Sermon Tone Analysis

Pray

Memorable story

Not just fantastical story, there is a tremendous amount of meaning and purpose in this account.

I want to unpack for you today.

1) The Purpose of the Plagues

God brought the plagues upon Egypt to humiliate the false Egyptian gods and bring glory to himself amongst the Egyptians, the Israelites and the whole world.

A) God’s glory amongst the Egyptians...

i) in His supremacy

Prologue to the plagues

Before the first plague, the Lord tells Moses to tell Pharaoh...

When Moses let’s Pharaoh choose when the frogs will be taken away...

When God sends flies but they won’t be in Goshen, he says:

Before the 7th plague of hail, when Moses speaks to Pharaoh he says:

And as Moses predicted the final plague to Pharaoh, he leaves his presence and the Lord tells Moses

It is obvious from our text that God was very interested in showing his supremacy in Egypt.

But specifically how do the plagues do that?

Numbers 33:4 tells us that through the plagues God was executing judgment on the Egyptian gods

Indebted to good commentaries, especially Philip Ryken’s “Saved for God’s glory” / forgive my pronunciations

Nile - Hapi, Khnum, and Osiris, the gods of the Nile

Frogs - Heqet, the goddess of fertility

Gnats - earth-god Geb (By turning the dust into bugs, God was claiming authority over the very soil of Egypt and thus over the god of the ground).

Plus as an interesting note, the Bible doesn’t tell us when this plague ended so one funny commentator said it could have BUGGED the Egyptians for a while...

Flies – Uatchit, Khepher or Beelzebub

Livestock – Buchis, Ptah, Ra, Apis, Isis, Hathor // like so many modern Hindus, the Egyptians loved their sacred cows.

In fact, they seem to have worshiped the entire bovine family!

Thus it is not surprising that when the Israelites later decided to rebel against the God of their salvation and return to the gods of Egypt, they made a golden calf (Exod.

32).

Boils - Sekhmet, a lion-headed goddess, was supposed to have had the power of both creating epidemics and bringing them to an end // much like our obsession with modern medicine, this plague reminds us that medicine makes a wonderful tool but a poor deity.

Hail - Shu, the god of the atmosphere, Nut, the sky goddess, Tefnut, god of moisture, or Seth who ruled the wind and storms.

Locusts - Isis (the goddess of life, who prepared flax for clothing), Nepri (the god of grain), Anubis (the guardian of the fields), and Senehem (the divine protector against pests)

Darkness - Amon-Re.

Sunset represented death and the underworld, but the rise of Amon-Re offered the hope of resurrection.

For the Egyptians, it was a matter of faith that the eternally rising sun could never be destroyed.

Pharaoh was a sun worshiper.

More than that, he was regarded as the Son of Re, the personal embodiment of the solar deity.

When the Egyptians identified Pharaoh as the son of Amon-Re, they were worshiping a mortal man as the eternal god.

For his part, Pharaoh was claiming attributes and prerogatives that belong to God alone.

He was an anti-Christ, a blasphemous impostor claiming to be the Son of God

You might say all this sounds so foreign to today’s secular society...

The New York Times reported that on November 14 of this year, Emperor Naruhito [of Japan] will take part in a secret Shinto ritual where some experts in Shintoism say the emperor lies down with his ancestors and enters into spiritual communion with the gods.

Others say he actually becomes a god, while another theory holds that he has a conjugal visit with the sun goddess.

Friends, this only proves that throughout history people have turned away from their knowledge of the creator God and worshiped the creation itself.

But there was one more plague that YAHWEH would perform to show his supremacy over the Egyptian gods:

Death - The god of the dead was Osiris, whose name meant “the Mighty One; or, he who has sovereign power.”

His assistant was Anubis, the god of the underworld.

Anubis supervised the embalming process and guided the dead during their passage to the afterlife.

Anubis came in canine form, which may partly explain the reference to dogs in verse 7 of chapter 11

The Israelites would remain untouched by death, thus proving that Anubis held no power over them.

