Friday, November 24, 2006

Exodus 10

Plagues 8 & 9:
Locusts & Darkness


(1) Then the Lord said to Moses, “Return to Pharaoh and make your demands again. I have made him and his officials stubborn* so I can display my miraculous signs among them.


*stubborn: Hebrew have made his heart and his officials’ hearts heavy.


   Here the Lord says that He hardened Pharaoh's heart, yet in Exodus 9:34 it says that he [Pharaoh] hardened his heart. Which was true? Both are true, and one does not deny the other. In hardening Pharaoh's heart, God allowed him to have what he sinfully desired - a hard heart. - David Guzik's Commentary on Exodus: www.enduringword.com/commentaries/02.html


(2) I’ve also done it so you can tell your children and grandchildren about how I made a mockery of the Egyptians and about the signs I displayed among them - and so you will know that I am the Lord.”


   God is telling Moses that he is to make a record of these plagues (signs) to pass on to the next generations and so that they would know that He was Yahweh! We are to teach our "next generations" about these miracles and the rest of God's word.


(3) So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said, “This is what the Lord*, the God** of the Hebrews, says: How long will you refuse to submit to me? Let my people go, so they can worship me.


*the Lord: Yahweh


**God Elohim


(4) If you refuse, watch out! For tomorrow I will bring a swarm of locusts* on your country.


*locusts: This 8th plague was directed against the god Serapis who was supposed to protect the land from locusts and from Shu, god of the air. The creatures came at the command of Yahweh and went when He commanded them to go, proving He alone was God, and that the gods of Egypt were false and powerless. The locusts came (and went) at Moses' bidding. Locusts were described as an army in Joel 1:6: A vast army of locusts has invaded my land, a terrible army too numerous to count. Its teeth are like lions’ teeth, its fangs like those of a lioness.


(5) They will cover the land so that you won’t be able to see the ground. They will devour what little is left of your crops after the hailstorm, including all the trees growing in the fields.


(6) They will overrun your palaces and the homes of your officials and all the houses in Egypt. Never in the history of Egypt have your ancestors seen a plague like this one!” And with that, Moses turned and left Pharaoh.


(7) Pharaoh’s officials now came to Pharaoh and appealed to him. “How long* will you let this man hold us hostage? Let the men go to worship the Lord their God! Don’t you realize that Egypt lies in ruins?”


*How long: The magicians gave up in the face of Yahweh in Exodus 8:19 and now Pharaoh's officials are giving up! But, they blame Moses and do not acknowledge that a god that is superior to Pharaoh or to their gods is the cause of these problems. They're also suggesting to just allow the men to go, not the women and children.


(8) So Moses and Aaron were brought back to Pharaoh. “All right,” he told them, “go and worship the Lord your God. But who exactly will be going with you?”


(9) Moses replied, “We will all go—young and old, our sons and daughters, and our flocks and herds. We must all join together in celebrating a festival to the Lord.”


(10) Pharaoh retorted, “The Lord will certainly need to be with you if I let you take your little ones! I can see through your evil plan.


(11) Never! Only the men* may go and worship the Lord, since that is what you requested.” And Pharaoh threw them out of the palace.


*Only the men Satan's compromise! Pharaoh is planning to keep the women and children as hostages to force the men to return.


(12) Then the Lord said to Moses, “Raise your hand over the land of Egypt to bring on the locusts. Let them cover the land and devour every plant that survived the hailstorm.”


(13) So Moses raised his staff over Egypt, and the Lord caused an east wind* to blow over the land all that day and through the night. When morning arrived, the east wind had brought the locusts.


*east wind: It is the east wind that opens the Red Sea.


(14) And the locusts swarmed over the whole land of Egypt, settling in dense swarms from one end of the country to the other. It was the worst locust plague in Egyptian history, and there has never been another one like it.


