“Now the Lord had said to Moses, ‘I will bring one more plague on Pharaoh and on Egypt. After that, he will let you go from here, and when he does, he will drive you out completely.’ So Moses said, “This is what the Lord says: ‘About midnight I will go throughout Egypt. Every firstborn son in Egypt will die, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh, who sits on the throne, to the firstborn son of the female slave, who is at her hand mill,and all the firstborn of the cattle as well. There will be loud wailing throughout Egypt—worse than there has ever been or ever will be again. But among the Israelites not a dog will bark at any person or animal.’ Then you will know that the Lord makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel. The Lord had said to Moses, ‘Pharaoh will refuse to listen to you—so that my wonders may be multiplied in Egypt.’ ” (v1,4-7,9)
The tenth and final plague on Egypt has been revealed to Moses, and it’s the worst one yet (who thought boils or “the ground blackened by locusts” could be beaten?). By this point Moses doesn’t question or challenge God on the necessity or scale of the plague, he just simply obeys God.
There are only two things I want to point out here.
First, God allowed Pharaoh’s heart to be hardened so that God’s “wonders may be multiplied in Egypt”. If Pharaoh let Israel go without any resistance, God would not be glorified in the eyes of His people. If Pharaoh released Israel after only one or two plagues, God may not have been as glorified and certainly Egypt would not have learned such a strong lesson in how they treat people.
Second, God makes a very clear distinction between Egypt and Israel – Egypt will have all of their firstborn sons killed and their will be a loud wailing that will never be repeated, yet in Israel it will be so peaceful that you won’t even hear a dog bark. Why does God kill the Egyptians and play favorites with His people? Doesn’t a righteous and loving God care about the Egyptians too? Well, He does love them, though, the Egyptians are breaking one of the most important commandments – to love the Lord and not have any gods before Him. Sodom and Gomorrah fared even worse and were completely destroyed, so God is showing some restraint here. The Pharaoh, in alignment with their culture and tradition, believed himself to be a god – Egypt not only had a polytheistic (multiple gods) culture, they somehow believed that the Pharaoh was a god incarnated – the one true God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is too righteous to allow a human being to be worshiped as god, for the creation cannot be greater than the creator. Can a painting paint a better version of itself? Can a pot make a lid for itself? Can a human create something out of nothing? No, we are not as great or greater than God, so we therefore do not deserve the worship and adoration – only God is worthy of praise, humans (because of sin) are fundamentally flawed.
Father God we come before you today, humbled by Your reconciled relationship with us. We are not worthy to be in Your presence, that was clear in many passages of scripture ever since You banished Adam and Eve from the garden. Thankfully, ever since the moment they sinned You have promised to reconcile us and send that chosen seed of the woman who would crush the head of the serpent. You made many promises to Abraham, Isaac and Israel, covenants that were thankfully contingent on who You are, not on who we are. Praise be to You o redeemer of Israel, who remembered us in our time of need and slavery even when we had forgotten You. Thank you for Your favor and forgiveness, and for constantly waiting for us with open arms.
~ Conqueror in Training