Sunday: One More Plague
Daily Lesson for Sunday 27th of July 2025
The prophet Amos declares that “ ‘the Lord God does nothing without revealing his secret to his servants the prophets’ ” (Amos 3:7, ESV), and through the prophet Moses, He revealed to Pharaoh what was coming next. The most solemn warning was given to Pharaoh. This will be a just judgment upon pride, exploitation, violence, and idolatry, all of which have triggered these calamities upon Egypt.
Read Exodus 11:1-10. What warning did God give before executing judgment upon Egypt?
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God gave Egypt time—three days of darkness (Exodus 10:22-23)—to think about recent events and what they meant. He also provided their last explicit warning, the last chance to do the right thing.
But Exodus 11:8 says that Moses “went out from Pharaoh in great anger” (NKJV). Why would Moses leave in anger? Most likely because he knows the tragedy, the tenth plague, is going to hit a lot of innocent people—all because of Pharaoh’s hardness of heart.
Also, the number ten is significant in biblical symbolism. Ten represents fullness or completeness. (Think of the Ten Commandments as a complete revelation of the divine moral law.) The ten Egyptian plagues point to God’s full expression of His justice and retribution.
God is the Judge, and He is against pride, injustice, discrimination, arrogance, exploitation, cruelty, and selfishness. He is on the side of the sufferers, the abused, the mistreated, and the persecuted. God will execute justice, which truly is another expression of His love. (See Psalms 2:12, Psalms 33:5, Psalms 85:11, Psalms 89:14, Psalms 101:1, Isaiah 16:5, Jeremiah 9:24.)
We too should try the best we can to be both loving and just. However, we can easily fall into extremes, one way or another. Out of “love” we turn a blind eye to wrongs, to things that need to be corrected. Or we can coldly execute justice as if it were something made of steel. Neither extreme is correct. Instead, this is the ideal: “And what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8, NKJV).
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If we can’t get the perfect balance (which we can’t), why is it better to err on the side of mercy instead of justice? Or is it? |
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“The Lord is slow to get angry, but his power is great, and he never lets the guilty go unpunished. He displays his power in the whirlwind and the storm. The billowing clouds are the dust beneath his feet” (Nahum 1:3, NLT).
The Pharaoh thought he could outrun God! He thought he had the strength and resilience to outlive God’s will. God is sovereign and his divine will must come to pass. No human power can thwart what God has set out to do. God provided multiple chances to Pharaoh to change course, but he hardened his own heart. God had the power to strike Pharaoh dead at once and bring His purpose to fruition instantly, but He was merciful to him. God’s patience to go through the ten plagues was a pure act of longsuffering (2 Peter 3:9). God's mercy delayed judgment, but He could not cancel it for the unrepentant king. God does not overlook sin; He deals with it righteously (Romans 2:5).
As a stern warning, never should anyone mistake God’s patience for passivity, or His mercy for weakness. He is slow to anger, but He will not allow evil to triumph forever. The story of this ancient Egyptian king is a profound case study in pride, spiritual blindness, and testing God’s patience. This story is preserved in the Holy Scripture for our warning and instruction (1 Cor.10:6,11).
The last and most devastating of the ten plagues in Egypt was the death of the firstborn. God, through Moses, warned Pharaoh that every firstborn in Egypt—from the child of Pharaoh to the child of the servant—would die if he continued to refuse to let the Israelites go. At midnight, the Lord struck down all the firstborn in Egypt. However, the Israelites, who had followed God's instructions by marking their doorposts with lamb’s blood, were spared. This final blow broke Pharaoh's resistance, and he finally allowed the Israelites to leave Egypt.
Before this, Moses had been sent repeatedly to Pharaoh with God's command to “let My people go,” but each time Pharaoh hardened his heart. After delivering God’s final warning, Moses left Pharaoh's presence "in hot anger" (Exodus 11:8). His anger reflected both God's righteous fury and Moses' frustration with Pharaoh’s stubbornness and the suffering it caused. Moses' wrath symbolized the climax of the escalating conflict between divine justice and human pride, setting the stage for the Israelites' dramatic deliverance.
I read this lesson study last night so that I could sleep on it. But writing inspiration didn't come. So this morning I went birding and just happened to run into a theologian friend of mine. I told her about my problem and she agreed, "Its a tough one!" The only solace I have is that I am in good company.
I could write something that sounds good in Seventh-day Adventist circles but it would sound rather trite and even a bit superior if I talked to my non-believing friends about it.
The issue is that we have a loving God who is the source of good, and yet in the tenth plague God kills off the first-born of the Egyptians. We like to put a "Christian Spin" on this, but it is very hard to convince non-believers about this. I do not have a nice simple answer to this.
Here are a couple of ideas that you may like to consider. Please understand I am not suggesting that these provide the ultimate answer, but rather may provide some discussion in your lesson study groups.
Sometimes we need to remind ourselves that we do not have to explain all the hard bits of the Bible, but we need to understand and live the bits we do know about the love and grace of God.