Bible Discussion — Exodus 9-11

June 20, 2007, 12:30 pm; posted by
Filed under Bible, Chloe, David, Josh J, Steve  | 3 Comments

This week, Bweinh.com looks at the next three chapters of the Bible, Exodus 9-11.

Previously in Exodus: 1-4 | 5-8

The book of Genesis:
1-4 | 5-9 | 10-14 | 15-18-2 | 19-22 | 23-26 | 27-29
30-32 | 33-36 | 37-39 | 40-43 | 44-46 | 47-50

 
INTRODUCTION:
David:
The last few plagues are leveled against a rebellious Pharaoh and his servants.

Steve:
More plagues and a constant dance between Moses and Pharaoh; the latter’s stubbornness and pretended confusion causing a world of harm to his nation and its people. A few thousand years later, the Jewish leaders thought it best that one man should die for the people; here in Egypt, it was one man who doomed his people to death.

 
SOMETHING YOU’D NEVER NOTICED BEFORE:
Steve:
The conversation in chapter 11 must have occurred at the same time as the argument directly preceding, in order for the two men’s joint boasts to be accurate.

David:
Some of Pharaoh’s servants who feared the word of the Lord got their cattle out of the field before the hail fell.

 
BEST BAND NAME FROM THE PASSAGE:
Josh: Tangible Darkness, Nothing Green
Steve: Shall A Dog
David: Grievous Murrain
Chloe: Not A Hoof

 
STORY IT REMINDS YOU OF:
David:
The movie Tremors, for some unexplained reason.

Steve:
Leiningen vs. the Ants, the short story that best represents the theme of man versus nature.

 
DEEP THEOLOGICAL MEANING:
Chloe:
11:9 says, “The Lord had said to Moses, ‘Pharaoh will refuse to listen to you — so that my wonders may be multiplied in Egypt.'”

I don’t like trials. I don’t like struggles. I don’t like it when God teaches me a lesson that involves me spilling blood or tears. I would much rather that God bring glory to Himself through blessing me. I have often wondered that if God is all-powerful, why can’t He be just as glorified by our successes as by our trials? But stories like this show how much more powerful perseverance through the trials can be. Can you imagine what Egypt must have looked like after just the first few plagues? And the Israelites, no doubt, were the one blamed and beaten for the Egyptians’ loss. Nevertheless, they continued on, and we can all see the end result — a remarkable Jewish celebration, a powerful story, and a nation founded by God.

Steve:
It’s interesting to me that Pharaoh didn’t harden his heart — or have his heart hardened — right away every time; twice he actually repented. “I have sinned this time,” Pharaoh admitted after the hail and the locusts, two of the three plagues most damaging to his country. “Please forgive my sin only this once.”

But even though his repentance was apparently genuine, it was not followed by a change in behavior — and so much like our own clichéd offers to serve God forever if He’ll only save us from today’s impending peril, God kept up His end, knowing full well man would fall short.

David:
God, acting as the master potter, works out his plan to use this situation to show mercy on his own people and level judgment on those who had grieved him for so long with gross idolatry and oppression.

 
RANDOM THOUGHT:
Josh:
After all the disasters that had befallen Egypt by the time chapter 9 rolled around, even if I didn’t believe in the Lord or give him the credit, if I heard a rumor that someone thought maybe some hail was coming, I’d go ahead and pull everything inside, just to be safe. Anyone who didn’t lacked brains more than faith.

Chloe:
“Darkness that can be felt” should be a line in a poem. You don’t hear description like that anymore — just five words that convey the completeness of the darkness. Remarkable!

David:
Moses not only wanted every piece of livestock to go with them, but refused to leave even one hoof behind.

Steve:
After the first six plagues, why were there still some who “did not regard the word of the Lord” and left their livestock and servants out in the field to die in the horrible hailstorm? Were they not paying attention to the bloody river, frogs and gnats? Or did the word not get out well enough?

 
WHERE IS JESUS IN THIS PASSAGE:
David:
There was darkness for three days, which seems to mirror the three hours of darkness that occurred when Jesus was slain.

Josh:
A light shining in the darkness.

 
VERSE TO REMEMBER:
Steve, Josh:
9:16 — “But indeed for this purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth.”

David:
10:3 — “So Moses and Aaron came in to Pharaoh and said to him, ‘Thus says the LORD God of the Hebrews: ‘How long will you refuse to humble yourself before Me? Let My people go, that they may serve Me.'”

Chloe:
11:9 — “But the LORD said to Moses, ‘Pharaoh will not heed you, so that My wonders may be multiplied in the land of Egypt.'”

 
PORTION YOU WOULD MOST LIKE EXPLAINED IN HEAVEN:
Chloe:
Why does it say that the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, then punished him so harshly for it?

Steve:
I would just like to see that tremendous swarm of locusts coming out of the east, then being blown into the Red Sea. But I don’t want to actually BE there.

David:
How all of Egypt was in such thick darkness, yet “there was light as usual where the people of Israel lived.”

Josh:
I’m still not sure I completely understand why God took the tack of “Let my people go — for a time of sacrifice,” as opposed to just “Let my people go.” Why not ask for what you are actually seeking, and what you have already promised to your people? More to the point, what would have happened if Pharaoh had, in good faith, agreed to this initial request?

 
LESSON TO TAKE AWAY:
Chloe:
God can be really scary. Don’t get on His bad side.

Josh:
Not many of us are fond of admitting when we are wrong. Even when we are willing to do so, we usually want to limit the scope of the admission as much as possible, much like Pharaoh. But coming to a right relationship with the Lord requires complete surrender. Anything less, and we are fooling ourselves, but God cannot be mocked, as surely as Moses saw through Pharaoh.

David:
Resistance is futile.

Steve:
The pause we take here after chapter 11 is sad and sobering. What was Pharaoh thinking, to harden his heart yet again, with the specter of death hanging over all the eldest in the land, and the horrors of the first nine plagues so fresh in his mind? Was he truly just that stubborn, willing to take the risk of sentencing even his own son to death? Or did he honestly think he was somehow making the right decision?

 
GENERAL RESPONSE TO THE PASSAGE:
Josh:
I enjoy the progression in the Lord’s show of strength. The earlier plagues were “matched” by Pharaoh’s magicians. As the plagues went on, the magicians found themselves unable to copy the wonders. By the time of the plague of boils, the magicians couldn’t even stand before Moses and try, since they themselves had been stricken. Abracadabra.

Steve:
This passage slides down the tracks like a horror movie. Plague, request, refusal, plague, request, refusal, each one worse than the last until finally, it can get no worse.

Yell at the screen all you want; the girl’s still going down to the basement by herself. You know exactly what’s down there. And there’s nothing you can do about it.

 
CONCLUSION:
Steve:
The wages of sin is death. And for the land of Egypt, it’s on its way.


Comments

3 Comments to “Bible Discussion — Exodus 9-11”

  1. dsweetgoober on June 20th, 2007 6:28 pm

    Hows this Chloe?

    What is this that I am looking at?
    Upon a peg in yon hall there hangs a hat,
    Perhaps by others abondoned, even scorned,
    But by a feather and some band adorned,
    Blacker than the hat, this winding belt,
    I think it is “a darkness that could be felt”.

  2. Steve on June 22nd, 2007 11:57 pm

    Quoting Chloe (on the phone): “Thank you — you should be the Poet Laureate of Bweinh!”

  3. dsweetgoober on June 23rd, 2007 1:58 pm

    I accept.

Leave a comment!