Exodus 10:21–11:8
“Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Stretch out your hand toward heaven that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, and a darkness to be felt.’ So Moses stretched out his hand toward heaven, and there was thick darkness in all the land of Egypt three days; they did not see one another, nor did any rise from his place for three days; but all the people of Israel had light where they dwelt.”
Think how terrifying this would be! “A darkness to be felt,” it was so thick that you could physically feel it, the complete absence of light. Going along with the other plagues that had just struck Egypt, just a few days prior, the plague of frogs had hit “and they gathered them [dead frogs] together in heaps, and the land stank.” Next came gnats, then cattle disease, then boils, hail, and locusts. There would have been much death all over Egypt, and the land must have smelled horrible. With all the dead cows, mixed with the dead servants that had just died from the hail, the heaps of frogs, and finally, the darkness. Put yourself in the shoes of an Egyptian for just a moment. You cannot see a thing, the air is stifling because of the darkness you can feel, and the little air you can get, is pervaded with the scent of dead frogs, cows, and humans. If you’ve never smelt a dead frog, you’re not missing much. It smells like rotten fish, but somehow worse, more pungent, I suppose. It’s disgusting, and the Egyptians could not escape from the smell. It’s no wonder Pharaoh says later in this passage, “Get away from me; take heed to yourself; never see my face again; for in the day you see my face you shall die.” The Hebrew slaves had light, the servants of the greatest nation on earth id not have to deal with the scent of dead amphibians, because their God was watching over them. The God of Israel took on the thousands of Egyptian gods and defeated them, for He is the Living God, the omnipotent Creator of the Universe, and the Egyptian gods are nothing more than stones.
“Then Pharaoh called Moses, and said, ‘Go, serve the Lord; you children also may go with you; only let your flocks and herds remain behind.’ BUt Moses said, ‘You must also let us have sacrifices and burnt; offering, that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God. Our cattle also must go with us; not a hoof shall be left behind, for we must take of them to serve the Lord our God, and we do not know with what we must serve the Lord until we arrive there.’ But the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he would not let them go.”
Pharaoh wanted the Israelites to go serve the Lord without letting them serve the Lord. For he was quite accustomed to sacrificing to his gods, and he very much knew that the Israelites would want to sacrifice to the Lord. However, he also was suspicious that they would not return to their bondage after their three days of freedom, so he proposed an ultimatum. He would let them go, but none of their animals could they take, which would all but ensure that they would return. Without flocks and herds, no one can start a successful nation or escape from bondage with the number of people that Israel had. Moses saw right through this, knowing that they must sacrifice to their Lord, and if they did not take their flocks, he knew that they could not make a successful escape. He demanded that they be allowed to take their herds, so they could sacrifice, he said. However, the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart. He would not let them go, for the Lord needed to make an example of the people of Egypt, He needed to set Passover as an ordinance for all time, until Christ. For Passover is a great prophecy about the coming of our Lord. To take the blood of the lambs and put it on the cross pieces over the door to their houses, speaks mightily of the coming sacrifice of our Lord. For He was the Paschal Lamb, the perfect sacrifice for the Lord, “a pleasing aroma to [His] nostrils.” Just as the Lord passed over the houses where the blood was on the door jam, so He passed over our sins, our iniquities through the blood of His Son, our Savior, Christ. He has taken away our sins, the Destroyer shall not come into our house to kill us, for our sins have been removed from us. he has purified us through His Holy Sacrifice, through the wonderful working of our Savior.
“The Lord said to Moses, ‘Yet one plague more I will bring upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt; afterwards he will let you go hence; when he lets you go, he will drive you away completely. Speak now in the hearing of the people, that they ask, every man of his neighbor and every woman of her neighbor, jewelry of silver and of gold.’ And the Lord gave the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians. Moreover, the man Moses was very great in the land of Egypt, in the sight of Pharaoh’s servants and in the sight of the people. And Moses said, ‘Thus says the Lord: About midnight I will go forth in the midst of Egypt; and all the first-born in the land of Egypt shall die, from the first-born of Pharaoh who is upon his throne, even to the first-born of the maidservant who is behind the mill; and all the first born of the cattle.”
As God killed the first-born of Egypt, He did not even spare His only Son. He did not take mercy upon Him, knowing that the salvation of His beloved creations would rely upon the obedience of His Son. Knowing that all our sins, for they are numerous indeed, and that we cannot sacrifice them away, for the ordinances of the Law are too great for any one man to keep. No, surely we needed One to wash away our sins, through His blood, so that we might be made pure in the sight of God. The Lamb hung upon the cross, after serving the Passover to His Disciples, knowing full well that every word He spoke was the prophecy concerning Himself. But He still went through with it, He knew all that was about to happen to Him, and He still took the Cup of God’s Wrath (an actual ordinance in the Passover Seder!) and drained it. There is not the smallest amount remaining in the Cup, for he took all of God’s righteous wrath and placed it on His shoulders. How awesome is our Lord!
