It’s Go Time


Exodus 6:28-7:7
28On the day when the Lord spoke to Moses in the land of Egypt, 29the Lord said to Moses, “I am the Lord; tell Pharaoh king of Egypt all that I say to you.” 30But Moses said to the Lord, “Behold, I am of uncircumcised lips. How will Pharaoh listen to me?” 1And the Lord said to Moses, “See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron shall be your prophet. 2You shall speak all that I command you, and your brother Aaron shall tell Pharaoh to let the people of Israel go out of his land. 3But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and though I multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, 4Pharaoh will not listen to you. Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and bring my hosts, my people the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great acts of judgment. 5The Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring out the people of Israel from among them.” 6Moses and Aaron did so; they did just as the Lord commanded them. 7Now Moses was eighty years old, and Aaron eighty-three years old, when they spoke to Pharaoh.

It is time. The Lord has set His servants in place. The Pharaoh has been warned. God’s judgment and deliverance are at hand. Over the next few chapters we will learn what happens when you try to spit in the eye of our Almighty God. All that was required of Moses was that he should function as God’s spokesman. He was not required to be inventive or a clever organizer or a gifted persuader. He was simply required to pass on to Pharaoh what God told him to say—to fulfill the role of a prophet.

God has given Moses an assistant in his brother, Aaron. God didn’t need Aaron’s help, but apparently Moses does and so he has someone by his side that is a gift from God. God takes care of the tiny details and I see His provision for Moses in the assistance of Aaron. Not necessary at all; but God cares.

God also sets forth the purpose of these plagues. Previously, he had already said that because of his mighty acts, Israel would come to know that they were God’s own people, and he would be revealed as their God. Now God adds, “And the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord.” To Israel, God’s mighty acts meant deliverance. To Egypt these same mighty acts brought severe judgment. To Pharaoh, because of his own persistent hardening of heart in the face of God’s repeated warnings, they eventually led to this—that God himself would harden Pharaoh’s heart, just as God had already indicated.
Before considering each plague individually as they are recorded for us in the coming chapters, a survey of the first nine plagues provides some interesting observations. They are recorded as follows:
1. Blood (7:14–25)
4. Flies (8:20–32)
7. Hail (9:13–35)
2. Frogs (8:1–15)
5. Animal Disease (9:1–7)
8. Locusts (10:1–20)
3. Gnats (8:16–19)
6. Boils (9:8–12)
9. Darkness (10:21–27)
Wendland, E. H. ©2000. Exodus (pp. 43–44). Milwaukee, WI: Northwestern Pub. House.

By placing these miracles into three groups of three each (3 x 3), as above, we can see some interesting patterns emerge:
In each series, the first and second plagues are announced to Pharaoh in advance. The third is given without previous warning.

  • The grouping of 3 x 3 leads to a climax in the number 10, the number that is the symbol for completeness.
  • Within the plagues as a whole, there is a progression, an increase in severity. These last three are especially severe and destructive.
  • The Egyptian magicians vie with Moses in duplicating the very first two plagues. At the third they try but no longer succeed in their magic arts. They must confess, “This is the finger of God” (8:19).
  • Beginning with the second series of plagues (4, 5, and 6), a distinction is made between the Israelites and the Egyptians. The land of Goshen, where the Israelites live, is spared.
  • The first nine plagues deal with phenomena that have to do with the world of nature. For this reason, some scholars try to explain the plagues as natural happenings, occurrences that possibly took place “as natural disasters and in the course of time were exaggerated to make up the account as recorded in Exodus.” We believe, however, that each plague was a miracle of God, in which God used the natural means of that country to manifest his supernatural power. Since the Egyptians worshiped these powers of nature, in what more effective way could God display his power over all things, even those things the Egyptians looked upon as deities!

While experiencing these plagues would have been miserable indeed observing how this all played out must have been fascinating. We’ll look at each of the plagues and observe our God at work.

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