Let My People Go: The Ten Plagues

The great river of Egypt runs red. Fish float on the surface. People dig in the sand along the banks, looking for something, anything, they can drink. And in his palace, the king of Egypt folds his arms and says no.

The people of Israel have been slaves in Egypt for generations, making bricks for Pharaoh's cities. God has heard their cry, and he has sent Moses, with his brother Aaron beside him, to stand before the king. The message is simple. “Thus says the Lord: let my people go, that they may serve me.” Pharaoh's answer is just as simple. “Who is the Lord, that I should obey him? I do not know the Lord.” So Aaron throws down his staff, and it becomes a snake. Pharaoh's magicians do the same with theirs. But Aaron's staff swallows their staffs. Pharaoh is not impressed. His heart is hard.

At the edge of the Nile, early in the morning, Aaron stretches out the staff, and the water turns to blood. For seven days the river stinks. Then come the frogs. Frogs in the fields. Frogs in the houses. Frogs in the bedrooms, in the ovens, in the bread bowls. Pharaoh begs Moses to pray them away, and promises to let the people go. The frogs die, in great stinking heaps. And Pharaoh changes his mind. Then the dust of the ground becomes gnats, crawling on people and animals alike. This time the magicians try to copy it, and they cannot. They go to Pharaoh with a warning: “This is the finger of God.” He will not listen.

Swarms of flies fill the houses of Egypt. But not in Goshen, where the Israelites live. God is drawing a line, so that everyone can see the difference. A sickness sweeps through Egypt's horses, camels and cattle, but Israel's herds are spared. Painful boils break out on people and animals, and the magicians cannot even stand before Moses. Every time, the same pattern. Trouble comes. Pharaoh bargains. The trouble lifts. Pharaoh hardens his heart. The book of Exodus says that sometimes Pharaoh hardened his own heart, and sometimes that the Lord hardened it. Readers have talked for centuries about how those two belong together. Either way, the answer stays no.

Then the sky turns against Egypt. Hail crashes down with fire flashing through it, the worst storm the land has ever seen. Some of Pharaoh's own officials have learned to listen, and they bring their servants and animals indoors in time. Next, an east wind blows all day and all night, and in the morning it brings locusts. They cover the ground until it is black, and they eat every green thing the hail has left. Pharaoh's officials plead with him. “Do you not yet know that Egypt is ruined?” And then, darkness. Thick darkness, for three days. People cannot see each other. Nobody moves. But in every Israelite home, there is light.

Pharaoh is furious. “Get away from me. Never see my face again.” Moses answers him quietly. “You have spoken well. I will not see your face again.” But before he goes, he gives one last warning. One more plague is coming, the heaviest of all. At midnight, the firstborn in every Egyptian household will die, and there will be a great cry across the land, unlike any before or since. Yet among the Israelites, not even a dog will bark. Then, says Moses, your officials will bow down and beg us to leave. And Moses walks out of the palace, hot with anger. Pharaoh's heart is still hard.

To feel the weight of these signs, it helps to know what the Nile meant to Egypt. The Greek historian Herodotus called Egypt the gift of the river. Almost no rain falls there. Every crop, every loaf, every herd depended on the Nile and its yearly flood, which Egyptians linked with their gods. Later in Exodus, God says that he is bringing judgment on all the gods of Egypt. The plagues struck the very things Egypt trusted most: the river, the land, the herds and the sun.

The Ten Plagues. You'll find them in Exodus, chapters 7 to 11. Again and again, God gave Pharaoh the chance to listen, and again and again he chose not to. So here's the question to carry with you. When God keeps speaking to you about something, do you soften, or do you dig in?