Hey,
welcome back.
Thanks for joining us on a Monday as we continue through Exodus.
We are in Exodus 8, about halfway through the chapter or so,
as we continue with this series of plagues
in the narrative.
These are all kind of put together,
time condensed as we look at
God and the Pharaoh squaring off and how God is punishing the land of Egypt to force Pharaoh
to do what he has told him to do.
So we’ll start here at verse 20.
The Lord said to Moses,
“Go early in the morning,
present yourself to Pharaoh.”
As he goes out
to the water, say to him, this says, “The Lord,
let my people go,
that they may worship me.
If you will not let them go,
I will send swarms of flies on you and
your officials and your people and into your houses.
The houses of the Egyptians will be
filled with swarms of flies,
so also the land where they live.
But on that day I will set
apart the hand of Goshen where my people live,
the land of Goshen where my people live,
so that no swarms of flies will be there.
That you may know that I am the Lord and I am in this land.
Thus I will make a distinction between my people and your people.
This sign shall appear tomorrow.”
The Lord did so and the great swarm of flies came into the house of Pharaoh and into his
officials’ homes and all of Egypt and the land was ruined because of the flies.
The Pharaoh then summoned Moses and Aaron,
said, “Go sacrifice to your God within the land.”
But Moses said it would not be right to do so for the sacrifice that we offer the Lord.
Our God will be offensive to the Egyptians.
If we offer it in the sight of the Egyptians,
sacrifices that are offensive,
will they not stone us?
We will go a three days journey into
the wilderness and sacrifice to the Lord.
The Pharaoh said, “I will let you go sacrifice to
the Lord in the wilderness,
provided you do not go very far away.
Pray for me.”
Then Moses said, “As soon as I leave,
I will pray to the Lord and the swarms of flies may depart tomorrow from
Pharaoh and his officials.”
Verse 30, “So Moses went out from Pharaoh,
prayed to the Lord, and the
he removed the swarms of flies from Pharaoh from his officials and their homes.
But the Pharaoh hardened his heart this time also and would not let the people go.” So it’s interesting,
Michael, as we move through these plagues,
we kind of see a little different spin on these early ones.
So the magicians were in place,
then they’re no longer really a part of the story.
Here for the first time, we see the idea of a separation of something that happens to the Egyptians,
but doesn’t happen to the Israelites.
And it comes in the form of flies,
just a massive swarm of flies.
Pharaoh,
again, we’ve seen this pattern,
says,
“Yes, I agree.
There’s some haggling over how far the people will get to go.” But he ultimately says,
“I will let you go.”
Moses prays the flies, the plague stops.
And at that point,
this time it tells us Pharaoh hardened his heart.
That language changes a little bit throughout the story,
but in this instance,
Pharaoh hardens his heart.
And this time also,
he would not let the people go.
So it’s good storytelling, I think, that in the repetition of a general pattern,
there are these differences in detail that kind of keep the story interesting.
Yeah, I think it’s great storytelling also by the way that it shapes and moves the story to highlight different aspects.
And one of those aspects highlighted,
I think, comes right here,
as we looked at verse 29,
the very bottom of the screen here.
“Only do not let Pharaoh,” this is Moses speaking,
“deal falsely by not letting the people go to
sacrifice to the Lord,” which is a way that the text is telling us,
“Hey, we’ve seen you play this game where you let us do a thing,
and then you don’t actually let us go do that thing.” And here,
we, the reader, are let into that this is known,
we’re actually calling you
on it, and we’re calling you to not do it.
And I think it only intensifies,
Clint, that moment where Pharaoh is once again going to renege on that offering.
He’s not going to be a man of his word.
And so here we begin to see,
I think we’ve said this numerous times,
Clint, how this story is about this conflict between God and Pharaoh.
We’ve begun to see Pharaoh now consistently,
and it’s only intensifying to be the one who’s dishonest,
to be the one who is cutthroat and
will win at whatever terms he can,
whatever he has to do,
he’s going to do it.
