When It Plagues, It Pours
October 24, 2021
Preached by Benjamin Vrbicek
Scripture Reading
Exodus 9:1-10:29
9:1 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh and say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, “Let my people go, that they may serve me. 2 For if you refuse to let them go and still hold them, 3 behold, the hand of the Lord will fall with a very severe plague upon your livestock that are in the field, the horses, the donkeys, the camels, the herds, and the flocks. 4 But the Lord will make a distinction between the livestock of Israel and the livestock of Egypt, so that nothing of all that belongs to the people of Israel shall die.”’” 5 And the Lord set a time, saying, “Tomorrow the Lordwill do this thing in the land.” 6 And the next day the Lord did this thing. All the livestock of the Egyptians died, but not one of the livestock of the people of Israel died. 7 And Pharaoh sent, and behold, not one of the livestock of Israel was dead. But the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, and he did not let the people go.
8 And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Take handfuls of soot from the kiln, and let Moses throw them in the air in the sight of Pharaoh. 9 It shall become fine dust over all the land of Egypt, and become boils breaking out in sores on man and beast throughout all the land of Egypt.” 10 So they took soot from the kiln and stood before Pharaoh. And Moses threw it in the air, and it became boils breaking out in sores on man and beast. 11 And the magicians could not stand before Moses because of the boils, for the boils came upon the magicians and upon all the Egyptians. 12 But the Lordhardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he did not listen to them, as the Lordhad spoken to Moses.
13 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Rise up early in the morning and present yourself before Pharaoh and say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, “Let my people go, that they may serve me. 14 For this time I will send all my plagues on you yourself, and on your servants and your people, so that you may know that there is none like me in all the earth.15 For by now I could have put out my hand and struck you and your people with pestilence, and you would have been cut off from the earth. 16 But for this purpose I have raised you up, to show you my power, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth. 17 You are still exalting yourself against my people and will not let them go. 18 Behold, about this time tomorrow I will cause very heavy hail to fall, such as never has been in Egypt from the day it was founded until now. 19 Now therefore send, get your livestock and all that you have in the field into safe shelter, for every man and beast that is in the field and is not brought home will die when the hail falls on them.”’” 20 Then whoever feared the word of the Lord among the servants of Pharaoh hurried his slaves and his livestock into the houses, 21 but whoever did not pay attention to the word of the Lord left his slaves and his livestock in the field.
22 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand toward heaven, so that there may be hail in all the land of Egypt, on man and beast and every plant of the field, in the land of Egypt.” 23 Then Moses stretched out his staff toward heaven, and the Lord sent thunder and hail, and fire ran down to the earth. And the Lord rained hail upon the land of Egypt. 24 There was hail and fire flashing continually in the midst of the hail, very heavy hail, such as had never been in all the land of Egypt since it became a nation. 25 The hail struck down everything that was in the field in all the land of Egypt, both man and beast. And the hail struck down every plant of the field and broke every tree of the field. 26 Only in the land of Goshen, where the people of Israel were, was there no hail.
27 Then Pharaoh sent and called Moses and Aaron and said to them, “This time I have sinned; the Lord is in the right, and I and my people are in the wrong. 28 Plead with the Lord, for there has been enough of God's thunder and hail. I will let you go, and you shall stay no longer.” 29 Moses said to him, “As soon as I have gone out of the city, I will stretch out my hands to the Lord. The thunder will cease, and there will be no more hail, so that you may know that the earth is the Lord's. 30 But as for you and your servants, I know that you do not yet fear the Lord God.” 31 (The flax and the barley were struck down, for the barley was in the ear and the flax was in bud.32 But the wheat and the emmer were not struck down, for they are late in coming up.) 33 So Moses went out of the city from Pharaoh and stretched out his hands to the Lord, and the thunder and the hail ceased, and the rain no longer poured upon the earth. 34 But when Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the thunder had ceased, he sinned yet again and hardened his heart, he and his servants. 35 So the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, and he did not let the people of Israel go, just as the Lord had spoken through Moses.
