Exodus 7:1-25 And the LORD said to Moses, See, I have made you a god to Pharaoh: and Aaron your brother shall be your prophet.… Egypt was a pleasant land - "the garden of the Lord" (Genesis 13:10). The river, the source of its fertility, was fenced off from desert on either side by cliff ranges - canopied from morning to evening by the ever blue, bright sky. No wonder that the inhabitants should think much of such a land, that they should come to say of river, land, sky, "These be thy gods, O Egypt!" The veil of nature, which should reveal - as by shadow cast on sheet - may hide, the unseen God: cf. Romans 1:20. The struggle with Pharaoh shows us God asserting himself - proving himself "God of gods" as well as "Lord of lords." Regarding the river as the source of fertility; the land as the sphere for fertility; the sky as the guardian of fertility - see how God openly manifests the dependence of each and all on him. I. THE RIVER. "The beneficent Nile, the very life of the state and of the people" (Stanley). (1) Middle of June - season of annual overflow. To all appearance more than ever divine-Pharaoh (Exodus 7:15) probably openly acknowledging its divinity. Suddenly turned into blood - loathsome; no longer a source of fertility, but a source of corruption and death - at the command of Jehovah, the unrecognised invisible source whence the fertilising power had been derived. (2) Later. Subsidence of the water. The river mud seems to breed frogs. Compelled at the Divine command to fructify not grain but reptiles. (3) Later. Even the dust of the sun-dried mud turned by Jehovah into a tormenting pest. "The river is mine, and the soil which it deposits is mine; even the very dust which it leaves is mine. Have not I, the Lord, made all these things?" II. THE LAND. So far the fiver has been made to plague the land; but Jehovah needs no intermediary. He has direct power over the land also. (1) Exodus 8:21, 22. Swarms of flies (gnats) coming up as it were out of the ground. Yet land severed from land - Goshen spared, "so that thou mayest know that I am Jehovah in the midst of the land" (2) Exodus 9:3. Murrain in the cattle - the creatures most nearly connected with the land; identified with its prosperity; deified as its representatives - at a set time, within appointed limits. (3) Exodus 9:9. Pestilence on man and beast. The furnace-ash strewed heavenwards. The land as modified by human agency turned into a plague upon the men who used it. "The land is mine, and the cattle are mine, the very furnace-ash which ye might almost clam as self-made is mine. Have not I, the Lord, made all these things?" III. THE SKY. The previous plague (Exodus 9:8) "toward the heaven," seems to challenge the sky divinities. Now they also are to be proved subject. 1. Exodus 9:22. At the word of Jehovah the protector becomes the devastator. Clouds gather and pour out water. Pharaoh and Egypt, too, shall know that the earth belongs to no sky divinity, but to Jehovah: chap. 5:29. 2. Exodus 10:13. The winds, compelled into Jehovah's service, become charioteers for his locust armies. 3. Exodus 10:21. The sun, source of light, chief of the gods - even he is draped in darkness at the word of Jehovah. "The sky is mine with its clouds and winds, even the sun in all his glory. Have not I, the Lord, made all these things?" Application: - People still forget God - still, practically, deify his gifts, and so plant them as to hide the Giver of them. The world, our respectable every-day world, not unlike Egypt. Health (life, ζωὴ), the river that fertilises it. Circumstances (life, βίος), the land fertilised. Thought, intelligence, wisdom, the sky which seems to canopy and protect both. Deify them and forget the God above them, and God will yet manifest himself by strange plagues on your divinities. Your river shall be turned into blood, and your sun into darkness [cf. Tennyson, "Palace of Art."] These things, too - health, happiness, intelligence - he will surely show that he and no other has maple them all. - G. Parallel Verses KJV: And the LORD said unto Moses, See, I have made thee a god to Pharaoh: and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet. |
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