Bonus Episode: Understanding the Plagues

Well hello friends,
it is a pleasure to have you join me this afternoon for our daily Bible study.
We are glad to have you with us.
For those of you who are
regulars here at the study,
today is going to be just a little different than normal.
Today we’re going to not be looking at a particular text in Exodus,
but rather we’re going to be looking as a summary of the plagues that we’ve had
thus far.
And as you know,
we’ve already studied the first nine plagues and we’re
going to look at some of the themes that carry throughout them and see what we might
learn in the midst of it.
You might be interested to know that biblical
scholarship will look to this topic of the plagues and they’ll point out that
the text actually doesn’t use the Hebrew word for plague as often as you might
expect.
In fact, it only appears in just a few short moments here in the Exodus
story as it relates to plagues.
And that’s because in the larger biblical narrative,
plagues actually appear quite often and when they do,
they tend to be
related to the nation of Israel itself.
The plague often comes at the back end
of God’s judgment against the people.
And so what we find is these interesting moments in which,
not exclusively,
but often the people of Israel are
afflicted for their lack of faith or their stubbornness or their unwillingness
to follow God’s directive.
A lot of times that comes upon the people in some form
of a disease and we know of course that both in the Old and New Testament we see
that a lot in skin diseases.
These are things that we will find later in the
Old Testament narrative of very strong prohibitions against folks with
unpure skin, with diseases of the skin to be excluded from the Christian
community, or from the, sorry, from the Israelite community.
And so the plague
then is often in that context seen as a form of judgment against the people
themselves.
Scholars, when they look to a text like Exodus,
are going to refer them
to them often as signs and wonders.
And that may seem like a very sort of academic distinction,
but in some ways it’s an important distinction and it
flows with the theme that Clint and I have been sharing as we’ve gone through
these nine plagues together.
Because in the midst of this story,
these aren’t so much plagues certainly against the people of Israel.
These are,
as Clint described yesterday, a judgment against Egypt and may be best understood as a
form of God’s divine warfare against Egypt.
This is God setting himself against
this rival nation and more specifically this rival leader who would set himself
against the Creator God.
And this idea of sign and wonder I think is a helpful
frame because what it tells us is that we are fundamentally seeing in this
God’s action proving himself to the nation of Israel,
showing himself to be the divine one,
their leader, the one who is called them,
and the one who will
deliver them.
It is a sign, in other words,
to them,
but it is also a sign
against the judgment of Egypt.
It is a way of showing the one who is greatest,
the one who is Lord,
the one who rules over and overrules.
And in that way we
see the theme of the hardened Pharaoh’s heart coming up over and over and over
again.
And we see then this sort of two sides of the same coin equation happening,
that the sign and wonder is both for the people of Israel a source of definition.
“These are my people,” says the Lord,
and then also an opportunity
for them to see the one whose strength will carry them forward into the
wilderness travels which we know lie beyond the Red Sea.
On the flip side,
this is a way of showing that in the contest between the greatest nation and God,
there is no contest.
And so that, once again, we connect to that narrative that
we had in yesterday’s study.
If you missed that,
be sure to pause this and
jump on over there for a quick listen.
But realistically, we see that this is
also a way of God showing that God is the supreme leader and the supreme ruler.
Another thing I want to point out as we look at a summary of these plagues is
we’ve already pointed out as we went through them some cycles.
Of course, you have that Egyptian ruler,
you have the magicians,
and they figure very much in
the beginning of the story.
So you know already about that theme about the
hardening of the Pharaoh’s heart.
You know, because we’ve been through it
together, this turning that happens,
the Pharaoh will make a statement,
“I will let the people go,” and then he will re-nig on that promise instead of actually
letting the people go.
He will then put his foot down,
and after the pressure is off,
especially in the beginning of the story,
then he will decide instead that
he’s going to keep the people,
and he’s not going to keep his promise.
So we know all of these themes.
The thing that we’ve not talked about,
once again, comes from the academic community.
And one of the things,
I’m going to try to make this as
quick and interesting as possible,
but as we read the Exodus story,
we tend to do
so as a whole narrative.
And that is indeed what it is intended to be.
As we read the story of these nine plagues so far,
and then we’ll summarize,
or we’ll get into that tenth plague as we make our way through Passover tomorrow,
what you discover is that there are actually a variety of different sources being
referenced and woven together in a really interesting way.
So one thing that
scholars will talk about is called the priestly cycle inside these plagues.
I’m going to describe what I mean by that in a second.
But what you have is a cycle of
seven plagues in the non-priestly cycle.
That would be plagues 1, 2,
4,
5,
7, 8,
and then 10, which we’ve not gotten to 10 yet.
