Category: Morning Musings

Morning Musing: Exodus 11:9-10

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“The Lord said to Moses, ‘Pharaoh will not listen to you, so that my wonders may be multiplied in the land of Egypt.’ Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh, but the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he would not let the Israelites go out of his land.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Let me give you a bit of a peek behind the curtain this morning. I often write the introductions for these posts several weeks before I write the rest of them. These introductions serve as placeholders so that when I come back to actually write the full post I have a bit of a reminder of what I was thinking when I was first studying through a particular passage. As a result, I’m often studying one part of the text while writing about another a few chapters back. On occasion this lets me see connections between two different parts that I might otherwise miss. Way back at the beginning of chapter 7, just before God set Moses loose on Pharaoh, He told him (again) what was going to happen. The words He used then were remarkably similar to these words right here. Let’s come back to them again and touch yet again on this theme of Pharaoh’s hard heart. From that, we’ll spend a moment reflecting on why all of the repetition we find in this story is so important.

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Morning Musing: Exodus 10:16-20

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“Pharaoh urgently sent for Moses and Aaron and said, ‘I have sinned against the Lord your God and against you. Please forgive my sin once more and make an appeal to the Lord your God, so that he will just take this death away from me.’ Moses left Pharaoh’s presence and appealed to the Lord. Then the Lord changed the wind to a strong west wind, and it carried off the locusts and blew them into the Red Sea. Not a single locust was left in all the territory of Egypt. But the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he did not let the Israelites go.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

One of the more fascinating stories in the Scriptures that reveals a great deal about God’s character, and which (ironically, considering its historical reception) gives us confidence the whole thing is true, is the story of Jonah. Setting aside the giant fish part that everybody simultaneously knows and doubts, the story is about God’s granting forgiveness from judgment and destruction to a people who would later conquer and destroy Israel. Why would God do that? Because they repented. God always responds to repentance. The ending of the story of the plague of locusts shows us the same thing about Him. Let’s talk about God’s incredible forgiveness.

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Morning Musing: Exodus 9:10-12

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“So they took furnace soot and stood before Pharaoh. Moses threw it toward heaven, and it became festering boils on people and animals. The magicians could not stand before Moses because of the boils, for the boils were on the magicians as well as on all the Egyptians. But the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart and he did not listen to them, as the Lord had told Moses.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

One of the most challenging aspects of a healthy, orthodox, biblical theology is getting the balance right between God’s sovereignty and human responsibility. The uncomfortable tension the Scriptures consistently hold is that both positions are entirely correct. Making sense out of that, though, isn’t always easy, especially when we encounter passages like this one. Here we are at another plague that is again worse than the last one. But this time, God is implicated by the language for the ongoing tragedy of the plagues. Let’s talk about what’s happening here.

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Morning Musing: Exodus 8:20-23

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“The Lord said to Moses, ‘Get up early in the morning and present yourself to Pharaoh when you see him going out to the water. Tell him: This is what the Lord says: Let my people go, so that they may worship me. But if you will not let my people go, then I will send swarms of flies against you, your officials, your people, and your houses. The Egyptians’ houses will swarm with flies, and so will the land where they live. But on that day I will give special treatment to the land of Goshen, where my people are living; no flies will be there. This way you will know that I, the Lord, am in the land, I will make a distinction between my people and your people. This sign will take place tomorrow.'” (CSB – Read the chapter)

I hate flies. Are you with me in that? A few months ago, the doors of the building where my office is located were left open for an extended period of time and flies got in. Lots of flies. And they all seemed to wind up in my office. I systematically hunted them down and killed them one by one. I had to. I wasn’t going to be able to get any work done until I did. The next plague God sent against the Egyptians was the plague of flies. With this fourth plague, what has become the standard script changes just a bit. Let’s talk about what’s different here and how God demonstration of HIs power to Pharaoh is developing.

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