“’And the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD, when I stretch forth my hand upon Egypt and bring out the people of Israel from among them.’” (Exodus 7:5). “’but for this purpose have I let you live, to show you my power, so that my name may be declared throughout all the earth.’” (Exodus 9:16) Often when we start a new book in class Dr. Reid will ask many of us what we thought was the most important part or text in that particular book; our book this time being Exodus. In thinking about my answer to this question I really have to say that to me the most important part of Exodus is the whole ten plagues episode. It is not the actual plagues themselves that I find to be most important, but rather the power behind them. Up until this point God does some pretty miraculous things, creation alone is awe-inspiring for lack of better word, but here in Exodus we have a different showing of his power in that this is destructive rather than constructive as Creations was. We do have the episode of Sodom and Gomorrah’s destruction and the Flood, but they were, I don’t want to say less, but less graphically described. We get this sense after the Flood that God’s destructive powers are held at bay so to speak, or maybe we just get the sense that they won’t be released again that we have moved beyond the bad times so to speak, the worst is over. Then you have this whole stream of miracles set altogether one after the other from Exodus Ch. 7 to Ch. 11. It of course stretches past that, but it is the plagues episode which concerns me most today. God wants his people let go and Pharaoh refuses and so each time he refuses he sends a different plague. There are the frogs, water into blood, darkness, bugs, death of livestock, crazy hail, boils, and of course the ever lively death of the first-born children. All of these things took place in the matter of days. Then in all of this God “hardens pharaoh’s heart” which could be said that God made the decision for Pharaoh, God put the thought on his mind, God whispered very loudly in Pharaoh’s ear; however you want to take it, God’s power is at work. Power! To me it really speaks to how much power God really does have, he can literally do whatever he wants and not have to have explanation behind the matter. You’ll notice it does not say why God hardened Pharaoh’s heart it just says he does. That thought is sometimes hard to grapple with that God can do whatever he wants but I really believe it to its fullest extent and beyond, at least as far as my mind can carry such an infinitesimal thought. It is funny to me how many times I ask people do they really believe God can do anything and they will of course say yes at first, but then I ask the question again with heavy emphasis put on the word “anything” and then a slow “but . . .” will follow or they’ll say “yes, but he can’t . . .”, or “he’s not allowed to . . .” and you can well imagine what can be filled in the blanks here. So one has to really question what they think God can and cannot do and then really question their thoughts on believing that God can do anything and how much they really believe that. For me the Plagues and really the whole Exodus itself just affirms to me that God can and will do anything. I used the two verses above to show maybe if for no other reason God did all of this to show you that just in case you forgot he is God or even if you had your doubts about that fact. Some might say this then is saying that God is merely flexing his chest, his muscles so to speak and if so, oh well, it is his prerogative to do so if for no other reason than that he is God. I do not think this is the case as a certain situation brought about these courses of actions; God did not just randomly come outside look to the Egyptians and say, “hmm I think I’ll throw some plagues their way for the fun it”, no, rather there was incitement involved. We want to pretend that God won’t notice or chooses to ignore us when we turn the other way, but he does notice and he will use whatever is in his power to get our attention, it just so happens to be that that power is beyond infinite. The phrase “lest you forget” used so many times throughout the bible comes to mind. And so I am attempting to not forget anytime soon as boils do not sound appealing to me ha ha.
Kalos Elpis
Kelly M. Doolittle
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