10:1 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants, that I may show these signs of mine among them, 2 and that you may tell in the hearing of your son and of your grandson how I have dealt harshly with the Egyptians and what signs I have done among them, that you may know that I am the Lord.”
3 So Moses and Aaron went in to Pharaoh and said to him, “Thus says the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, ‘How long will you refuse to humble yourself before me? Let my people go, that they may serve me. 4 For if you refuse to let my people go, behold, tomorrow I will bring locusts into your country,5 and they shall cover the face of the land, so that no one can see the land. And they shall eat what is left to you after the hail, and they shall eat every tree of yours that grows in the field, 6 and they shall fill your houses and the houses of all your servants and of all the Egyptians, as neither your fathers nor your grandfathers have seen, from the day they came on earth to this day.’” Then he turned and went out from Pharaoh.
7 Then Pharaoh's servants said to him, “How long shall this man be a snare to us? Let the men go, that they may serve the Lord their God. Do you not yet understand that Egypt is ruined?” 8 So Moses and Aaron were brought back to Pharaoh. And he said to them, “Go, serve the Lord your God. But which ones are to go?” 9 Moses said, “We will go with our young and our old. We will go with our sons and daughters and with our flocks and herds, for we must hold a feast to the Lord.” 10 But he said to them, “The Lord be with you, if ever I let you and your little ones go! Look, you have some evil purpose in mind. 11 No! Go, the men among you, and serve the Lord, for that is what you are asking.” And they were driven out from Pharaoh's presence.
12 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the land of Egypt for the locusts, so that they may come upon the land of Egypt and eat every plant in the land, all that the hail has left.” 13 So Moses stretched out his staff over the land of Egypt, and the Lord brought an east wind upon the land all that day and all that night. When it was morning, the east wind had brought the locusts. 14 The locusts came up over all the land of Egypt and settled on the whole country of Egypt, such a dense swarm of locusts as had never been before, nor ever will be again. 15 They covered the face of the whole land, so that the land was darkened, and they ate all the plants in the land and all the fruit of the trees that the hail had left. Not a green thing remained, neither tree nor plant of the field, through all the land of Egypt.16 Then Pharaoh hastily called Moses and Aaron and said, “I have sinned against the Lord your God, and against you. 17 Now therefore, forgive my sin, please, only this once, and plead with the Lord your God only to remove this death from me.” 18 So he went out from Pharaoh and pleaded with the Lord. 19 And the Lord turned the wind into a very strong west wind, which lifted the locusts and drove them into the Red Sea. Not a single locust was left in all the country of Egypt. 20 But the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he did not let the people of Israel go.
21 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand toward heaven, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, a darkness to be felt.” 22 So Moses stretched out his hand toward heaven, and there was pitch darkness in all the land of Egypt three days. 23 They did not see one another, nor did anyone rise from his place for three days, but all the people of Israel had light where they lived. 24 Then Pharaoh called Moses and said, “Go, serve the Lord; your little ones also may go with you; only let your flocks and your herds remain behind.” 25 But Moses said, “You must also let us have sacrifices and burnt offerings, that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God.26 Our livestock also must go with us; not a hoof shall be left behind, for we must take of them to serve the Lord our God, and we do not know with what we must serve the Lord until we arrive there.” 27 But the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he would not let them go. 28 Then Pharaoh said to him, “Get away from me; take care never to see my face again, for on the day you see my face you shall die.” 29 Moses said, “As you say! I will not see your face again.”
