Image: Joel Filipe
There is no fight left in this people. No fight and no faith.
They are like children, like sheep that in the morning bleat their complaints, but at noon obediently trot to slaughter. How does a people grow up to become defenders of justice, doers of good—a light to the nations?
They must know that I love them fiercely so they remember promises made, and learn to walk tall and with love to spare, and be as fierce in their loyalty to Me as I am to them--even when life is not perfect.
I will make an example of Pharaoh. Demonstrate that I have heard them, that I will guide them to freedom—if only they do their part to help themselves and bravely choose the covenant I first made with Abraham over material comforts.
“Go to Pharaoh. For I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his courtiers, in order that I may display these My signs among them ... in order that you may know that I am the Lord.” (Ex.10:1-2)
Blood. There is water in clean wells away from the Nile. Neither the Egyptians nor the Israelites seem impressed with the display. The magicians duplicate the sign with ease.
Frogs. The magicians respond in kind, but they cannot make the frogs disappear. The suffering in the land is becoming real, and Pharaoh asks Moses to make the frogs go away in return for letting My people go. But when tomorrow comes, he does not honor the promise.
Lice, Insects, pestilence. At lice, the magicians fail to keep up. At insects, Goshen is spared to show My people it is for them this is being done. At pestilence, I sacrifice all the livestock. The Israelites merely watch, fascinated by the battle of wills.
Boils, hail. Magicians are no longer exempt from being covered in painful sores. Pharaoh seems ready, but My people are not, so I stiffen Pharaoh’s heart once more. The hail falls everywhere except in Goshen. Beautiful flax and barley wiped out, trees stripped bare, livestock and slaves left in the open dead. I leave wheat and emmer to avoid starving all of Egypt. How much longer must I punish the Egyptians? They too are My children.
When I have Moses and Aaron threaten locusts, the courtiers begin to understand and turn against Pharaoh. Reluctantly, he agrees to a trip into the wilderness for the Israelites, but haggles over who may go. So I unleash the locusts, and all the grass, everything green is stripped, leaving the beautiful land bare and desolate. And then I take their children. As they weep, I weep.
It is not Pharaoh or the Egyptians that are to be taught a lesson here, they are who they are, obedient to their own gods. In this drama they are innocents. And then I let the waves sweep all the warriors to their deaths.
I lead the Israelites out, but still they don’t trust, still they whine. Moses, “what have you done to us, taking us out of Egypt? Is this not the very thing we told you, ‘Let us be, and we will serve the Egyptians, for it is better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.’” (Ex/14:11-12)
Safe across the sea, they believe. For a moment. Soon they will complain about manna, about Moses not returning from the mountain quickly enough....
Why love such a stubborn, ungrateful, forever doubting people? Because I have brought all these sacrifices to gain their love and trust, and I do not want the devastation I have wrought, the deaths I have caused, to have been in vain.
And I will go on bringing sacrifices until they are My people and I am their Lord.
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