Morning Musing: Exodus 14:5-9

“When the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, Pharaoh and his officials changed their minds about the people and said, ‘What have we done? We have released Israel from serving us.’ So he got his chariot ready and took his troops with him; he took six hundred of the best chariots and all the rest of the chariots of Egypt, with officers in each one. The Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and he pursued the Israelites, who were going out defiantly. The Egyptians – all Pharaoh’s horses and chariots, his horsemen, and his army – chased after them and caught up with them as they camped by the sea beside Pi-hahiroth, in front of Baal-zephon.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Have you ever had buyer’s remorse? I remember once getting a nearly free tablet with a phone upgrade. We agreed to get it because the salesman told us it came loaded with a movie app that gave us access to all kinds of movies for free. What he didn’t say was that they were all pirated Chinese versions with subtitles that gave you access to streamable versions of some films before they had even left the theaters. I promptly took the tablet back. I was watching when he had to check the box to give a reason for the return. He checked “buyer’s remorse.” They didn’t have a box for “salesman dishonesty.” In this next part of our story, we encounter Pharaoh experiencing a bit of buyer’s remorse. Let’s talk about what was going on here and why his hard heart was still a problem.

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Digging in Deeper: Exodus 8:5-7, 15

“The Lord then said to Moses, ‘Tell Aaron: Stretch out your hand with your staff over the rivers, canals, and ponds, and cause the frogs to come up onto the land of Egypt.’ When Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt, the frogs came up and covered the land of Egypt. But the magicians did the same thing by their occult practices and brought frogs up onto the land of Egypt. . . .But when Pharaoh saw there was relief, he hardened his heart and would not listen to them, as the Lord had said.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

I love getting into early summer when it’s warm enough to sit outside in the evenings and you start hearing the frogs for the first time. Their cacophonous chorus is a welcome note of the changing of the seasons. Their music is a gift from God and speaks to the wonderful variety of creatures He has created to fill the earth to His glory. But frogs belong in the ponds and puddles around my neighborhood. If they started to encroach on my living space and in greater numbers than the one or two you occasionally find hopping around the yard, they would not be quite so endearing. In fact, I suspect I would come to hate frogs with the same passion I bring to my hatred of gnats. Today we talk about the second plague God sent on Egypt: frogs. Let’s explore what was going on and its outcome.

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