Last week’s sermon was titled “Let’s Get Ready to Rumble, Part I.” And I used more war, battle, and fighting metaphors than I have ever used in one sermon, maybe even in one year of sermons. And I only covered the first four rounds of a ten-round fight. As I said last week, I’ll say again: When we come to this portion of the book of Exodus, we’ve come to the main event; we’ve come to a rumble between the (g/G)ods to the death with only one winner. This week, we have Part II and cover rounds five, six, seven, eight, and nine. In addition to using war, battle, and fighting metaphors, I also hope to bring out the softer, compassionate heart of God behind all this fighting. God fights, we’ll see, because he loves. Let’s pray, asking God to prepare us to study this passage. “Dear heavenly Father . . .”
Introduction
For the last few weeks, I’ve been a middle school cross county coach for a local school. Cross country, as most of you know, involves running. And more running. And more running. To help the athletes learn to love sport and training and competition but not to burn out by simply running running running, I would often end practice with I called “The Feats of Strength.” The Feats of Strength were what you might imagine, competitions among the team to see who could do the most push-ups or could hang in the pull-up position for the longest or do a plank for the longest. One time, we ended the running part of practice near a playground and had a competition to see who could do the monkey bars the longest—this sort of thing.
Besides cultivating a love of competition, The Feats of Strength also provided a source of humor that I tapped often. I would talk about how when we stroll up to the start line of a race in our short shorts and our tiny tank tops, all the other middle school teams will be afraid that they are actually racing the high school weightlifting team.
Now, when you dissect humor, a joke usually dies. Still, the humor, as I fashioned it, turned on the assumption that, despite all our feats of strength, no one was actually going to confuse us with anything other than a bunch of distance runners. And that’s okay, because we were a pretty good group of distance runners.
As we have been reading the story of Exodus over the last month, it seems to me that it’s as though Pharoah has walked up to the starting line of a race, and he thinks he looks huge—he thinks he has a great name, a great name that all the world should behold in reverence and awe—but slowly, round after round after round of battle with the Lord God should have begun to have taught him that he ain’t such a big deal, that his name isn’t so great. What we see in Pharoah is the same dynamic we can see in all of us: When we don’t esteem the name of the Lord as great, we’ll esteem other, lesser names as great. And the name we most often esteem as great, is our own.
There are two aspects to the greatness of God’s name that our passage brings out, which I want to explore. The first aspect of God that makes his name great is that he defeats all his enemies. That defeat was underway last week, and so it’s where we’ll start this week.
God’s name is great because he defeats all his enemies.
If you are new to the Bible and our church, if I was to describe to you what is taking place in Exodus, at least a large part of Exodus, I’d say this: The Lord is entering into a hostage negotiation with the most powerful man of the most powerful nation on earth. God’s people have been enslaved in Egypt by Pharoah, and God is going to free them. But Pharoah, at first, doesn’t know the Lord. Back in chapter 5, when Moses first meets Pharoah and says on behalf of God, “Let my people go,” Pharoah then responds, “Who is the LORD, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the LORD, and moreover, I will not let Israel go” (Ex. 5:2). So, the Lord introduces himself to Pharoah, shall we say, through a series of rounds of plagues. First, the water of the Nile turned to blood, then frogs hopped on to the land and then died and stank, then gnats nibble every inch of skin not covered, and then flies swarmed so thick they couldn’t be swatted away. That was Round 1, 2, 3, and 4. This week come rounds 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9, and, as we joked around the office, when it plagues, it pours.
Round 5 – Livestock
The fifth plague attacks Pharoah’s livestock. It’s the second plague with a distinction made between the livestock of the Egyptians and the livestock of the Hebrews. If the Egyptians want to be saved, they can be. When the bell rings to start this round, Moses tells Pharoah death is coming tomorrow. Still, Pharoah won’t release the hostages. So tomorrow comes and so does death. Imagine huge fields and farms full of the noise of livestock now silent, yet over with the Hebrews, it’s as noisy as ever. I won’t read that part, but I’ll draw your attention to 9:7, which says, “And Pharaoh sent, and behold, not one of the livestock of Israel was dead. But the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, and he did not let the people go.” Despite all the defeats in all the previous rounds, Pharoah can’t believe that God would do what he said, so he sends servants to look at the Israelite ghettos and beholds, as the text says, God kept his word. The round is over, and Pharoah goes back to his corner.
