Exodus 8

         Verses 1-7: For the third time Moses and Aaron go before Pharaoh and relay God’s command to let His people go so that they might serve Him. If Pharaoh refuses, God will bring forth a judgment of frogs. (v.1-2) Pharaoh, of course, refuses, and Moses tells Aaron to stretch forth his rod once again over all the streams, rivers and ponds throughout Egypt. A mighty host of frogs come up from the waters, filling every house, every bedchamber, every kitchen and oven, even getting into all the food. (v.3) (Psalm 105:30) And, once again, Pharaoh’s magicians perform the same miracle by the power of Satan. (v.7) Notice that Jannes and Jambres didn’t have the power to reverse the plague. All they could do was increase it. As I noted in the previous chapter, Satan is merely an imitator, a copycat. The only power he and his servants possess is that which God allows them and nothing more. And even that little that God allows is used only to bring about His divine will and nothing more.
           
            Verses 8-15: Pharaoh summons Moses and Aaron and asks them to ask of God to remove the frogs. The word he uses here is “intreat”. (Exodus 9:28, 10:17, Numbers 21:7, 1 Kings 13:6) He is ready to let the Israelites go. (v.8) Moses asks when Pharaoh would like him to make the request, and Pharaoh says, “Tomorrow.” Moses tells him that it will be done, “…that thou mayest know that there is none like unto the Lord our God.” (v.10) (Exodus 9:14, 15:11, Deuteronomy 4:35, 39, 33:26, 2 Samuel 7:22, 1 Chronicles 17:20, Psalm 86:8, Isaiah 46:9, Jeremiah 10:6-7) Moses then cries unto the Lord and God responds accordingly. The frogs immediately die, and the people gather them in heaps, so much so that verse 14 says, “…the land stank.” And, as God had predicted, Pharaoh promptly hardens his heart and reneges on his promise to Moses and Aaron. (v.15)
            Notice here that Pharaoh doesn’t ask Moses to immediately intreat the Lord. Instead he says simply, “Tomorrow.” This indicates the hardness of his heart. He is more willing to suffer another day of misery with the frogs than to acknowledge God’s sovereignty and submit to His authority immediately. Pharaoh stubbornly refuses to let go of his pride and, thus, he is willing to cut off his nose to spite his face, as the old saying goes.
 
            Verses 16-19: God commands Moses to tell Aaron to strike the earth with his rod, and the dust becomes swarms of lice throughout all of Egypt. Every man and beast – save for the children of Israel, of course – is stricken with lice. (v.17) This time, however, when Pharaoh’s magicians attempt to do the same miracle, they fail. (v.18) Even they now recognize that “…this is the finger of God…”, and they tell Pharaoh this. (v.19) (Exodus 7:5, 10:7, 1 Samuel 6:3, Psalm 8:3, Luke 11:20) But Pharaoh’s heart remains hardened, proving that he had already determined he would never believe, no matter what Moses, Aaron, or his own servants testified. Not even the miraculous judgments that he is witnessing with his own eyes compel him to change his heart and surrender to God’s sovereignty and authority.
 
            Verses 20-24: For the second time God tells Moses to rise up early and meet Pharaoh as he goes down to the Nile river to bathe. (v.20) And, once again, Moses relays to Pharaoh God’s command: “Let my people go, that they may serve me.” This time, Pharaoh’s refusal will cause swarms of flies to plague every Egyptian. (Psalm 78:45) Their houses and their lands will be covered with flies. But the land of Goshen will be completely spared so that “…thou mayest know that I am the Lord in the midst of the earth.” (v.22) This is how we know that these plagues were not some naturally occurring phenomenon that happened to coincide with God’s words to Pharaoh. God miraculously caused each of these judgments, and they struck only specific regions of Egypt. The land of Goshen where the children of Israel dwelt was spared of every single plague.
            Again, this is a foreshadowing of the Tribulation that is prophesied in Revelation. The only difference there is that God will rapture His church from the world before He brings about judgment on the wicked and the unbelieving. In the same way that the Israelites were spared of these judgments against Pharaoh and the Egyptians, so shall we today (or whatever generation of believers are alive at the time of Christ’s second coming) be spared God’s wrath upon the world by fire and plagues. (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17)
            God states clearly in verse 23 that he is drawing a line in the sand for Pharaoh, separating His chosen people from the Egyptians. God alludes to His original statement to Pharaoh through Moses in Exodus 4:22-23: “…Israel is My son, even My firstborn…” God is reminding Pharaoh once more here in chapter 8 that the nation of Israel is His firstborn, and He has marked them as such. On the next morning, Pharaoh will know this by the sign of the flies that will plague only his house and all the houses of the Egyptians, but not a single man, house, or beast of the children of Israel will be touched by this plague. As promised, the swarms of flies fill the house of Pharaoh, his servants’ houses and all the houses of the land of Egypt. The flies decimate the whole land, in fact, save for the valley of Goshen. (v.24)
 
            Verses 25-32: Pharaoh once again calls for Moses and Aaron, but this time he tries to negotiate with God. He tells Moses that the Israelites may take a break from their labor to “…sacrifice to your God in the land.” (v.25) This is the first of four compromises that Pharaoh proposes to Moses in the course of these judgments, and there’s an excellent picture here of the way Satan uses the same strategy with us believers – especially newly saved Christians – today. What Pharaoh is essentially telling Moses here is that he’ll allow the Israelites to serve God, but that they don’t need to leave Egypt to do so. They can still obey God’s command because the important thing is the rituals and the sacrifice, not the location of where they perform those things. Satan used the exact same tactic with Eve in the garden of Eden. His first words to her were, “Hath God said…” (Genesis 3:1).
            But Moses refuses to fall for Pharaoh’s deception. He points out that the Egyptians will bring even more harm to the children of Israel if they sacrifice sheep upon their altars as God commands. (v.26) This was apparently an abomination to the Egyptians, and it hearkens back to the warning Joseph gave to his father and brothers in Genesis 46:34. Moses accurately states that the Egyptians will stone the Israelites to death if they do as God commanded within the borders of Egypt. Moses remains firm with Pharaoh. The children of Israel will go three days’ journey into the wilderness to sacrifice to the Lord their God as He commanded them. (v.27)
            But Pharaoh again tries to compromise. “I will let you go,” he says in verse 28, “…only ye shall not go very far away.” He then asks Moses to intercede to God on his behalf once more. Moses responds that he will “…intreat the Lord…” on behalf of Pharaoh and the Egyptians, but he also warns Pharaoh to not “…deal deceitfully any more in not letting the people go to sacrifice to the Lord.” (v.29) God does not accept half measures from His children. (Luke 9:62) It’s either total and complete surrender and obedience to His divine will and His commandments or nothing at all. There is no middle ground, no riding the fence. This is yet another indicator that Pharaoh had willfully and defiantly hardened his heart towards God of His own choice from the very beginning. He had no intention of ever letting the Israelites go, and he was never truly, genuinely repentant of his sin.
            Moses intreats the Lord, and God removes the plague of flies from Pharaoh’s house and all the houses of the Egyptians. (v.30-31) But, as predicted by God from the beginning, Pharaoh hardens his heart yet again and won’t allow the children of Israel to leave Egypt. (v.32) (Psalm 52:2)