“20 Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Get up early in the morning and confront Pharaoh as he goes to the water and say to him, “This is what the Lord says: Let my people go, so that they may worship me. 21 If you do not let my people go, I will send swarms of flies on you and your officials, on your people and into your houses. The houses of the Egyptians will be full of flies, and even the ground where they are. 22 But on that day I will deal differently with the land of Goshen, where my people live; no swarms of flies will be there, so that you will know that I, the Lord, am in this land. 23 I will make a distinction a between my people and your people. This miraculous sign will occur tomorrow.”
24 And the Lord did this. Dense swarms of flies poured into Pharaoh’s palace and into the houses of his officials, and throughout Egypt the land was ruined by the flies. 25 Then Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, “Go, sacrifice to your God here in the land.” 26 But Moses said, “That would not be right. The sacrifices we offer the Lord our God would be detestable to the Egyptians. And if we offer sacrifices that are detestable in their eyes, will they not stone us? 27 We must take a three-day journey into the desert to offer sacrifices to the Lord our God, as He commands us.”
28 Pharaoh said, “I will let you go to offer sacrifices to the Lord your God in the desert, but you must not go very far. Now pray for me.”
29 Moses answered, “As soon as I leave you, I will pray to the Lord, and tomorrow the flies will leave Pharaoh and his officials and his people. Only be sure that Pharaoh does not act deceitfully again by not letting the people go to offer sacrifices to the Lord.”
30 Then Moses left Pharaoh and prayed to the Lord, 31 and the Lord did what Moses asked: The flies left Pharaoh and his officials and his people; not a fly remained. 32 But this time also Pharaoh hardened his heart and would not let the people go.
9:1 Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Go to Pharaoh and say to him, “This is what the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, says: ‘Let my people go, so that they may worship me.’ 2 If you refuse to let them go and continue to hold them back, 3 the hand of the Lord will bring a terrible plague on your livestock in the field—on your horses and donkeys and camels and on your cattle and sheep and goats. 4 But the Lord will make a distinction between the livestock of Israel and that of Egypt, so that no animal belonging to the Israelites will die.”’
5 The Lord set a time and said, “Tomorrow the Lord will do this in the land.” 6 And the next day the Lord did it: All the livestock of the Egyptians died, but not one animal belonging to the Israelites died. 7 Pharaoh sent men to investigate and found that not even one of the animals of the Israelites had died. Yet his heart was unyielding and he would not let the people go.”
Abraham Lincoln talked about God more than most presidents. During the Civil War, a reporter asked him if he believed God was on his side. Lincoln thought for a while and responded, “Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side. My greatest concern is to be on God’s side for God is always right.”
We’ll be thinking about God’s side this morning because that’s what these plagues highlight. With these plagues the Lord teaching the Hebrews and the Egyptians what Lincoln knew, “My greatest concern is to be on God’s side for God is always right.” Make sure you are on the Lord’s side. That’s the claim of this sermon.
We will study this in two points. First: swarms of flies. Second: livestock plague. First, in verses 20-32 of chapter 8, we see the swarms of flies. Second, in verses 1-7 of chapter 9, we see the livestock plague.
We first see the Lord’s side with our first point: swarms of flies. The plagues have been worsening. They spread from the Nile to the land. The magicians could no longer replicate them. With this fourth plague we enter a new phase. We enter the second cycle. This fourth plague began exactly as the first began; verse 20, ‘Get up early in the morning and confront Pharaoh as he goes to the water and say to him, “This is what the Lord says: let my people go.”’
The first, fourth, and seventh plague begin with Moses waiting for Pharaoh in the morning at the Nile. The second, fifth, and eighth plagues begin with Moses confronting Pharaoh at the court. The third, sixth, and ninth plagues begin with no chance for Pharaoh to respond. There are three cycles of plagues and each cycle gets worse. It’s as if Egypt is stuck in a downward spiral. That’s what Pharaoh’s hard-hearted rebellion did to them. That’s what it does today. It will keep getting worse, and it can always get worse. Just ask Pharaoh.