Round 6 – Boils
Next comes the boils. I’m going to go more quickly than I did last week. But the passage is short here, so I’ll read it all.
9:8 And the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, “Take handfuls of soot from the kiln, and let Moses throw them in the air in the sight of Pharaoh. 9:9 It shall become fine dust over all the land of Egypt, and become boils breaking out in sores on man and beast throughout all the land of Egypt.”9:10 So they took soot from the kiln and stood before Pharaoh. And Moses threw it in the air, and it became boils breaking out in sores on man and beast. 9:11 And the magicians could not stand before Moses because of the boils, for the boils came upon the magicians and upon all the Egyptians. 9:12But the LORD hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he did not listen to them, as the LORD had spoken to Moses.
Notice how the plague begins. Moses gets soot from the kiln and throws it in the air in the sight of Pharoah, we’re told (v. 8). That must of have been a scene. A kiln was a furnace for baking bricks, which was the job of the Hebrew slaves. So, the very kilns that the slaves would have used to bake bricks, Moses throws that dust in the face of Pharoah. “Your judgment,” God says, “now thrown back upon you, only worse.”
This passage also has the last mention of the magicians. Before the magicians were able to copycat the miracles of Pharoah by their secret arts, but here, not only are they unable to copycat the miracles, but they are so personally afflicted, they hide. The magicians now know they are in the presence of real power, of one who truly has a great name, one who can defeat them. They know they are only skinny runners, not weightlifters.
Round 7 – Hail
Before the sermon, we read the passage about the hail, the seventh round of this fight. I remember when I was a child I had a distinct longing to see really, really big hail. I remember one day it hailed when I was about five, and I went outside and gathered the ice pellets the size of my thumbnail into a Ziplock baggie and put it in the freezer. As an adult, I’m not so sure I ever want to see really, really big hail, at least not up close. Really, really big hail will ruin everything you own and maybe even kill you. Make a fist and look down at your fist. Imagine balls of ice as big as your fist punching from the heavens upon the earth. Now look at vv. 13–17 again.
9:13 Then the LORD said to Moses, “Rise up early in the morning and present yourself before Pharaoh and say to him, ‘Thus says the LORD, the God of the Hebrews, “Let my people go, that they may serve me. 9:14 For this time I will send all my plagues on you yourself, and on your servants and your people, so that you may know that there is none like me in all the earth. 9:15 For by now I could have put out my hand and struck you and your people with pestilence, and you would have been cut off from the earth. 9:16 But for this purpose I have raised you up, to show you my power, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth. 9:17 You are still exalting yourself against my people and will not let them go.
To paraphrase: “You, Pharoah, keep lifting yourself up. You keep thinking your name is great. But it’s my name that has no rivals. And so, for this purpose I raised you up, so that in you—your glory and greatness—when I defeat you, and you give up, then all the world will know that only my name is great when I defeat my enemies.” How does Pharoah respond to this plague? Look at vv. 27–32.
9:27 Then Pharaoh sent and called Moses and Aaron and said to them, “This time I have sinned; the LORD is in the right, and I and my people are in the wrong. 9:28 Plead with the LORD, for there has been enough of God’s thunder and hail. I will let you go, and you shall stay no longer.” 9:29Moses said to him, “As soon as I have gone out of the city, I will stretch out my hands to the LORD. The thunder will cease, and there will be no more hail, so that you may know that the earth is the LORD’s. 9:30 But as for you and your servants, I know that you do not yet fear the LORD God.” 9:31 (The flax and the barley were struck down, for the barley was in the ear and the flax was in bud. 9:32 But the wheat and the emmer were not struck down, for they are late in coming up.)