Meanwhile, the death of Egypt’s sons would prove that Israel’s God was the Lord of life and death.

This was a thorough humiliation of the pantheon of the Egyptians.

But it was also a demonstration of God’s divine justice over the evil oppression his people had faced.

ii) in His justice

In his effort to exterminate the Israelites, Pharaoh commanded the Hebrew midwives to kill Israel’s baby boys

When his evil plan failed, he ordered the infants to be thrown into the Nile

Punishment fits the crime - Nile gods & Heqet

When the plague of boils was brought to bear, God told Moses & Aaron

John Currid writes, “The type of furnace spoken of here was probably a kiln for burning bricks.

The furnace, then, was a symbol of the oppression of the Hebrews, the sweat and tears they were shedding to make bricks for the Egyptians.

Thus the very soot made by the enslaved people was now to inflict punishment on their oppressors.”

Without a doubt, God was just and would be just to destroy every one of us for our sinful rebellion against him.

It is only by his grace that any of us can be shielded from the terror of his swift judgment.

But in spite of his terrible judgment on Egypt, God also demonstrated his glory through his love for them.

iii) in His love

God graciously gave the Egyptians numerous warnings with increasing severity of his judgment.

We’re going to see later that a “mixed company” of people (that included Egyptians) were delivered along with the Israelites and that some of the officials in Pharaoh’s court would begin to acknowledge God’s power and even fear His name and His word.

The Bible teaches us that God had a plan for the nation of Egypt too:

Jeremiah prophesied Egypt’s return to favor

Ezekiel promised Egypt’s return from their own exile

Isaiah wrote this in Isaiah 19...

In verse 25, God would even call Egypt “my people.”

Of course, all of these promises were fulfilled on the Day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was poured out on the church, and Egyptians were among those that heard the apostles declare “the wonders of God” in their own language.

Although God displayed his glory in the Exodus plagues primarily through power and justice, he also demonstrated his the glory of his love and mercy to Egyptians at that time and throughout history.

But now secondly, let’s see how the purpose of the plagues was also to show

B) God ‘s glory amongst the Israelites...

In Ex. 8:1, 8:20, 9:1, 9:13, 10:3 God says to tell Pharaoh to let my people go that they may worship or serve me.

As many times as God said that the plagues were so that Egyptians would know that he is the LORD, he would repeatedly say that the plagues were so that the people of ISRAEL would worship him.

So we say first that God’s glory was manifested amongst the Israelites was

i) for their worship/service

The ESV says “so that they may serve me.”

These are both good translations of the Hebrew word “abad.”

Interestingly, it’s the same word that is used in

CSB calls it labor and work, ESV calls it service and work

So the same root is translated, serve, work, labor and worship.

Ryken writes, “God was claiming his right to both their work and their worship.

This is our purpose as well—to give God the glory.

And as Christians today, we acknowledge that Jesus Christ has set us free from sin and death so that we can serve the living God.

He is both our Savior and our Lord.

We turn to him not only to deliver us from our slavery to sin, but also for everything that follows—a whole life of fruitful work and worship for God.

Israel was saved to WORSHIP/SERVE/WORK for God.

So are we.

But not only was Israel shown God’s glory in order that they might serve him, God’s glorious display was...

ii) for their families

Ryken writes:

By sending his plagues against Pharaoh, God was giving his people a true story that answered all of life’s big questions:

who they were: the people of God

who God was: the Lord God of Israel, the God of all power and glory

where they came from: out of Egypt

where they were going: into the land of promise

what their purpose was: to bring God glory

We have a story to tell too - it is our greatest story - we were once enslaved, but the God of all glory delivered us from bondage to sin has given us everlasting life and the promise of heaven for eternity and joyful service in everything we do here on earth because we do it to bring glory and honor to Jesus.

So the plagues had a purpose for God’s glory amongst the Egyptians and amongst the Israelites.