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Thoughts from Exodus 9: Hail-fire
By daniel | June 5, 2007
In Exodus 9, the plagues increase in severity. No more mere annoyances. While the other plagues were hard, such as water being scarce, or frogs, or gnats, these next plagues are starting to truly impair life in Egypt to the point of true hunger, and not even being able to live. Before we get started, though, we must keep before our minds the purpose of the plagues, the Exodus, arguably the greatest purpose of human existence: to know God, and in knowing, give Him the glory for who we know him to be. He shows in these plagues, power, redemption, even care for Egyptians that are listening to Him.
Falling within the pattern we talked about in an earlier chapter, the first plague gives a fair warning to Pharoah and the Egyptians. Moses goes to him and announces the coming of a great disease upon all the livestock of Egypt. The result was the complete annihilation of the Egyptian cows, sheep, horses, etc. To make His point, the Lord also left the Israelite cattle healthy and intact. The Egyptian god in the crosshairs on this plague was named Hathor — the mother goddess of fertility, who was depicted in a cow shape. Egyptians also considered cattle sacred, making this another overpowering of what Egypt thought was strong, and showing God's people that the world is wrong about who is powerful.
The sixth plague had no warning. Wham! Egyptians and their animals (those not affected by the previous plague) are covered by painful, burning boils and sores. The Egyptian god Imhotep was their 'great physician', and his prophets couldn't even show themselves to Pharoah due to their sickness and pain, unable to be healed.
For the seventh plague, Moses announces what will happen: hail as has never been seen in Egypt will destroy anything in their fields. It turns out that what he said was true, and even moreso — God dropped hail with fire from the sky. For linguistic purposes, it could have been a heavy lightning storm that accompanied the hail, but the report is the same. One interesting thing to note within Moses' warning to the Egyptians is the 'out' for Egyptians who want to put their trust in Israel's God: If they believe Moses' warning, they are able to go out and bring anything they can into shelter, including any livestock that still happened to be alive. This gives a hint back to the purpose of this mass destruction — Primarily to make Himself known (not just His power, but His sovereignty), and secondarily to free his people. Wanton destruction need not befall the Egyptians to accomplish these purposes. Only those who insist on some other form of Diety would need further 'discussing'.
The hail-fire (bad pun, sorry) draws from Pharoah an insincere apology and insincere repentance. He announces his grief over the consequences of his sin, but once those consequences are complete, he resumes his arrogance and sin. The work of God here is not complete yet, since another still stands in opposition, claiming the power and NAME of God himself — that one is Pharoah.
Topics: The Word |
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