This section covers plagues 2-7:
Frogs 🐸
Gnats/sand flies 🦟
Swarms/Flies 😵💫🪰
Livestock disease 🐑🐂🫏🐪🐎
Boils 🤕🦠
Hail & Fire 🧊🔥
Plague 2 – Frogs 🐸
Meet Heqet:
From Encyclopedia Britannica: “Heqet was depicted in the form of a frog, as a frog-headed woman, or as a woman with the body of a frog. The worship of the frog was one of the oldest cults in Egypt. Frog gods and frog goddesses were thought to have had a vital role in the creation of the world. Just prior to the annual flooding of the Nile River, frogs appeared in great numbers, which possibly led to their association with fecundity and with the beginning of life in the world.”
The Egyptians liked frogs. Loved them. Worshiped them even. They wore frog amulets and jewelry. They made frog wands to protect pregnant women and newborns. They decorated with frog motifs on jars and jugs. Perhaps this was a plague of “too much of good thing.” Whatever it may have meant to the Egyptians, at the very least, the God of the Hebrews was showing His control over Heqet and her hopper friends.
Plague 2 Technical Stats:
Pharaoh warned? Yes
Who stretches out the hand? Aaron
Rod involved? No
Magicians: replicate the miracle because why not a few more frogs?
Pharaoh’s Response: ask YHWH to remove the frogs and the people can go do a sacrifice
Plague 3 – Gnats (sand flies?) 🦟
Some translations have this as lice. This is a decent guess but the Hebrew is not specific. The word is ken and it carries the idea of fastening and may infer a stinging insect- like a mosquito or biting fly that fastens its mouth on its victim. If you’ve ever been bitten by a horse fly or other biting insect, you know what a plague they can be. Certainly lice “fasten” onto a host. Whatever it was it plagued both people and animals.
Plague 3 Technical Stats:
Pharaoh warned? No
Who stretches out the hand? Aaron
Rod involved? Yes, Aaron’s.
Magicians: Try but cannot replicate the miracle. Tell Pharaoh it is the “finger of God.”
Pharaoh’s Response: hard heart
Plague 4 – Swarms/Flies 😵💫🪰
Up to this point, the plagues have affected the Israelites as much as the Egyptians. But no more. From now on, the land of Goshen will be exempt from the plagues. (Might not be a bad idea to let that fact inform your eschatology. Just sayin.)
There’s also an interesting bit in Moses’ conversation with Pharaoh that we need to reach back into Genesis to grasp.
“And Pharaoh called Moses and Aaron, and he said, “Go, sacrifice to your God in the land.” And Moses said, “To do so is not right, because we will sacrifice to Yahweh our God a thing detestable to the Egyptians. Look, if we sacrifice before their eyes the thing detestable to the Egyptians, will they not stone us? We will go a journey of three days into the desert, and we will sacrifice to Yahweh our God according to what he says to us.” Exodus 8:25-27 LEB
The sacrifice that was detestable to the Egyptians was the ram. Meet Khnum:
Egyptians worshiped a ram-headed god named Khnum. Therefore, any sacrifice or eating of rams, sheep, and in some places goats was considered blasphemous.
Remember this?👇🏼
“Then Joseph said to his brothers and to his father’s household, “I will go up and report to Pharaoh, and I will say to him, ‘My brothers and my father’s household who were in the land of Canaan have come to me. And the men are shepherds, for they are men of livestock, and they have brought their flocks and their cattle and all that they have.’ And it shall be that when Pharaoh calls you he will say, ‘What is your occupation?’ Then you must say, ‘You servants are men of livestock from our childhood until now, both we and also our ancestors,’ so that you may dwell in the land of Goshen, for every shepherd is a detestable thing to Egyptians.”
Genesis 46:31-34 LEB
Moses tells Pharaoh- we can’t do our sacrifices here because we will sacrifice sheep and the Egyptians won’t stand for it.
Plague 4 Technical Stats:
Pharaoh warned? Yes
Who stretches out the hand? No one
Rod involved? Nope
Magicians: probably grounded
Pharaoh’s Response: you can go 3 days into the wilderness, please pray for me… JK changed my mind, you’re not going.
