16 A HARDENED HEART

With plagues numbers five and six we reach the halfway point through the plagues. It may interest you to know that each of the ten plagues mocks and ridicules an Egyptian god. God was carefully and meticulously showing His people and the Egyptians that He is superior to all human-made, created or imagined gods. Here is a list the 10 Plagues and the Corresponding Egyptian Gods or goddesses. I will simply list them briefly. You can find them on line on the Internet if you want in a google search.

1. Water Turned to Blood - Hapi, the Egyptian god of the Nile.
2. Frogs Coming From the Nile  - Heket, the Egyptian goddess of fertility, water, and renewal.
3. Lice From the Earth's Dust - Geb, the Egyptian god of the Earth.
4. Swarms of Flies - Khepri, the Egyptian god of creation, movement of the sun, and rebirth.
5. Death of Cattle and Livestock - Hathor, the Egyptian goddess of love and protection. 
6. Ashes Turned to Boils and Sores - Isis, the Egyptian goddess of medicine and peace.
7. Hail in the Form of Fire - Nut, the Egyptian goddess of the sky.
8. Locus Sent From the Sky - Seth, the Egyptian god of storms and disorder.
9. Three Days of Complete Darkness - Ra, the Egyptian sun god.
10. Death of the Firstborn - Pharaoh, the ultimate power of Egypt.

God wants us to clearly understand that He is greater than all of them. It was true in Moses’ day in Egypt and it is true in our day. Materialism, sensuality, money, pleasure, position, authority, and every other idol or god people serve today fit into the same category.

As Exodus 9 begins, Moses gives a warning of another plague, namely, the infectious disease that killed the cattle of Egypt. When Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, after he had seemed to relent under the former plague, then Moses is sent to tell him another one is coming. Perhaps this was to remind Pharaoh of the earlier plagues as though he had forgotten them! Moses gives Pharaoh a very fair opportunity to prevent it: “Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Go to Pharaoh and say to him, “This is what the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, says: ‘Let my people go, so that they may worship me’”’” (1). This was still the demand. God will have Israel released; Pharaoh opposes it, and the trial is, whose word will stand? See how jealous God is for His people. When the year of God’s redemption has come, He will give away Egypt rather than surrender His people; that kingdom will be ruined, rather than Israel not be delivered.

See how reasonable God’s demands are. Whatever He calls for, it is but His own: They are my people, therefore let them go. He describes the plague that would come, if Pharaoh refused, in verses 2 & 3. “If you refuse to let them go and continue to hold them back, the hand of the Lord will bring a terrible plague on your livestock in the field—on your horses, donkeys and camels and on your cattle, sheep and goats.” This time God uses His own hand, not Moses’ or Aaron’s hand. The hand of the Lord immediately, without the stretching out of Aaron’s hand, is on the cattle, many of which, some of all kinds, die by a sort of pestilence or infectious disease. This was a great loss to the owners. The Egyptians had made Israel poor, and now God would make them poor. The hand of God is to be acknowledged even in the sickness and death of cattle, or other damage sustained in them; for He sees even every sparrow that falls to the ground. As an evidence of the special hand of God in it, and of His particular favor to His own people, He foretells that none of Israelites’ cattle would die, though they breathed in the same air and drank of the same water with the Egyptians’ cattle, yet God would protect the cattle of His people. “But the Lord will make a distinction between the livestock of Israel and that of Egypt, so that no animal belonging to the Israelites will die” (4). When God’s judgments are occurring, though the judgments may fall on both the righteous and the wicked, yet God makes such a distinction that they do not have the same effect on the one as they do to the other. God makes a difference. “Has the Lord struck her as he struck down those who struck her? Has she been killed as those were killed who killed her?” (Isaiah 27:7).

The planned involvement of God is to be acknowledged with thankfulness in the life of the cattle, for He preserves man and beast as Psalm 36:6 says, “Your righteousness is like the highest mountains, your justice like the great deep. You, Lord, preserve both people and animals.” And, to strengthen the impact of the warning, the time is fixed in advance. Verse 5 says, “The Lord set a time and said, ‘Tomorrow the Lord will do this in the land.”” This will happen tomorrow. We know not what any day will bring and therefore we cannot say what we will do tomorrow, but it is not so with God; He knows.

The plague occurs just as God said. The cattle died as verse 6 says, “And the next day the Lord did it: All the livestock of the Egyptians died, but not one animal belonging to the Israelites died.” In the last verse of Jonah we see that God was concerned even for the cattle of Nineveh. Jonah 4:11 says, “And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals?” Can we be moved by the fact that innocent creatures are made subject to pain by the sins of man, being affected to serve man’s wickedness and to share in his punishment as in the universal flood in Noah’s time? Creation suffers because of sinful man and the Egyptians’ cattle suffer because of the stubborn hard heart of Pharaoh. Romans 8:20 - 22 say, “For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.” Pharaoh and the Egyptians sinned; but the animals, what had they done? Yet they are plagued. Jeremiah 12:4 says, “How long will the land lie parched and the grass in every field be withered? Because those who live in it are wicked, the animals and birds have perished.  Moreover, the people are saying, ‘He will not see what happens to us.’”

If the Egyptians worshipped their cattle, it would make the meaning or message of this plague all the more understandable and dreadful to them. It is possible that the Israelites learned from the Egyptians to make a god of a calf. Whether that is where the idea for Israel’s golden calf originated or not, the plague described here illustrates that whatever we choose to make our idol, God may remove from us, or cause us to regret having loved it. God does us a favor when He removes idols because He is not allowing us to trust in anything or anyone who is not trustworthy. That is a favor. This seems to be Isaiah’s point described in Isaiah 19:1. “A prophecy against Egypt: See, the Lord rides on a swift cloud and is coming to Egypt. The idols of Egypt tremble before him, and the hearts of the Egyptians melt with fear.”

