The Book of Exodus

Hebrew Study

Explanation

God answers Moses' fears by defining his role: "I have made thee a god to Pharaoh." This does not mean Moses became divine; it means he would stand before Pharaoh as God's representative, speaking with God's authority, while Aaron would be his "prophet," his spokesman to relay the words. God then lays out the whole plan in advance: "I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and multiply my signs and my wonders." Pharaoh will refuse, and his refusal will only give God occasion to display His power in "great judgments," so that "the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD." Moses and Aaron obey, and we are told Moses was eighty years old and Aaron eighty-three when they came before Pharaoh. God's great deliverance would be carried out by two old men, long past the age the world counts useful, because the power was never in them but in the LORD who sent them.

Gospel Focus

God announced beforehand that Pharaoh's resistance would not thwart His plan but serve it: "that I may lay my hand upon Egypt ... and the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD." Even Pharaoh's hard heart was folded into God's purpose. Paul draws exactly this lesson: "the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth" (Romans 9:17). God is so sovereign that He can take the defiance of His enemies and make it the very stage on which His glory is displayed. This is a comfort when we face immovable opposition: the Pharaohs who resist God's people are not outside His control, but instruments He will use to make His name known. And notice the encouragement in the ages of Moses and Aaron, eighty and eighty-three. God's greatest work through them came when they were old. No one is past usefulness in the hands of God; He measures His servants not by their strength or their youth but by their surrender.

Hebrew Study

Explanation

Aaron casts down the rod and it becomes a serpent, and Pharaoh answers by calling his wise men, sorcerers, and magicians, who "did in like manner with their enchantments," their rods also becoming serpents. There is real, dark power at work in their arts, not mere trickery, for God's word takes it seriously. But then comes the decisive moment: "Aaron's rod swallowed up their rods." Whatever power the magicians had, it was consumed by the power of God. They could imitate the sign, but they could not match it or stand against it. Pharaoh, however, is not moved, and his heart is hardened, "as the LORD had said." The first round ends with the counterfeit visibly defeated, yet the king refuses to bow.

Gospel Focus

The magicians of Egypt, whom the New Testament names as "Jannes and Jambres" who "withstood Moses" (2 Timothy 3:8), are a warning that the powers of darkness can imitate the works of God up to a point. This has always been so; the enemy is a counterfeiter, mimicking the true to deceive. But notice the limit and the outcome: Aaron's rod swallowed up their rods. The counterfeit could copy the sign but was consumed by the real power of God. This is our confidence against every dark and deceptive power: "greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world" (1 John 4:4). The devil can imitate, oppose, and frighten, but he cannot win, for God's power swallows his. When we face the counterfeits and enchantments of our own day, we need not be afraid or impressed. The rod of God still swallows the rods of the sorcerers. The victory does not hang in doubt; the true power belongs to the LORD, and in the end every imitation is devoured by the genuine.

Hebrew Study

Explanation

God tells Moses to meet Pharaoh at the river in the morning and announce the first plague: "In this thou shalt know that I am the LORD." The Nile was the heartbeat of Egypt, the source of all its water, food, and wealth, and the Egyptians worshiped it as a god. God strikes it first. Aaron stretches the rod over the waters, and "all the waters that were in the river were turned to blood." The fish die, the river stinks, the Egyptians cannot drink, and there is blood throughout the land, even in their vessels of wood and stone. The lifeline of Egypt becomes a river of death. This was not a random wonder but a direct blow: the god Egypt trusted for life could not even keep itself from becoming blood at the word of the true God.

Gospel Focus

The plagues were not only punishments; they were God's judgment on the false gods of Egypt. God said of the night of the Passover, "against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the LORD" (Exodus 12:12). Egypt worshiped the Nile, so God turned the Nile to blood, showing that the thing they trusted as a god was powerless before Him. This is how God often deals with idolatry: He strikes at the very things people put in His place, exposing them as unable to save. Whatever a person trusts instead of God, whether wealth, security, pleasure, or power, will one day be shown for what it is, unable to give life. The LORD alone is the living God; every rival is a broken cistern. And there is a solemn foreshadowing here too. The plague on the water answered Pharaoh's old cruelty, for he had commanded the Hebrew babies drowned in this very river; now the river ran with blood. God sees every injustice, and in His time He answers it. The true God will be known, either as Savior to those who trust Him or as Judge to those who defy Him.

Hebrew Study

Explanation

The magicians manage to imitate the plague, turning some water to blood themselves, which gives Pharaoh an excuse to dismiss the sign, though it did nothing to relieve his people's thirst. So "Pharaoh turned and went into his house, neither did he set his heart to this also." He simply walked away, unwilling to let the plain hand of God touch his heart. Meanwhile the ordinary Egyptians dug along the riverbank, desperate for water to drink, and seven days passed under the plague. Here we meet the hard theme that runs through the plague narrative: the hardening of Pharaoh's heart. Scripture says both that God hardened it and, elsewhere, that Pharaoh hardened his own, and the two are held together. Pharaoh was not an innocent man forced into sin; he was a proud, defiant king who set his own heart against God, and God, in righteous judgment, gave him over to the hardness he chose.

Gospel Focus

The hardening of Pharaoh's heart must be understood rightly. Scripture says "the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart," and Paul writes, "whom he will he hardeneth" (Romans 9:18); yet the same account also says plainly that "Pharaoh ... hardened his heart" (Exodus 8:15). Both are true. Pharaoh first set himself against God in willful pride, and God, in just judgment, confirmed him in the hardness he had chosen. The same sun that melts wax hardens clay; the same word of God that softens a humble heart hardens a proud one. God did not force an unwilling man to sin; He gave a defiant man over to his own choice, and used even that for His glory. This is a sober warning. Every time we resist the plain dealing of God and "set not our heart to it," turning away and going into our house as Pharaoh did, our hearts grow a little harder. There is real danger in refusing God once we have seen His hand. The safe path is to soften under God's word at once, while it is still called today, lest resisting Him leave us, like Pharaoh, hardened past feeling. God's patience has a limit, and a heart that will not bend may at last become a heart that cannot.