by which he prepares the way for the final deliverance that would come through the Passover. These judgements are sometimes called the ‘plagues’ of Egypt, but in fact that title is too limiting to describe the nature of the events. They would be better thought of as God’s ‘mighty works’. Much of the focus up to and including this point of the story has been on God’s preparation of Moses and Aaron—and while his personal dealing with these two shepherds of his flock is not neglected in the rest of the book—the weight of the narrative now falls on God’s action through them.

The various judgement-plagues on Egypt are as follows: (1) the Nile is turned to blood (Ex. 7:14-25); (2) the land is filled with frogs (Ex. 8:1-15); (3) the land is overwhelmed by gnats (Ex. 8:16-19); (4) stinging insects infest the land (Ex. 8:20-32); (5) the livestock become diseased (Ex. 9:1-7); (6) the populous suffers from suppurating boils (Ex. 9:8-12); (7) the nation is terrorized by hail and lightning (Ex. 9:13-35); (8) the land is denuded by locusts (Ex. 10:1-20); and (9) impenetrable darkness covers Egypt (Ex. 10:21-29).

Some commentators arrange these nine events into three groups of three, the common feature being that in each series the first two plagues are announced to Pharaoh, but the third is brought without warning. Despite various attempts (not least in some television documentaries) to present these plague-judgements as a self perpetuating and interdependent series of natural/ecological disasters, the biblical witness is clear: these events are of divine origin and had not been seen in the earth before or since. From a biblical perspective (though not the focus of our attention at this point) a close relationship is evident between the plague-judgements in Egypt and the events described in the book of the Revelation. There the Lamb of God in the midst of the throne of God is the one who brings such events to pass, so that those destined to repentance may find deliverance through his shed blood.

In addition, the plagues are presaged by the direct encounter of Moses with Pharaoh in which the staff of God’s presence devours the serpent-staffs of Pharaoh’s magicians (Ex. 7:8-13). On this we will say more below. The whole series of events leads up to Passover (Ex. 11:1-13:16), by which the people are finally brought out. This, of course, deserves its own consideration.

On the earthly stage the main characters in the drama are Pharaoh himself, Moses and Aaron, and (for a short time) the sorcerer-magicians of Egypt. In reality the main character is Yahweh, whose power, purpose and presence is seen throughout the events. From the perspective of the New Testament we may rightly say that Pharaoh represents the ‘god of this age’, Satan, who holds humanity in slavery to his will until the Lord comes to deliver his captives (cf. Luke 11:21ff.). It is worth giving some attention to each of the main players.

Throughout the narrative Pharaoh is described as having a hard heart (e.g. Ex. 8:15, 19, 32; 9:7, 12, 34; etc.). One of the great ironies in this description is that one of the two words used to describe Pharaoh’s heart is the word ‘heavy’ (kābēd) (the other word hāzăq emphasizes strength, i.e. in this context, impenetrableness). In the Egyptian system, the final judgement consisted of a person’s heart being weighed on the scales before Osiris the great lord of the underworld. Pharaoh’s heart would have rested on one tray of the balance, and feather of the goddess Maat (truth, justice, righteousness, order) on the other. Only if the heart was not heavy with iniquity would the doors of eternal life be opened. If the heart was heavier than the feather, the destroying monster waited beside the scales to devour the heart of the deceased, thus depriving him of life forever. So the ‘strong’ Pharaoh—showing bold, stubborn and rock like leadership of Egypt by resisting the word of Yahweh—is in fact storing up iniquity for himself. His role as the incarnate god-king of the nation, by which he resists the word of the Lord, is the thing for which he will be judged. Far from guaranteeing salvation by his position and status, his unrepentant heart is rather the guarantee of destruction.

By contrast Moses and Aaron have had their hearts softened to be responsive and obedient hearers of Yahweh’s word. The description of them in Exodus 7:6 (“Moses and Aaron did so; they did just as the LORD commanded them”) stands as the banner under which every aspect of their ministry now unfolds. Though Aaron is later implicated in the dreadful incident of the golden calf in Exodus 32, and though Moses is later prohibited from entering the land because of his anger against the Lord and his people (Numb. 20:10ff.), these were not the settled dispositions of their hearts. They heard and heeded the Lord’s voice, and were truly shepherds of his flock (Ps. 77:20; Is. 63:11-12; Hos. 12:13).