In chapter 10 of Exodus, God reveals that it was He Who hardened the hearts of Pharaoh's officials. He also reveals another reason why: "...so that I may perform these miraculous signs of Mine among them that you may tell your children and grandchildren how I dealt harshly with the Egyptians and how I performed My signs among them, and that you may know that I am the Lord."
Pharaoh's officials tried to speak some sense to the president of Egypt after Moses and Aaron delivered the latest threat (locusts everywhere): "HOw long will this man be a snare to us? Let the people go, so that they may worship the Lord their God. Do you not yet realize that Egypt is ruined?"
Then Moses and Aaron were summoned back to Pharaoh. I wonder who did the summoning. Some goofball powernut or some soldiers? Or maybe both. I wonder what Moses and Aaron were thinking as they walked back to where Pharaoh was...
"Go, worship the Lord your God," said Pharaoh. "But just who will be going?"
Moses answered him. (Isn't that different? Moses was doing some talking finally!!) "We will go with our young and old, with our sons and daughters, and with our flocks and herds, because we are to celebrate a festival to the Lord."
Pharaoh again got religious and told Moses and Aaron that he had sinned against the Lord. "Now forgive my sin once more and pray to the Lord your God to take this deadly plague away from me."
These crazy plagues were one of a kind catastrophies that were devestating Egypt. I wonder how other world leaders viewed these circumstances when they heard about them...
The Lord took away the locusts with a strong wind that carried them out and into the Red Sea. But Pharaoh's heart hardened once again. The next plague was darkness -- "darkness that can be felt." What kind of darkness is that? That is the perfect gothic music album title, isn't it? Darkness That Can Be Felt -- the new album by Gothic Undertones available everywhere on May 22.
"No one could see anyone else or leave his place for three days. Yet all the Israelites had light in the places where they lived." What?! Can you imagine that? Darkness covered the land like a blanket, but there were pockets where light was shining in? That is unreal! I would love to have seen that (from an outside observer's standpoint, of course -- maybe during on of Heaven's "History Nights," where God flattens a cloud and projects a high definition image against it to show us "what really happened" on November 22, 1963, and this night-at-day part of the Exodus, etc).
Pharaoh tells Moses they can go -- women, children, men, but no flocks. Moses said, "You must allow us to have sacrifices and burnt offerings to present to the Lord our God. Our livestock too must go with us; not a hoof is to be left behind. We have to use some of them in worshiping the Lord our God, and until we get there we will not know what we are to use to worship the Lord." What Moses said was true, but it was also hiding the fact that the Israelites were leaving town ... for good. It shows that telling the truth is not always revealing every single detail. I think I fall into the trap sometimes of "wanting to be real" so much that I share TOO MUCH INFORMATION, and it's not always good. I think the Bible is showing us here (and other places, like when Rahab the harlot lied to her people to save the Israelite spies) that the Law was given to man to help him live, not to force him to die and control him. David and his men ate showbread from the temple. Jesus and His disciples ate grain they picked on the Sabbath. Moses hid the truth from Pharaoh. Sometimes wisdom will have us divide the facts and the outcome is not as simple as the "letter of the law."
Posted by Doug Van Pelt at May 18, 2007 09:17 AM