So he gets Moses
to commit to make that prayer,
and then he hardens his own heart.
That language is supposed to
make it clear to us that Pharaoh has never confessed.
He can’t even really be recalcitrant
because he never got to the level of having any grief or any form of real repentance in the face of God.
This is all for show.
Yeah,
this phrase “hardened heart” is really interesting because
there are times it comes across as stubbornness.
There are times it comes across as a kind of
willfulness that he just won’t give in,
no matter how much the pressure.
There are other moments
we’ll see in a story or two that there are times the text says the Lord hardened his heart
as if it has something to do with God’s movement or what God has done,
either a reaction to it or
even insinuates in a couple of places that God causes it.
But whatever the exact nuances we’re
supposed to get from that,
the thrust of it,
the main point is that Pharaoh is unwilling to concede
to the power of God.
That Pharaoh stands increasingly aware of who God is and what
God is capable of,
and yet will not bow the knee.
That Pharaoh trusts in his own power,
his own status, or that Pharaoh just doesn’t care and isn’t going to admit that he’s lost.
Whatever the path is that takes him there,
Pharaoh stands opposed to God and refuses to acknowledge or humble himself,
and not only Pharaoh,
but his people suffer because of it.
And clearly he bears,
whatever we make of this phrase,
the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart,
which shows up not as often as you might think,
but it is in the story,
the burden of blame here is on the Pharaoh
himself.
I mean, obviously,
a book,
a sacred book of Israel is not a fan of this Pharaoh,
but I think it’s clear the way this story is told that he deserves blame,
I think, for some of what’s happening.
Yeah, so I think a really interesting detail here,
which is new as these plagues progress here, Clint,
we actually find here as we get into this talk about where the sacrifice is going to be,
because here Pharaoh leads with this idea,
do the sacrifice, but do it inside Egypt.
And imagine that idea, do it in my control,
do it within the place where I am the supreme authority and leader.
And the pushback to that is,
you know, that the sacrifices that we offer,
this is coming from verse 25, are offensive to the Egyptians.
So we are going to go a three days journey into
the wilderness will sacrifice to our God as he commands us.
What’s interesting, I think, about that Clint is that Pharaoh wants to control the setting.
He wants to control every aspect that he possibly can.
And the pushback is no,
we’re going to go into the wilderness,
we’re going to this place where we’re separate,
and it’ll be from there that the people will worship God.
As the next plague will continue in severity,
we’re going to begin to see that not only is this split
between the people of Israel being saved from the negative effect of the plague here, you know,
they’re being sequestered.
As the plagues move on,
it will become a serious matter of the
protection of the people.
And that is once again,
not on Pharaoh’s terms,
he doesn’t get to pick
where the plague goes and where it doesn’t,
but clearly God does.
And so each step of the story
as a narrative shows us how though Pharaoh began the book of Exodus as the one with supreme control,
as the text tells it,
he’s the one ordering these young men killed,
right?
He’s the one who is
bringing great burden upon the people.
As the story progresses,
it’s clear that Pharaoh hasn’t
figured out yet that he’s no longer in that position of authority and control.
Or if he has seen it,
he’s just stubbornly against being willing to submit to the God of Israel,
which will ultimately lead to,
you know, that narrative climactic act in which it is literally impossible
for him to hold that position anymore.
Yeah, and when you read this in the kind of meta-narrative of two gods,
and I say that of Pharaoh
from his perspective or from Egypt’s perspective battling,
there is a clear sense in which an
example is being made of him.
I mean, he is being strong along.
He is so far beyond the pale here
that he has no standing before the true God.
And so there is a sense in which part of this is
just an illustration of how little actual power that he has.
What’s interesting, before we move on to the next plague,
there is this moment where he
advises Moses,
“Pray for me.” And so,
you know, again, you want to be very careful not to read
too much in, but you kind of get a little bit of a Jekyll and Hyde here in Pharaoh.