Plague 5 – Livestock disease 🐑🐂🫏🐪🐎
Interesting that right on the heels of this debate about animals allowed (or not) for sacrifice, all the Egyptians’ livestock begin dropping dead.
It’s almost like Yahweh was saying, “You won’t release my people to sacrifice from their herds & flocks? Ok, I’ll take them from your herds and flocks.”
Plague 5 Technical Stats:
Pharaoh warned? Yes
Who stretches out the hand? No one
Rod involved? Not this time either
Magicians: Someone was sent to verify if the Hebrew’s cattle were unharmed. It was probably them. They’re still on Pharaoh’s black list.
Pharaoh’s Response: hard heart, you’re not going.
Plague 6 – Boils 🤕🦠
This should really be called The Plague of Inflammatory Pustules on Man and Beast. Moses and Aaron take ashes/soot from a “furnace.” This word is used in only 2 other places. The first is when describing the smoke from Sodom & Gomorrah. The second is describing the smoke on Mt. Sinai when God shows up. Moses throws the ashes in the air and suddenly people and animals are breaking out in sores that swell and burst.
This is the next plague after the water becoming blood that has a counterpart in Revelation. It’s also one of bowl/vial judgments.
“And the first went and poured out his bowl on the earth, and there was an evil and painful sore on the people who had the mark of the beast and who worshiped his image.” Revelation 16:2 LEB
Plague 6 Technical Stats:
Pharaoh warned? Not really. Although he probably knew something was up when Moses and Aaron show up with buckets of ashes.
Who stretches out the hand? Moses throws ashes in the air.
Rod involved? Still no
Magicians: Went into hiding
Pharaoh’s Response: hard heart, probably puts fingers in ears, “La la la la la I’m not listening!”
Plague 7 – Hail & Fire 🧊🔥
This is war.
God to Pharaoh (who, by the way, believes himself to be divine and is in the process of getting an attitude adjustment):
“If you don’t, I will send more plagues on you and your officials and your people. Then you will know that there is no one like me in all the earth. By now I could have lifted my hand and struck you and your people with a plague to wipe you off the face of the earth.” Exodus 9:14-15 NLT
God lets Pharaoh know that it’s about to get serious. He’s been taking it easy on them. The Lord even warns them to bring in their livestock and servants from the fields. The ones who ignored the warning died.
This plague also has a Revelation counterpart. This is the 7th bowl judgment:
“There was a terrible hailstorm, and hailstones weighing as much as seventy-five pounds fell from the sky onto the people below. They cursed God because of the terrible plague of the hailstorm.”
Revelation 16:21 NLT
And you thought softball-size hail was big.👀
Plague 7 Technical Stats:
Pharaoh warned? Yes. A lot! Servants too.
Who stretches out the hand? Moses
Rod involved? Yes. Moses’ rod. Told ya God was bringing out the big guns.
Magicians: probably in the root cellar
Pharaoh’s Response: I have sinned! We’ve had enough! You can go! [storm stops] Uh… Did you think I said, “You can go”? No. What I said was “You can go…back to work.” You misheard. It was the thunder. You didn’t hear me over the thunder.
Pharaoh isn’t looking so divinely powerful now. Sometimes it takes a lot to get through to stubborn people.
God will let people (hopefully not you, dear reader, but we should be brutally honest with ourselves)- God will let us end up as the king or queen of a completely shattered life if that’s what our stubborn hearts insist on. We will reign over bare fields and dead animals as long as we get to do it our way. That’s about as far on the scale of stupid as one can go.
If there’s a little bit of Pharaoh staring back at us in the mirror, he might as well bend the knee now. There is no path into the kingdom of God that permits a proud, stubborn heart. Your will and mine are not making it into Heaven. If even Jesus prayed “Not my will but Yours be done” how much more do we need to get our purpose and plans submitted to the throne of God?
The sooner we realize that and get that mess out of our souls (by the grace of God and His Word renewing our minds), the sooner we get shed of Egypt and its bondage.
It’s coming. But first a few more plagues.
Tomorrow.
To The Reader 