   People who have seen clouds of locust in modern days have described how they look like a huge, black, threatening storm cloud in the distance until at last they come closer and it is apparent that the cloud consists of locusts. And then they arrive and the whole land is covered with them. But this was exceptional even compared with that. There were untold numbers of them. One Pharaoh of the 12th dynasty, Amenemhet, classed a plague of locusts as a calamity similar to a civil war, or to famine resulting from the failure of the Nile, and that was an ordinary one. The god Senehem is pictured in ancient Egypt as a locust, but he has clearly no control here. - Commentary on Exodus (part 2): www.geocities.com/genesiscommentary/exodus2.html. God appears to be removing everything that Joseph had done to save Egypt!


   There was one plague in Africa in 1926 that lasted 14 years. It destroyed 5,000,000 square miles. That is double the area of the United States. In one square mile of a locust plague there can be between 100 and 200 million locusts. They have recorded locust plagues that have been up to 400 square miles, 40 to 80 billion locusts. They literally cover the land. They eat everything in their path. Nothing can withstand them, and they strike terror. When they leave the land is ravaged. There is not a green leaf anywhere. There is not a green plant anywhere. Everything has been eaten right down to the ground. We don't have any feel for that over here, but over there it strikes terror in the hearts of people. The locusts move based upon the wind, so they can move a couple of miles a day or, if the wind blows harder, they can move as much as sixty miles a day and nothing is safe. - Studies in the Life of Moses (Peninsula Bible Church): www.pbc.org/library/files/html/14757_moses13.html


(15) For the locusts covered the whole country and darkened the land. They devoured every plant in the fields and all the fruit on the trees that had survived the hailstorm. Not a single leaf was left on the trees and plants throughout the land of Egypt.


(16) Pharaoh quickly summoned Moses and Aaron. “I have sinned against the Lord your God and against you,” he confessed.


(17) “Forgive my sin*, just this once, and plead with the Lord your God to take away this death from me.”


*Forgive my sin: Shows that simply asking for forgiveness of sins is not enough! Pharaoh, and we, must accept God's judgments and commands. The severity of the plague prompted Pharaoh to confess his sin against Yahweh and them, now in much stronger terms than before. He also wants forgiveness – but in all probability what he wants is relief from the consequences of his sin. He pretended to convey to Moses that this was it, that he was through sinning, so he asked for forgiveness “just this once.” He was trying to give Moses the impression that he had finally come to his senses, and that he would let the people go. But he had no intention of letting them go.


(18) So Moses left Pharaoh’s court and pleaded with the Lord.


(19) The Lord responded by shifting the wind, and the strong west wind* blew the locusts into the Red Sea**. Not a single locust remained in all the land of Egypt.


*west wind: Or perhaps “sea wind,” i.e., a wind off the Mediterranean.


**Red Sea: The Hebrew name here is Yam Suf, sometimes rendered “Reed Sea” or “Sea of Reeds.” Many English versions have used “Red Sea,” which translates the name that ancient Greeks used. The name Red Sea is currently applied to the sea west of the Arabian Peninsula. The northern fingers of this body of water extend along the west and east sides of the Sinai Peninsula and are presently called the Gulf of Suez and the Gulf of Aqaba or the Gulf of Eilat. In ancient times the name applied to a much larger body of water, including the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf (C. Houtman, Exodus, 1:109-10). The sea was deep enough to drown the entire Egyptian army later (and thus no shallow swamp land). God drives the locusts to their death in the water. He will have the same power over Egyptian soldiers, for he raised up this powerful empire for a purpose and soon will drown them in the sea. The message for the Israelites is that God will humble all who refuse to submit. - BibleGateway - Exodus 10: www.bible.org/netbible/exo10.htm


(20) But the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart again, so he refused to let the people go.


(21) Then the Lord said to Moses, “Lift your hand toward heaven, and the land of Egypt will be covered with a darkness* so thick you can feel it.”


*darkness: This is a direct challenge to the Egyptian god Amon-Re, the sun-god and chief of the Egyptian gods. Pharaoh claimed to be a son of Amon-Re! This is the first of 4 instances of darkness in judgment: here, Matthew 27:45/Mark 15:33/Luke 23:44, Jude 13 and Revelation 16:10.


