We come now to the ten plagues that God brought upon Egypt. We might well wonder why God stretched this out as he did. Why not one decisive act of judgement upon Egypt rather than ten plagues. The point is that God is demonstrating his power over the gods of Egypt. These events were designed as a dramatic confrontation with the worldly powers, both that of pharaoh and the gods that supposedly protected the stability of his realm. The Egyptians were pantheistic which means they personified natural phenomena as gods. One of these was the river Nile, which was the life source of the nation. The Egyptians believed that the Nile was a god and here in this first plague we see that Yahweh makes the Nile-god bleed. The magicians could not reverse this plague. All they could do was duplicate it on a small scale, by some conceivably simple trickery. Since blood is a sign of death this plague shows how God turns Egypt’s life source into death. It was a loud and clear message to Egypt but one that Pharaoh ignored. From here the plagues will gradually increase in intensity and damage. Each time Pharaoh closes his ears to God’s command and God responds by shouting louder through plagues of increasing consequence. This means that God is giving Pharaoh abundant opportunity to repent and acknowledge Yahweh as God. This is what God does. He desires mercy rather than judgement and so he will shout louder and louder. But if we don’t respond we are left with judgement. May God do whatever it takes to turn us back to him if we stray!
Ask God to do whatever it takes to keep you close to him.
Read Exodus 7:14-25
