8 The Ten Plagues [Exodus 7:6–12:51]
The Bible passage: [Exodus 7:6–12:51]
The Story:
When Moses went back to Egypt, God told him to go to Pharaoh and demand that Pharaoh let the Israelite people go free. God told him that Moses’ brother Aaron would be with him.
Moses was 80 years old at this time and Aaron was 83.
Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and told him that God said to let their people go free.
Pharaoh demanded to know who this God was and why he should listen to Him. Aaron threw his staff down on the ground and it became a snake. Pharaoh then told his sorcerers and magicians to do the same thing. They each threw their staff down and they also became snakes, but Aaron’s staff swallowed all of their staffs.
At this point begins a cycle of Moses telling Pharaoh to let the people go, Pharaoh refusing, God sending a plague, Pharaoh saying they can go, then Pharaoh changing his mind.
The first nine plagues were these:
1. Plague of Blood - God turned all of the water in Egypt into blood, including water that was in pots.
2. Plague of Frogs – God sent frogs to cover the land of Egypt.
3. Plague of Gnats – God turned all of the dust of the ground to gnats. The gnats were on people and animals everywhere.
4. Plague of Flies – God sent a swarm of flies.
5. Plague on Livestock – God sent a plague on the livestock of the Egyptians. Horses, donkeys, camels, cattle, sheep, and goats died all across the land of Egypt. BUT God protected the livestock of the Israelite people living in Goshen.
6. Plague of Boils – God caused festering boils to break out on the people and animals of Egypt.
7. Plague of Hail – God sent hail on the land of Egypt and it killed people, animals, trees, and crops. Again, God protected the Israelites in Goshen.
8. Plague of Locusts – God sent swarms of locusts that ate most of the vegetation in Egypt.
9. Plague of Darkness – God caused a thick darkness to cover the land of Egypt for three days. It was so dark that no one could see anything or move about. The darkness did not cover the Israelites in Goshen. I can imagine some of the Israelites standing at the edge of the darkness and reaching their hand into the darkness and not being able to see their hand, even though their arm in the light was visible.
After those nine plagues, Pharaoh’s heart was still hardened, and he would not let the people go.
The tenth plague was so severe that it finally caused Pharaoh to let the people go.
God warned Pharaoh (through Moses and Aaron) that an angel of death would pass through the entire land of Egypt at midnight and that every firstborn son in Egypt would die. From the firstborn son of Pharaoh, down to the firstborn son of the lowest servant, the firstborn sons of all of the cattle and other animals.
God told the people of Israel to take the blood of a lamb and put in on the sides and top of their doorframes as a sign to the angel of death to “pass over” their homes and spare their children. They were to cook and eat the lamb that night. They were also to eat bread made without yeast (leaven) as part of the meal because there would not be time to let bread with yeast rise.
What God promised did occur and all of the firstborn of Egypt died.
Pharaoh finally relented and let the people of Israel go.
For Israel, God established the Feast of Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread to commemorate their protection from the angel of death.
The Lessons:
- We’ll start with obedience. Disobeying God is sin. It comes into play in a couple of ways in this story. First, God expected Moses and Aaron to cross Pharoah in a number of ways, possibly at great harm to themselves. Second, God gave the people specific instructions for sacrificing the Passover lamb. If any had not obeyed, they would have lost their firstborn sons. Because they obeyed God, they received God’s protection.
- A lot of things in the Old Testament give us a picture of what is to come in the New Testament. These pictures of what is to come are sometimes called “foreshadowing” or a “type”. Passover is one of those things. The Passover lamb was sacrificed to protect the Hebrew children from death. Other sacrifices were given to pay the penalty for sins. These sacrifices were made on a regular basis. We’ll talk more about it later, but Jesus came and died to be one final sacrifice for the sins of mankind and to give us eternal life with Him (protecting us from eternal death). Just as the Hebrew people had to spread the blood of the lamb on their doorframes to accept the protection from the death angel, we have to accept the gift that Jesus gave us in sacrificing Himself to protect us from eternal death.
Next: 9 Crossing the Red Sea [Exodus 13:17–14:31]
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