And in each,
the motive of these is framed in death.
So you have the death of the fish in the Nile,
death of the livestock,
you’ve got the death of the firstborn.
All of these show God’s
willingness and power over even the power of life.
So here we have an interesting sort of,
if you allow me to once again use that war metaphor,
I think that shines in these parables.
Interestingly,
scholars point out
that there are some other parables that emphasize a different aspect.
So they point to the plague number two,
number four,
seven, and eight.
These are ones where you have a human discomfort,
right?
You have the idea of a boils,
you have the idea of darkness,
you have the idea of the death of crops.
In these, it is not
human life or death that is being figured exactly,
but rather it is a kind of negative,
what’s the way to say,
that all of these are places where the people are afflicted,
but there is not an equation between life or death in these scenarios.
They point to ways in which you can see how Aaron is highlighted in
some plagues and not in others,
and they point out that what we learn through
some of this is that as the people of Israel look back upon the Exodus
experience, they see in these stories different images of what will be true.
At this point in the Exodus story,
Aaron is not a significant figure yet.
He’s significant because of course we know that God gave Moses Aaron as a
plague story as he sort of appears on and off.
Strikingly, if you notice,
in a lot of parables, it’s Moses doing the speaking.
But later on in the story,
as the nation of Israel looks back upon Exodus,
they’re going to remember Aaron,
and Aaron is going to be an important figure in the priestly tribe.
Ultimately,
we know if we go further into the book of Exodus,
Aaron is going to be given specific responsibility for the religious worship
and observance of the entire nation.
This is unbelievably important for all of the
stories that will follow.
Some of these plagues emphasize that priestly nature.
We’re not going to spend a lot of time fleshing that out.
There are many, many books written that talk about the textual nature of Exodus,
what we can learn from it,
what different aspects of the story might emphasize different aspects of the nation of Israel
and the stories that will follow.
One thing that Clint and I have said numerous times in the midst
of this study is that we should recognize how influential these stories are in the imagination
of the Old Testament or the people of Israel and their Bible.
We also have mentioned numerous times
how substantial this story is for the Christian imagination.
A book that might be in the Christian
lexicon, which you could resonate with,
would be the book of Revelation.
It’s not always an easy
book to study, but we find in it God’s judgment against those who misunderstand,
for those who set their hearts against God’s way.
We see this idea of the Antichrist being worked out even in
the books of John,
and then that leads into Revelation.
Here we have some similar themes
in Revelation to what we had in Exodus,
where God brings down these miraculous signs and wonders,
where God shows definitively no doubt to be offered of God’s ability and ultimately revealing
himself in those actions to those who are his people as the one who will deliver them,
but simultaneously revealing himself to those who set themselves against God,
the enemies of God,
to show and make clear that ultimately God will be the one who will win in the end.
And of course, as Christians, we know that the ending of Revelation is about God’s strength and a clear
determination to unify, to bring back,
to deliver us from death into an eternal state of connection
and peace and resolution with God.
And that is the way in which we can see a similar theme even
reflected in our Christian New Testament scriptures.
Now, when you look at Exodus,
of course, that’s not in mind for the original authors.
For those writing this book,
it is for them a representation of their national identity.
We had in Genesis the story about God’s call of
some and the way that God worked within mysterious, miraculous,
sometimes unbelievably strange ways
to bring that call forward into the future.
But here in the book of Exodus,
I’m sure you’ve noticed in these plagues,
we’ve moved away from the single person narrative in substantial ways.
Yes,
Moses is important, right?
His leadership is speaking to the Pharaoh that is highlighted
and emphasized.
But notice how all of these plagues affect either all of the Israelites
and the Egyptians.
That was especially true in the beginning of the plagues.
Or we’ll see how the Egyptians and the Israelites are separated,
how there’s light for the Israelites,
but there’s darkness for the Egyptians,
how the Israelites firstborn will be saved in the 10th plague,
and how the Egyptians will lose their firstborn.
This is an essential distinction
that represents God having chosen
his people.
And as we traveled through the plagues,
and I think we can see how in many ways,
while this is a sign in wonder text showing God’s conquering of Pharaoh,
greatest leader of the greatest nation of this day,
also the one who’s subjecting the people
of Israelite, holding them as slaves,
literally holding power over them.
But even beyond that,
this is God choosing God’s people.
God’s making it clear to the people themselves,
and to those who might hold them in bondage,
that you will not be able to define these people
apart from God, that God has claimed them.
They belong to God,
and that God is going to be the
one to rescue them from their bondage.
That story,
the story of God choosing a people,
is the linchpin of the Christian understanding of what it means to be in the community
of God, the body of Christ.