As in the earlier plague, as we noted, God makes a distinction between the cattle of the Egyptians and the Israelites’ cattle, according to the advance warning word of God. Pharaoh, soften your heard heart! “And the next day the Lord did it: All the livestock of the Egyptians died, but not one animal belonging to the Israelites died. Pharaoh investigated and found that not even one of the animals of the Israelites had died. Yet his heart was unyielding and he would not let the people go” (6, 7). Does God take care of oxen? Yes, he does; His providence extends itself to the most common of His creatures. But it is more importantly written for our sakes, that, trusting in God, and making Him our refuge, we may not be afraid of “the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday. A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you” (Psalm 91:6, 7). Pharaoh sent to see if the cattle of the Israelites were infected, not to satisfy his conscience, but only to gratify his curiosity to see if God did what Moses said He would do. It is also somewhat possible that he had an evil desire to replenish his own losses out of their stocks. He was not inclined to change his mind and so the report brought to him made no real impression on him, but, can you believe this? On the contrary, his heart was further hardened. To those that are willfully and intentionally blind, even those methods of conviction which are usually designed to preserve life prove to be an influence toward death. The part of the story of the plague that discusses the death to the cattle ends with Pharaoh still stubbornly refusing to yield. I want to learn everything I can from the story of Pharaoh. I do not want to think I am correct when I am wrong. If I am wrong, I want to know I am wrong.

Let’s turn our attention to the plague of festering boils. When the plague that killed the cattle did not move the heart of Pharaoh, God sent a plague that seized the Egyptians own bodies. If lessor judgments do not do their work, God will send greater. Let us therefore humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God, and go quickly to meet Him so that His anger may be turned away from us.

God directed that a special physical signal would be given by which this plague was called on. It was the sprinkling of warm ashes from the furnace, not from the ash heap, but from the furnace. The ashes from the furnace may have still been warm. This may have hinted at the heating of the air with such an infection as should produce sore boils in the bodies of the Egyptians, which would be irritating, bothersome, painful and humiliating. Verses 8 - 10 say, “Then the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, ‘Take handfuls of soot from a furnace and have Moses toss it into the air in the presence of Pharaoh. It will become fine dust over the whole land of Egypt, and festering boils will break out on people and animals throughout the land.’ So they took soot from a furnace and stood before Pharaoh. Moses tossed it into the air, and festering boils broke out on people and animals.” When the ashes were scattered in the air, immediately a burning ash-produced dust came down out of the air, which blistered wherever it fell. Sometimes God shows men their sin in their punishment. The Egyptians had oppressed Israel in the furnaces, and now the ashes of the furnace are made as terrible to them as the Egyptian task-masters had been to the Israelites.

This plague itself was very grievous—a wide-spread breaking out of painful sores would be so, especially to the nice and delicate, but these sores had a meaning as well as pain. Physically they may have been inflammations, like Job’s. This is made such an impression that later Moses would refer to it this way, “The Lord will afflict you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors, festering sores and the itch, from which you cannot be cured” (Deuteronomy 28:27). Was this some new disease never heard of before? Perhaps.

The magicians could not, would not, try to duplicate this miracle. They themselves were struck with these boils. Verse 11 says, “The magicians could not stand before Moses because of the boils that were on them and on all the Egyptians.” In this way they too were punished, possibly for helping to harden Pharaoh’s heart. Paul the apostle had a similar experience and Acts 3:8-10 tells us how Paul handled it. Paul may have thought of this plague as he decisively dealt with Elymas. “But Elymas the sorcerer (for that is what his name means) opposed them and tried to turn the proconsul from the faith. Then Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked straight at Elymas and said, ‘You are a child of the devil and an enemy of everything that is right! You are full of all kinds of deceit and trickery. Will you never stop perverting the right ways of the Lord?’” Man or woman of God today, God will severely deal with those that strengthen the hands of the wicked in their wickedness. You serve the same God that Moses and Paul served. Don’t be afraid to fast, pray and believe God to deliver the “slaves” in your area of ministry.

The defiant magicians of Egypt who had earlier performed similar acts as Moses did, now are reduced to being victims of the festering boils. It is poor thinking and a very bad idea to joke with God’s judgments; it is more dangerous than playing with fire. In this way the magicians were shamed in the presence of their admirers. How weak were their enchantments, which could not so much as protect themselves! The devil will give no protection to those that are in partnership with him. In this way the magicians were driven from the field. Their power was restrained before with the plague of gnats back in Exodus chapter 8 “But when the magicians tried to produce gnats by their secret arts, they could not. Since the gnats were on people and animals everywhere”(Exodus 8:18). Nevertheless, here they are again in chapter 9 still trying to oppose God, confront Moses, and confirm Pharaoh in his unbelief. Now, at length, they are forced to retreat, and cannot stand before Moses. Paul the apostle refers  to this in 2 Timothy 3:8, 9, even giving us the names of those who opposed Moses, “Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these teachers oppose the truth. They are men of depraved minds, who, as far as the faith is concerned, are rejected. But they will not get very far because, as in the case of those men, their folly will be clear to everyone.” Paul says that their folly will be clear to everyone. As you pray and God’s people are delivered from whatever has mastered them, God will open the eyes of those about you and they too will see clearly how foolish it is to harden a heart as Pharaoh stubbornly did.