In this second cycle of plagues—plagues four through six—neither Moses nor Aaron used their staff. They spoke the Lord’s words, and the plagues happened. This was a reminder that the plagues were not magic. Magic is incantations done in precise ways—a flip of the hand or a spell. Magic is relics, like a sacred chalice or a sword, that contain power. That’s not the staffs of Moses and Aaron. The Lord set those sticks aside for these plagues to show that the power was His and His alone.
That’s what Jesus’ miracles show. They were never about technique. Sometimes Jesus spat in the ground, mixed it with dirt, and used the mud to heal. Sometimes he laid hands upon the person. Sometimes he prayed from the other side of town. He was showing that the power wasn’t in the technique—lest we try to replicate it—just like the power wasn’t in the staff. Beware of putting the power in the technique. Remember The Prayer of Jabez? That was all about technique—“we’re not getting God to do our will because we’re not praying right!” That’s what many best sellers in spirituality are about. They tap into the impulse of magic, which is us trying to control what isn’t in our control. That’s not how the Lord works.
This next cycle begins with flies; verse 21, “If you do not let my people go, I will send swarms of flies on you and your officials, on your people and into your houses.” These were probably stable flies. These are like horse flies, but smaller. If you’ve been bit by a horsefly, you’ve got adequate imagination for putting yourself in the shoes of these Egyptians. Egypt was full of these biting flies and there was no way to swat them all. This is like the plague of gnats from last week only bigger. The plagues are getting worse. Everyone can see it is getting worse but Pharaoh will not repent.
That was the situation in Egypt, but not in Goshen where the Hebrews lived; verse 22, “I will deal differently with the land of Goshen, where my people live; no swarms of flies will be there, so that you will know that I, the Lord, am in this land. I will make a distinction a between my people and your people.” This distinction wasn’t about the people. The rest of the books of Moses go on to show that the people then in Goshen were often just as hardhearted as Pharaoh. This is about the Lord’s side. “My greatest concern is to be on God’s side.” “You want to stop being bit? Come to Goshen. You don’t want to get bit by insects? Don’t leave Goshen. Be on the Lord’s side. You don’t want wrath? Come to the Lord’s side.”
We see the power of the Lord’s side in His talk about land. The Lord told Pharaoh that by this distinction between Goshen and Egypt, “you will know that I, the Lord, am in this land,” as verse 22 puts it. The ancients thought the gods had power only in their own land. The further a people group got from their homeland, the less their god could help them. The Lord is different. He is the creator of heaven and earth. He was just as powerful in Egypt as He was in Canaan as He was in Babylon as He was in Rome as He is in America.
The question before was, “who do the Hebrew slaves belong to—the Lord or Pharaoh?” The question now is, “who does the land of Egypt belong to—the Lord or Pharaoh?” The answer is Egypt and the whole world belongs to the Lord and He can do whatever He wants with it. He will ruin Egypt unless they repent; verse 24, “Dense swarms of flies poured into Pharaoh’s palace and into the houses of his officials, and throughout Egypt the land was ruined by the flies.”
The land doesn’t belong to Pharaoh. The slaves didn’t belong Pharaoh. There was actually nothing that belonged to Pharaoh. “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.” That’s true for us too. We tend to think something or someone is ours—my car, my husband, my child, my kingdom. It’s not. It’s all the Lord’s. We, at best, have some tie to or use of what we think of as ours. What we, like Pharoah, do with these will be called to account.
Pharaoh will not learn this lesson. You see that in his attempt to haggle with the Lord. When the biting flies became too much for him, Pharaoh made an offer to Moses, “Go, sacrifice to your God here in the land.” “You can worship that God of yours but you have to stay here.”
You can see from that offer that Pharaoh still thinks of the Hebrews his slaves. He will not let them go. He thinks he is making a reasonable offer, but he isn’t within a country mile of obeying God who said, “Let my people go.” “This is customary with the reprobate,” said Calvin, “to think that they have sufficiently done their duty when they yield ever so little to God.”