Because we see Paul making an argument in the book of Romans
that is seeking to flesh out what we do with the fact that God has a called people,
the people of Israel.
And Paul is making this beautiful theological argument that makes the
case that God intended to call the Israelite people so that God might call the Gentiles,
so that ultimately the Gentiles might be a temptation or a call or a signpost.
He uses different language that might draw the nation of Israel back to God and bring them back into the
circle.
There’s this beautiful language of election of some for the sake of the other.
And Paul talks about both the Christian and the Israelite communities as being elected for the sake of
the other.
And if you understand that for a moment,
you’re going to understand that what we’ve seen in
Exodus thus far is a beautiful calling story about how God is miraculously making it clear to anyone who might look,
whether one with eyes of faith or simply one who recognizes the sign and wonder
itself, the darkness or the river turned to blood or the frogs or the flies or the boils or whichever
sign you want to look at.
Each one of these in particular shows us clearly the definition that
God has made of these people,
the calling of these people.
And then Christians importantly are later
going to look upon that as the essential family tree so that we are grafted into that tree,
that this becomes our story.
Not in the exact same context,
not saying that Christians who are
Gentiles can claim the same exact heritage or the same exact cultural meaning,
but rather the same
spiritual meaning.
That if you look through it and you see with the eyes of Christ,
we’ve been brought into this story so that God’s calling of these people becomes a way about talking of God’s calling for us.
And this may sound theological,
it may sound high-minded,
it may sound academic in some ways.
I hope as we will turn beyond Passover in the 10th plague and once we move our way
closer towards the parting of the Red Sea,
you will be able to see some of the very practical,
some of the very real ways in which Exodus and the idea of passing through water is going to be
used later by the Christian church to be an image of Christian baptism,
this idea of being
brought through the water,
experiencing what should have been death and instead being raised
in new life, this promise and hope of resurrection.
And the earliest Christians begin to see in this
Exodus story, not just a story of God’s calling the people of Israel,
but ultimately through the
eyes of Christian faith,
looking through the lens of Jesus Christ,
an actual image of what God’s
intention is for all who would call upon the name of the risen one.
And as we talked about
yesterday,
talking a little bit about the idea of that lamb,
that gets brought into the book of
Hebrews, we see that listed as Jesus himself is framed as some of these key images here,
some of these key linguistic and metaphors and like the lamb as the one slaughtered and actually put above the doorpost that
physical reality,
we also see signs and meaning beyond it.
And that is this
beautiful image that Christians are later going to look back upon and find as a kind of grafting in
to their own stories.
So this is an incredible sort of growth as these plagues or signs and wonders grow.
There’s a lot happening here.
Scholars are going to talk to us about the textual aspects.
They’re going to talk to us about how fundamentally these are both interpreted by
the people of Israel as they look upon their own history.
And they see a character like Aaron,
who is maybe not entirely fleshed out yet,
but is visible and present in these stories,
because later his significance is going to be made clear.
But on the other hand,
you’re going to be talking
about the ways in which Christians found in these texts,
beautiful symbols and meaning of
connection, a grafting into the people of Israel story,
this belief that God had intended all the
way from the rescue of the Israelite people,
a larger rescue for all humankind you might call
upon God’s name.
And so we see layer upon layer.
We see how these things are stacked one upon each
other.
And then we realize this ground we’ve been traveling in some ways,
you know, very slow and methodical has actually been this this unbelievably rich,
this unbelievably fruitful
place of faith,
not only for the Israelites,
but also for anyone who calls upon the name of Jesus.
And so I hope
you might hear today,
if you come to the conversation asking why the plagues or why these signs and wonders,
it is for lots of reasons.
There’s not just one.
And that’s the beauty of
a story like this.
It tells us enough that we need to understand the story of faith.
But it is open enough that anyone who I has eyes of faith are going to see in it just an unbelievable
source, a kind of garden of wisdom and truth and connection.
And my hope for today was not to
explain it or to boil it down,
but to maybe just give us a 20,000 kind of foot view.
This is why the
plagues.
This is some of the things that we might learn from them.
And my hope is that in that you might be encouraged.
Maybe you might see a little bit more in it than what you’d seen before.
And I certainly hope that you’ll join us tomorrow.
We expect Pastor Clint to be back and we will continue
on with the Passover 10th plague,
see in it the unbelievable,
pivotal moments here that’s going
to happen between God and Pharaoh.
And then we’re going to really see the ways in which God as
deliverer carries the story forward.
Friends, I hope you’re blessed.
Hope there’s been something
both encouraging and challenging in our conversation here today.
If you found something good in it,
please be sure to share that in the comments.
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and look forward to being with you again tomorrow.
Thanks so much.