Exodus: The Lord and His PilgrimsSample

Power, patience and finality

The sequence of the plagues nears its end with a demonstration of absolute power over all the power of the enemy – a needed and salutary truth for today surely! Egypt had a ‘god’ for every eventuality. For example, Senehem was invoked to protect the land from the ravages of pests. Until, of course, Yahweh, without a ‘by your leave’, wills the locusts to fill the land in the eighth plague. He sends them (v. 4), and Pharaoh recognises that Yahweh alone can remove them (v. 17). Things go even a step higher. The Egyptian god Amon-Ra – their chief deity, the personification of the sun and their ruler of the sequence of day and night – is first blotted out by Yahweh’s locusts (v. 15), then his characteristic activity as the light-bringer is annulled by Yahweh’s darkness in the ninth plague (vv. 21–22). 

Whether the object of worship concerned is a lesser object of worship (Senehem) or the greatest (Amon-Ra) is of no significance. The Lord on high is mightier (Ps. 93:3–4). But his is always a power working by mercy, like an old prayer says: ‘he declares his almighty power most chiefly by showing mercy and pity’. We could easily overlook the ‘for’ (literally, ‘because’) in verse 1 – God in reality is saying, ‘Tell Pharaoh the truth because I have hardened his heart!’ The only way to break through the hard heart is the declaration of the truth, and right to the end the Lord is still pleading with Pharaoh! These two great truths are not at odds, nor are they competitors for attention. They are both always present and active. But while power knows no end, patience does. 

As the parable of the tenants says, ‘last of all he sent his son’ (Mt. 21:37). At Exodus 9:11 the magicians had had enough; at 10:7 Pharaoh’s courtiers threw in their towel; at 10:28 Pharaoh finally breaks off negotiations, siding with his hard heart (v. 27), and receiving from Moses’ lips the sentence of death: ‘I will never see your face again’ (v. 29). But even against the obdurate king, Yahweh’s power prevails for Pharaoh is compelled himself to contribute beasts for Yahweh’s worship (v. 25).

Reflection

We should never cease to pray for those who seem to be the chief public enemies of the Gospel, that they may be saved. God is powerful and just (Ps. 62:11–12).