Exodus 8

Bible Passage:  Exodus 8

Frogs, lice and flies! These were the 2^nd, 3^rd and 4^th plague sent by God to disturb the Egyptians. The 1^st plague was turning the river into blood to make it stink and undrinkable. Now, the Lord God has increased the intensity by sending frogs, lice and flies throughout the land of Egypt and sparring the area of Goshen where the Israelites were residing.

If we were Egyptians at that time, I think it would have been pretty scary to be enveloped by such yucky pests! It was probably likened to the scene in a show called ‘Fear Factor’ where the competitor’s tested their courage in facing off with spiders, maggots and other creepy crawlies. If we read subsequent chapters in Exodus, we will find that God first started off with less severe plagues but then subsequently increased the ‘level’ when Pharaoh continued to deceive Moses and Aaron and hardened his heart. The ultimate plague was to take away the first born’s life of all the Egyptians including their animal possessions.

From this chapter, I have a few impressions. The first impression is that God is a merciful God. He hopes that Pharaoh will relent and let the Israelites go to worship Him. He started off with plagues that does not physically harm people but caused disruption to the lives of the Egyptians. By doing so, He hoped that the Egyptians will be able to see that God is behind these plagues and for them to realize that they up against the Almighty God. If the Egyptians were to continue to oppose God’s Will, they will have to bear the consequences.

Exodus 34:5-7 (New King James Version)

5 Now the LORD descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD. 6 And the LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, 7 keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.”    

However, in this chapter it was seen that Pharaoh’s heart was bent on evil. He was not willing to release the Israelites but rather wanted to keep them in bondage.

The second impression I have is that Moses and Aaron were faithful in doing according to God’s instruction. When God instructed them to perform the miracle in a certain way they did accordingly word for word. What was amazing is that they even prayed to God to remove the plagues when Pharaoh continued to deceive them. Despite such deception, they still continued the work of God and were not dissuaded by this cunning man.

The last impression I have, which is the most important one for this chapter is that there is a difference between ‘miracles’ perform by the devil and true miracles from God. It can be seen that the Egyptian magicians were there to tell Pharaoh that they can do miracles too and that the miracles performed by God was ‘common’ or not so ‘awesome’ as it should be. For example in the case of the frogs, the magicians likewise could summon the frogs out of the river to invade the land.  However there was something lacking in the magic trick they performed and that is the control over life. In God’s miracle, the frogs died out by the command of God and demonstrates to us that God has the control of life in His hands.

In the 3^rd plague of the lice, the magicians could not bring forth lice and even admitted to Pharaoh that this was the ‘finger of God’. Why could they not do that? I would think the reason was that the miracle performed by God was such that lice was created out of dust! God is the Creator and He can create life even out of dust! Remember this verse in the New Testament?

Matthew 3:8-10 (New King James Version)

8 Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance, 9 and do not think to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones.  

In this New Testament verse, John the baptist tells the Pharisees and Sadducees not to be so proud of their lineage and that it was purely God’s mercy on them that they were chosen and not because that they were good. He further extends to that it is possible that God could raise children to Abraham from stones.

Hence there is a difference between magic tricks performed by magicians and miracles perform by God. The devil from the olden times have tried to downplay God’s power and to trick people into thinking that the magicians were as equal to God or even better. Quite recently I heard from a Jewish engineer, whom I have worked with, who said that during that time of Jesus, there were many other people who had ‘special powers’ and could likewise do miracles like what Jesus have done. In his statement, which probably came from the Rabbis as he was a religious Jew who attends the synagogues, has a significant connotation in it. It connotes that Jesus is ordinary and that many people were like Him and that He was not the Almighty God. Such statements is meant to dissuade Jews from believing in Jesus as the Messiah. It is pretty sad that these people till now want to prevent their people from believing the Messiah. 

In the last days, there will be many false Christ and false prophets who can perform miracles signs and wonders. We have to be discerning and know which miracles come from God and which ‘miracles’ come from the devil. May our Lord Jesus give us this discernment and may we be always watchful.