Hummm. It sounds so good, right? “This time I have sinned; the LORD is in the right, and I and my people are in the wrong” (v. 27). The Lord does send the plague away but look what he tells Pharoah in v. 30, “But as for you and your servants, I know that you do not yet fear the LORD God.” The Lord can see through all your excuses. Do you know that? You can’t give God baloney and have him fooled.
I, however, can be naïve. This one time, years ago in another city, I was trying to help a guy who was at times homeless and other times not. One time he came to my house and wanted help getting his car back, which he said was taken, and if I could just dive him to his car, he’d get it back. So we go. At first the car is still gone, but then we see it driving on another street, so my friend yells at me to engage in a chase, and I’m like Woah, that’s not happening. But still I slowly follow, and as we do, we come to a corner in the city where a police officer has someone else pulled over on the curb. My friend yells out the window, “Officer, that man took my car; you have to get it back.” The officer calmly but sternly replies, “I’m not helping you get your car back because you loaned your car out for crack.” My friend looks down. He looks over at me. I look back bewildered and said something like, “Yeah, we’re done for today.”
The Lord looks at Pharoah and says, “You’re using all the right words, but I know in your heart you still think you have an angle, and your ‘repentance’ is only transactional to get what you want. You, Pharoah, still think your name is great, not mine.”
Round 8 & 9 – Locusts & Darkness
Then in chapter 10 comes two more rounds, the locusts and the darkness. Both cover the land. I won’t read any of this for the sake of time, but I will point your attention to just one verse. In 10:7, Pharaoh’s own servants say to him, “How long shall this man be a snare to us? Let the men go, that they may serve the LORD their God. Do you not yet understand that Egypt is ruined?” There’s a mutiny. Yet Pharoah’s heart remains hard. Then comes the darkness. This summer our family went to Indian Echo Caverns for the first time. In the tour of the cave, they ask you to close your eyes, then they turn out all the lights, and then ask you to open your eyes. And there is no difference. Everything is pitch black in a literal sense. So it was in part of Egypt for three days.
The Idols of Egypt
In the book of Numbers, a book that comes a little bit after Exodus but continues the same story, there’s a section I want to read to you because it gives a helpful summary of what’s happening throughout all these rounds of plagues and how we should understand them. I’m going to read it to you from a different version of the Bible, a paraphrase really.
They marched out of Rameses the day after the Passover. It was the fifteenth day of the first month. They marched out heads high and confident. The Egyptians, busy burying their firstborn whom God had killed, watched them go. God had exposed the nonsense of their gods. (Num. 33:3–4 The Message)
Think about that line. In the events of the Exodus—the war and battle and plagues and the ten-round fight—what is God doing? He is exposing the nonsense of gods who were not God. He is flexing the greatness of his name and defeating his enemies.
We often think of these plagues as strange and arbitrary, but they are not. One resource I came across has a chart that pairs each plague with the god or gods that were specifically made nonsense of in each plague. For example, when God turned the Nile to blood, God defeated the god Hapi and goddess Isis who both oversaw the Nile. In the plague of frogs, God defeated the goddess Heqet, a god imagined as having a frog head and oversaw fertility. And when you hear that, you should hear the nonsense of the real God sending legions of frogs into the very bedrooms of Pharoah, which leads me to suspect the goddess over fertility was not causing much fertility during those days. And on and on we could go through each plague, including the gods who oversaw the sun and are defeated in darkness for three days (See the chart in Roy B. Zuck, Basic Bible Interpretation, 83.).
Pharoah’s Hard Heart
I would love to spend more time talking about the hardness of Pharaoh’s heart. Many of you asked me about that last week, and rightly so. Over the course of chapters 4–14, 19 verses speak to the hardening of Pharoah’s heart. In two weeks, I’ll be preaching the passage in chapter 14, which has the last statements about his heart. I’ll try to fit comments into that sermon there.
God’s name is great because he makes enemies his friends.
