Exodus 10:20-29

Hey, everybody, welcome back.
Thanks for joining us as we close out the week in the
10th chapter of Exodus.
A little heavy today,
dark literally in the first story that we’re
going to see, and then setting up for the culmination,
kind of the pinnacle of the
plagues, which as you can imagine,
even if you don’t already know where we’re headed,
is kind of rough.
So let’s jump in here,
verse 21 of chapter 10.
This is the ninth plague,
and the plague here is darkness.
The Lord says to Moses,
“Stretch out your hand.” Won’t read all of this,
but there are a couple of things I want to highlight.
The first is a line that says,
“It is a darkness that can be felt.”
So Moses stretched out his hand
toward heavens, and there was a dense darkness in all the land of Egypt for three days.
People could not see one another.
They could not move from where they were,
but all the Israelites
had light where they lived.
So let’s maybe stop there, Michael.
The plague itself is simply told.
There’s not any props to it this time.
There’s no anything involved.
Moses stretches out his hand,
and a kind of darkness that is emotional,
almost physical in the text,
falls upon the land of
Egypt.
And the closest thing I think I can
equate to this is having been on some cave tours where
deep underground, they turn off all the lights,
and you literally lose all sense of what is around
you, who is around you.
It is disconcerting,
and the idea that this is what happens in Egypt.
Now, we don’t get told
what happens here.
I mean, there’s no explanation of the mechanism here.
It is clearly supernatural,
especially given that there in one part of the land,
the Israelites have light.
So this is not a story that is to be understood.
It’s one of those stories that we are told in the lens of faith,
and there is something about
that experience.
I love this language here,
a darkness that can be felt if you’ve been in that
kind of darkness with fear attached to it,
with uncertainty attached to it.
There is something visceral about that, and that’s what happens in Egypt.
I think that we should be very attuned to
this language of light and darkness, Clint.
Obviously,
there’s an
unmaking happening here.
We have in Genesis God who creates light.
In the first creation story,
it’s always worth pointing out that the light comes before the sun,
that the light that God makes is a light of God’s own choosing.
Here,
God restricts that light from the people of Egypt.
He miraculously continues
to shine upon the people of Israel that they might see.
In this darkness, as you’ve said, that is felt,
there’s a kind of God-forsakenness in that,
a kind of God turning his back upon this nation.
Even one that’s been warring with God,
but up to this point,
has been spared this
particular experience, and now God,
by God’s own providence and power,
shrouds the people in
darkness.
We should know,
though sometimes I think as people who live with
light bulbs,
we forget
that being in darkness is a place of vulnerability.
A lot of people are afraid of the darkness,
and one of the reasons that we have that built into us is because we don’t know what lurks in the darkness.
As people who are very concerned with our own safety by nature of our biology, our reality,
this darkness,
it has spiritual source,
but a physical, practical reality that the nation now stands swallowed in the darkness.
They can’t move.
It’s so dark the text goes so
far as to tell us,
and I think we should see in that image,
Clint, the physicality of it.
We should see that the spiritual nature of it,
that their minds are darkened is the same way that
their hearts have been darkened.
There’s so many senses in a story like this,
we should see them all,
no pun intended.
Agreed,
and it has an effect.
Although we saw this yesterday,
the Pharaoh
agrees in part but not in whole to letting the people go.
Now, whereas before it was,
“I won’t let the children go,” now the Pharaoh changes.
He says, “You can go, go worship the Lord,” but he adds this limitation,
“Only your flocks and your herds shall remain behind.
Even the children may go with you,” which,
if you remember, said would never happen,
but now he’s willing to make that concession,
but he limits it at flocks.
The herds cannot go,
and Moses answers that they need those to go with them,
that not a hoof shall be left behind
because there will be sacrifices,
and there’s this line that said,
“We will not know what we need
until we arrive there,” but then we read again verse 27,
language that is familiar to us at this
point, “The Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart.
He was unwilling to let them go,
and the Pharaoh said to him,” to Moses,
“Get away from me.
Take care that you do not see my face again,
for on the day you see my face,
you will die.” Moses said,
“Just as you say,
I will never see your face again.” So
the Pharaoh seems to take as the last straw,
and not only does he now refuse,
he was willing to make some concessions,
now he backs up again.
There’s a kind of almost a polarity to this story
where he seems to have one personality,
then the next, but here at the end, he is unwilling.
He is not going to allow them,
and he warns, he threatens Moses and Aaron with him, we think,
“Get away from me.
If you see my face again,
that’ll be the day you die.” And so a clear threat here as Pharaoh kind
of spills over in his anger and in his frustration,
but notice the text ends with Moses saying,
“It is as you say,
I will never see your face again.” Even here,
the Pharaoh doesn’t get the last word.
Even here, the Pharaoh doesn’t get the last threat.
Those words belong to God and they’re spoken through Moses.
So there’s a few interesting things here at the end of this particular parable
Clint.
The one that sticks out to me is we miss the part of the equation where Moses goes and prays,
or Moses seeks God’s face,
and in the midst of that,
the plague is lifted.
We don’t have that happening here.
In some way,
we also don’t have the common refrain that we’ve had of the Pharaoh
finally having too much making this promise,
then the plague being lifted,
and then Pharaoh going
back on his word,
and we’ve now gotten used to this pattern.