There are moments where he seems genuinely aware of what’s happening and his role in it,
but in the long run,
when it comes down to it,
some by the work of God and some by the work of his own personality,
he is unwilling and unable to give in.
So that leads us then as we open chapter 9,
the Lord says to Moses, “Go Pharaoh,
tell him,
‘Let my people go.’ If you refuse,
the hand of the Lord will strike a deadly pestilence upon your livestock in the field,
the horses, the donkeys, the camels, the herds, the flocks, but the Lord will make a distinction
between the livestock of Israel and the livestock of Egypt.” So this happens,
and then I’ll go down a few verses,
“On the next day,
the Lord did so,
and all the livestock of the Egyptians died,
but of the Israelites, not one died.
Pharaoh inquired,
found that not one of the livestock
of the Israelites was dead,
but the heart of the Pharaoh was hardened,
and he would not
let the people go.” So this condensed,
this and the next plague are told in fairly short style,
but here we have a complete destruction of not only the livestock,
the economy, the food source.
This is destructive at the very heart of Egypt as a nation,
and Pharaoh, indeed, he goes to examine,
and he finds out that the Israelites have been spared and have not been affected by this plague at all.
And yet,
as we predict, as we come to see time and time again,
the heart of the Pharaoh is again hardened,
and he does not let the people go.
I think it’s maybe lost on us a little bit,
so I want to make sure that we slow down enough to see this here,
Clint.
You’re exactly right when you say that this strikes at the heart of Egypt.
Just look at this list here, the horses,
the donkeys, the camels, the herds, and the flocks.
The camels are used as an instrument of distribution.
Trading happens because of their ability to go over long distances.
Horses are a particularly potent military force when paired with a chariot.
In fact, that’s one of the great dangers to the people of Israel as they are delivered out of Egypt
in the first place.
And so what we may see here as a list of nice things to have,
I think, actually represents the core industry,
the core military,
the core basic functioning of a great
and mighty empire is now for the first time being struck.
One could make a point,
Clint, that the water being turned to blood,
they were able to find water, right?
Flies and gnats, nobody likes those, and it was clearly disruptive.
Frogs is a problem.
But as these progress,
we now come to
a point, the first plague, where death is intrinsic to the plague itself.
And it strikes at this sort
of economic privilege, this power represented here in the Egyptian empire.
And what happens here is in some ways a foreshadowing of what we know will happen later,
as life is going to that
the circle of life that is claimed is going to actually grow far outside of it.
But how could we
miss at the end of the fifth plague here, Clint?
Here we’re told the heart of Pharaoh was hardened.
So here, the text does not explicitly say that he hardened his own heart,
but rather his heart
was hardened again.
And I can’t help but think if we’re going to continue on through these
parables, we have to on some level recognize the intended mystery that’s happening here.
As someone who by forces both under the control and not under their control,
they have set themselves against
the God of Israel,
and now they continue to be trapped in this cycle,
much like that undertow
at the bottom of a waterfall.
They’re just trapped,
and he just continues to spin around.
And the text doesn’t even mention anymore,
Clint, the idea that he has advisors or those magicians.
I mean, now it is Pharaoh,
and it is God.
And those are the two characters.
I mean, you’ve got Moses coming
in to make these statements.
But I mean, those are the two characters acting in the story.
Right.
And that will get a brief reappearance of some of those characters
in the next plague, which is interesting.
But I think you’re right,
Michael.
This story intends for us to understand that there are two primary characters in the ring.
There are some supporting cast,
but this is ultimately a battle between the God of the Israelites,
the creator of the universe,
and the power of the empire,
the ruler of Egypt,
who has taken upon himself to do harm
to Israel and is answering for it and must answer for it before God.
So we will continue on with
this tomorrow as we continue to look at some of what happens in this contest,
in this story.
Hope you can be with us.
Thank you for being with us today.
Yeah.
Thanks for spending time with us, friends.