Matthew 24:29: Immediately after the anguish of those days, the sun will be darkened, the moon will give no light, the stars will fall from the sky,and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.


John 1:5: The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it.


John 3:19: And the judgment is based on this fact: God’s light came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil.


John 8:12: Jesus spoke to the people once more and said, “I am the light of the world. If you follow me, you won’t have to walk in darkness, because you will have the light that leads to life.”


John 9:5: But while I am here in the world, I am the light of the world.


John 12:46: have come as a light to shine in this dark world, so that all who put their trust in me will no longer remain in the dark.


1 John 1:5: This is the message we heard from Jesus and now declare to you: God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all.



   This plague is comparable to the silence in heaven, just prior to the last and terrible plague (Revelation 8:1). Here Yahweh is attacking a core Egyptian religious belief as well as portraying what lay before the Egyptians. Throughout the Bible, darkness is the symbol of evil, chaos, and judgment. Blindness is one of its manifestations (see Deuteronomy 28:27-29). But the plague here is not blindness, or even spiritual blindness, but an awesome darkness from outside (see Joel 2:2; Zephaniah 1:15). It is particularly significant in that Egypt’s high god was the Sun God. Lord Sun was now being shut down by Lord Yahweh. If Egypt would not let Israel go to worship their God, then Egypt’s god would be darkness. The structure is familiar: the plague, now unannounced (21-23), and then the confrontation with Pharaoh (24-27). - BibleGateway - Exodus 10: www.bible.org/netbible/exo10.htm


(22) So Moses lifted his hand to the sky, and a deep darkness covered the entire land of Egypt for three days*.


*three days: Just as Jesus was in that darkened tomb for 3 days and Jonah was in the belly of the sea monster. Three is the number of completeness.


(23) During all that time the people could not see each other, and no one moved. But there was light as usual where the people of Israel lived.


   The Egyptians couldn’t even see one another, and it’s even hinted at that they were unable to supply any sort of artificial remedy for this darkness.


(24) Finally, Pharaoh called for Moses. “Go and worship the Lord,” he said. “But leave your flocks and herds* here. You may even take your little ones with you.”


*your flocks and herds: Isn't it interesting that these slaves could own flocks and herds? The Hebrews were slaves but had a lot of freedoms too.


(25) “No,” Moses said, “you must provide us with animals for sacrifices and burnt offerings to the Lord our God.


   The point is that if Pharaoh told them to go and serve Yahweh, they had to have animals to sacrifice. If Pharaoh was holding the animals back, he would have to make some provision.


(26) All our livestock must go with us, too; not a hoof can be left behind. We must choose our sacrifices for the Lord our God from among these animals. And we won’t know how we are to worship the Lord until we get there.”


(27) But the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart once more, and he would not let them go.


(28) “Get out of here!” Pharaoh shouted at Moses. “I’m warning you. Never come back to see me again! The day you see my face, you will die!”


(29) “Very well,” Moses replied. “I will never see your face again.”



On-Line Sources:



Off-Line Sources:



  • "Cruden's Complete Concordance" - Zondervan Publishing House

  • "Breath of the Holies: Secrets of Moses' Tabernacle" - DVD by Perry Stone

  • "In Search of the Mountain of God" by Robert Cornuke and David Halbrook - Broadman & Holman Publishers

  • "Symbols of Judaism" by Marc-Alai Ouaknin - Barnes & Noble Books, publisher

  • "The Exodus Revealed: Searching for the Red Sea Crossing" - (2001), DVD, Studio: Questar, ASIN: B00005AUE2, available from Amazon.com

  • "The Defender's Study Bible" -World Bible Publishers

  • "The Miracle of Passover" - DVD by Zola Levitt

  • "The NIV Application Commentary - Exodus" – Peter Enns – Zondervan™

  • "The Ten Commandments" (1956 film) from Paramount Pictures, directed by Cecil B. DeMille, starring Charlton Heston as Moses

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