Here,
Pharaoh makes an existential threat against Moses.
He says, “If you come again,” almost as if to say,
“I haven’t been able to control the plagues.
I haven’t been able to negotiate on all of these different terms.”
So then, Moses, with your life, I’ll negotiate.
If you come back next time,
you are going to die,
right?
So maybe I can’t control all of this, but Moses,
your life belongs to me.
I find that really,
really interesting.
And Moses, I’m not sure how to read Moses’s line here.
I think it can be read
many ways.
Just as you say,
“I’ll never see your face again,” is that a statement of faith,
a recognition that God is going to win the upper hand and that therefore,
Pharaoh’s time is numbered.
That could be an interpretation,
though, if we’re going to be honest,
Moses has
had a touch-and-go relationship with trusting God in the midst of this process.
Another way, I think, of reading that line,
“I’ll never see your face again,” is a bit of a slight.
It may be
him insulting the Pharaoh.
I’m sure it could be read a number of different ways,
but I think just the line itself,
Clint,
it ends this plague in a way we’ve not seen it ended before,
where there’s this conflict,
and instead of there being some measure of trickery,
here there’s a threat,
Moses meets that threat,
sort of calls him on it,
and then the story is just going to continue on.
Yeah, and you know what,
I think we’ve seen throughout these plagues,
Michael, that there is a kind of looseness in them.
We get told all the animals die,
then we have a mention of
animals, we get told the crops are gone,
then we have a mention of crops.
We had yesterday,
Pharaoh say, “I will never let the children go,” then the next story he says,
“I’ll even let the
children go.” Pharaoh is not going to keep these words.
There is another meeting down the road
between Pharaoh and Moses,
but as the text is walking us through,
I think it’s giving us these
words to try and put us in that moment with Pharaoh’s frustration.
You know, the phrase, “Don’t kill the messenger,” he’s literally about to do that,
or at least he’s threatening to do that,
and here is where we come as we reach sort of the
backdrop,
as we reach the pinnacle,
we stand on the verge of the final plague.
And I think, you know, we’ll probably start the week with that
as we move into that narrative, that telling.
In some ways,
it’s more carefully told,
I think, maybe more carefully crafted.
It’s certainly more complicated
than most of the plagues we’ve seen.
It’s also the most devastating,
even though we have seen
significant pain inflicted upon the Egyptians.
The final plague undoes them in a way that I think is really powerful,
but we’ll look at some of that next week.
It’s hard not to get nine plagues in and feel some sense,
Clint, of weariness, I think, especially at the pace that we’ve taken it,
trying to read each plague closely and to see the
patterns, but also to see where those patterns break.
I think there’s almost in the reading of it
a feeling that is created,
a kind of internal struggle in which it’s easy to, if we’re honest,
just become frustrated,
frustrated with Pharaoh.
I mean, give in, guy, right?
I mean, it’s clear that you don’t stand before God.
It’s clear that you’re not going to get the upper hand.
You’re not going to win this conflict.
And that’s delivered us exactly to the place where the writer wants us
to be.
I mean, we’ve seen the setup from the people being oppressed by this Pharaoh to Moses being
called this unlikely spokesperson for God.
Now we’ve had nine plagues in which an increasing
severity, this conflict between God and Pharaoh has been bore out.
And now we stand coming to
pinnacle, as you say, Clint.
And as the reader,
there is frustration and maybe even,
fair to say, and a kind of anger leveled against the one who stands in the way of the people.
Pharaoh has
lied at every turn,
at every precipice of every single one of these plagues.
He is either
looked for an explanation or he’s looked for a place to demonstrate his own power,
or he has actually said a thing and then went back on it.
And so I think as the reader,
as we look ahead to next week and we’re going to transition into the setting up of the 10th
parable, I think Clint,
the text has masterfully delivered us to the place where we need to be
to set up what is going to be really a unique kind of moment in the scriptures,
the kind of devastation that’s going to be wrought has other,
certainly other judgments and other stories of substantial import throughout the Old Testament.
But I’m not aware of anything
quite exactly like what is going to happen in the 10th parable.
And I think the only way that we
get to it is through this carefully chosen path up a winding mountain to get there.
Yeah.
Is that fair?
Yeah, I think so.
Certainly there are many moments of destructive power in the Old Testament,
but I think as particularly applied in this 10th plague,
it is so specific and it is so clearly an
answer to the beginning of the story.
And I don’t want to run ahead.
We’ll get there next week,
but I think it is a unique story for a couple of reasons.
And I hope that you all can hang in there
with us just through one more plague and then we’ll get on with the rest of the story.
And
it is the culmination.
And it would have been enough if the plagues started here,
but I think this sort of long introduction,
this, as you called it,
Michael, a climb to this point
only, I think, heightens the power of the way this story is told.
I think that’s a good summary.
I think that’s enough for today.
Friends, thanks for being with
us.
I hope that there’s been something in this that’s been challenging.
I’m glad that you’ve
made time to join us and hope that you will continue to join us next week,
two o’clock as we continue on.
And we do make our way into this 10th and final
particular plague.
Have a good weekend, everybody.