People who are not born of the Spirit assume that the Lord is tickled pink by any move we humans make in His direction. That’s why they assume their attempts to live a decent life are likely enough. That’s why they think consistent churchgoing is certainly enough. That’s why they think becoming a pastor or priest or missionary is undoubtedly enough to please God. They are still thinking of their lives as their own and any part of it they yield to God must be appreciated. That’s thinking like Pharaoh. Unless you want to wind up where Pharaoh winds up, you need to think differently. You need to recognize that, as we’ve been seeing, the Lord owns it all. Complete surrender is the only way forward for any of us. “I have been crucified with Christ,” Paul said. “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” That’s not Paul speaking just as a missionary. That’s him speaking as a born-again man. Which response owns your heart—do you think the Lord ought to be tickled pink that you do anything for Him or do you wish you did everything for Him because He is your life?
Pharaoh was trying to haggle with the Lord. It’s strange to think that anyone begging for relief from biting flies would consider himself in a position to bargain but hard-hearted pride does strange things. Moses shrugged the offer off by simply restating the Lord’s condition; “we must take a three-day journey into the desert to offer sacrifices to the Lord our God, as He commands us.” The Lord said it. That settles it.
Moses explained one reason he and the Hebrews wouldn’t worship in Egypt; verse 26, “The sacrifices we offer the Lord our God would be detestable to the Egyptians. And if we offer sacrifices that are detestable in their eyes, will they not stone us?” The Hebrews sacrificed sheep and goats. The Egyptians would be offended by that much like a Hindu would be offended by the sacrifice of a cow, which they consider sacred.
Moses explained this sacrificial reason why Pharaoh’s idea wouldn’t work, but he made clear that the real reason was that the Lord had said, “Let my people go.” That’s the heart of the matter. To understand all this talk about the people leaving Egypt, you need to understand the heart of the matter. It was never merely about taking a three-day trip into the desert to worship. It was about whether Pharaoh would let the people go. It was about whether Pharaoh thought the people belonged to himself or to the Lord. It was about whether Pharaoh thought he was in charge or the Lord was in charge. Yes, the Exodus is about the redemption of Israel but it is also a glory war between the Lord and Pharaoh. We are to see that and so learn real glory.
You see Pharaoh’s inglorious heart on display in verse 28; ‘Pharaoh said, “I will let you go to offer sacrifices to the Lord your God in the desert, but you must not go very far.”’ If you think that Pharaoh is finally starting to play ball by doing what the Lord says, you’ve missed the point because you’ve missed Pharaoh’s heart. What kind of heart says, “you can go but you must not go very far”? A heart that still thinks it’s in charge—a hard heart. “If he got just a little room to breathe, then he started tyrannizing again… the sick man was never worse than when he got better,” as Luther wrote about Pharaoh.
That’s why, when the flies leave, Pharaoh did not let the people leave. Pharaoh might even have genuinely believed that he would, but we humans have a tremendous capacity for self-deception. We often lie to ourselves and, at times, even believe those lies. Moses saw that before he left which is why he said, “be sure that Pharaoh does not act deceitfully again by not letting the people go to offer sacrifices to the Lord.”
Don’t deceive yourself. A fair portion of Jesus’ teachings are aimed at undeceiving us. That’s part of what he’s doing in the parables we are studying. Some of them were aimed at showing the people who thought they were on the Lord’s side that they weren’t yet on the Lord’s side. They are aimed at helping us see in ourselves what Pharaoh either refused to or had no interest in seeing in himself. They are aimed at showing you us good, the bad, and the ugly and then taking it to God. Can you imagine Pharaoh taking any of this to the Lord? Then you see how lost he is. Don’t be that lost. That’s the swarms of flies. Now we come to the shorter plague on the livestock. That’s our second point and the fifth plague—halfway done.