As we close the sermon, I want to highlight something more important for us today. This is not a mere history lesson. I’ve been saying that part of the greatness of God’s name is that he defeats all his enemies. Let’s talk more about that.
It’s common for us to speak about some illnesses or another and our response to that illness in the language war, battles, and fights, and defeats and victory. We might describe a battle with cancer, a battle or a fight that a person might win or lose a war. I think we speak of it this way because, for those in the midst of it, the struggle really does feel like a life and death battle—because it might be. But that language also helps remind us why we fight, why there is a war: Love. People fight against cancer and other illnesses because they love something or someone (or many someones). And in the midst of all this fighting that God does with Pharoah and the magicians and the Egyptians, it could be possible to lose sight of something critical, namely, God fights because he loves. God makes nonsense of all the gods of Egypt because he loves. You see, God’s name is not only great because he defeats his enemies, but his name is great because God delights to make his enemies his friends.
I skipped a verse or two when I read that section about the plague of hail. I skipped them on purpose so I could read them now. Look with me at 9:20–21.
Then whoever feared the word of the LORD among the servants of Pharaoh hurried his slaves and his livestock into the houses, but whoever did not pay attention to the word of the LORD left his slaves and his livestock in the field.
What does the passage say? Whoever feared the word of the Lord, could be saved. Whoever esteemed the worth and value and greatness of the Lord, rather than being crushed, could be saved. Indeed, when we get to next week’s passage, there is a line in Exodus 12:38 that says when the Israelites leave Egypt, they actually leave as a “mixed” company, meaning that not only did God free Israelites from the slavery of Egypt, but God freed Egyptians from slavery in Egypt. Think of the forgiveness that must be available in the heart of God for this to be true. There is more forgiveness in God for his true children than we could ever exhaust. I know this to be the soft, tender heart of God because I read it in the Bible but also because I’ve experienced it.
I grew up in a wonderful Christian home where I was taught about the love of God in Jesus. But I think it’s fair to say that I only embraced the externals of the faith. I just went to church because we went to church. When I got to college, I didn’t have to go to church, so many times I didn’t. And I began to continue to do in a more intentional way what I had already been doing as a high school student. I began to build my life on three identities: academics, athletes, and a relationship with a girlfriend. Over the course of a year each of these began to unravel. My world fell apart. When athletics in college would fall down, I’d try harder to fix it, to get stronger or faster or whatever. Then engineering classes would crush me, so I’d work harder to fix that mess. I’d stay up late and get up early to study. When the relationship was falling apart, I’d try to fix that too. I served all three with all my might, but all three were letting me down. I was hurt, confused, and exhausted. It was like, shall we say, God was making nonsense of all my gods. And I’m so thankful he did.
I won’t tell you everything that happened, but a number of key events took place that put me in contact with real, genuine and joyful Christians—Christians who knew Jesus. I started reading the Bible for the first time and understood the truth of Romans 5:8,
God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Not only can God defeat his enemies, but he can also make enemies his friends. I know some of you are new to the church and new to Jesus, so I want to stress this because you might not know it. God loves you enough to free you from your slavery to idols. And really, I say that same message to the Christians who are here. Perhaps your heart has gone back, in a sense to former idols, the esteeming of names that are not actually all that great. Today is a day to be free. Just ask for God’s help, have reverence for the greatness of his name more than all the others in your life, and accept his forgiveness. Let’s pray . . .
Family Discussion Questions
Which plague, so far, feels like the worst? Why?
If you were alive during the plagues, how do you think that would have been a different experience than simply reading about the plagues?
Why is it good for us to know that God can defeat his enemies?
Not only does God defeat his enemies, but he loves them. What has God done to offer forgiveness to his enemies?
An idol can be anything we trust other than the real God to give us joy, meaning, and purpose. What are some idols you have in your life and how might God be speaking to you to put these idols away and trust him instead?