Much ink has been spilled on the science of the plagues. The Nile turns to blood becoming uninhabitable which drives the frogs unto the land. The frogs die and their rotting corpses become a breeding ground for gnats which plague the country. The explosion of gnats becomes a food source for larger insects and so the land becomes covered with those. Those biting insects then bite the livestock infecting them, which, as the story goes, brings us to verse 3, “the hand of the Lord will bring a terrible plague on your livestock in the field.”
There’s a certain logic to that, but I think it misses the point of the plagues. The point of the plagues is the dramatic intervention of God. It’s about the Lord at work and not mere cause and effect. That’s why the Lord has Aaron strike the dust which becomes gnats. That’s why He leaves it to Pharaoh to set the time for the frogs to die. The plagues are all about interrupting the natural process as proof of the Lord’s power.
You see that it’s about power in verse 2 of chapter 9, “If you refuse to let them go and continue to hold them back, the hand of the Lord will bring a terrible plague on your livestock in the field.” This is now the hand of the Lord—“the hand of the Lord will bring a terrible plague on your livestock in the field.” Last week it was the finger of God with the gnats. Now with the livestock it is the hand of the Lord. The strength is increasing, and the plagues are increasingly destructive. They were irritating and exasperating. Now they are truly destructive.
Many of the Egyptians measured their wealth in terms of terms of livestock. Some of us in this congregation do the same. You losing the vast majority of your livestock would be devastating and so it was for the Egyptian farmers. The Lord was now hitting Egypt where it hurt—in their pocketbook—and remember, this is only the fifth plague. The Lord’s only halfway done. In the weeks to come we will see that we humans have targets than are much softer than we realize. In our ignorance and arrogance, we really do think we can do ten rounds with the Lord. We have no idea how weak we are. “We are frail, we are fearfully and wonderfully made,” as Rich Mullins sang. “Forged in the fires of human passion, choking on the fumes of selfish rage, and with these our hells and our heavens, so few inches apart, we must be awfully small and not as strong as we think we are.” Learn that truth.
Pharaoh wouldn’t. We’re told that all Egypt’s livestock died. Now we know it that’s not the case that literally each and every animal died and we know that Moses knew that too because he will talk about livestock in the sixth, seventh, and tenth plagues. When Moses said all the livestock died in this plague, he was saying what we say when we say a car is totaled. We are underlining the severity of the damage. We aren’t saying that every single part of the car is utterly destroyed. The message is that this plague was economically devastating. We are still having studies on the economic devastation of the covid-19 pandemic. This livestock plague was like that for them and perhaps worse.
The Ipuwer papyrus might attest to that. The Ipuwer papyrus is an Egyptian manuscript describing chaotic conditions in Egypt that correspond to this time. The papyrus speaks of the river turning to blood, “There’s blood everywhere… lo, the river is blood.” It speaks of darkness covering the land, “The land is without light.” It says, “All the animals, their hearts weep. Cattle moan.” That last one might be a description of this fifth plague. The consequences of hard-hearted rebellion are very real.
The horses, donkeys, camels, cattle, sheep, goats of the Egyptians were financially a total loss. Pharaoh sent investigators to Goshen to check on their livestock. Everything there was fine. The Lord had said it would be; verse 4, “the Lord will make a distinction between the livestock of Israel and that of Egypt, so that no animal belonging to the Israelites will die.”’ The slaves had more than the masters.
Those animals in Goshen didn’t just happen to be untouched by the plague. Those biting flies didn’t just happen to avoid flying into Goshen. The message to the Hebrews was that they would be wise to stay on the Lord’s side. “Stay in Goshen. Stay on the Lord’s die.” The Lord makes His side obvious. He does that today with Jesus. Stay with Jesus—the Lord’s side.
It was an invitation to the world—to the Egyptians. “Come to Goshen—the wrath doesn’t come here.” We offer the same invitation. “Come to Jesus—the wrath doesn’t come here.” The question isn’t whether you would go to Goshen then. It’s easy to say what you would have done. What actually matters is what you do in the situation that you are in—come to Jesus. Stay with Jesus. Make it your greatest concern to be on the Lord’s side. Amen.