Exodus 8:1-15

¹ Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh and say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord, “Let my people go, that they may serve me. ² But if you refuse to let them go, behold, I will plague all your country with frogs. ³ The Nile shall swarm with frogs that shall come up into your house and into your bedroom and on your bed and into the houses of your servants and your people, and into your ovens and your kneading bowls. ⁴ The frogs shall come up on you and on your people and on all your servants.”’” ⁵ And the Lord said to Moses, “Say to Aaron, ‘Stretch out your hand with your staff over the rivers, over the canals and over the pools, and make frogs come up on the land of Egypt!’” ⁶ So Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt, and the frogs came up and covered the land of Egypt. ⁷ But the magicians did the same by their secret arts and made frogs come up on the land of Egypt. ⁸ Then Pharaoh called Moses and Aaron and said, “Plead with the Lord to take away the frogs from me and from my people, and I will let the people go to sacrifice to the Lord.” ⁹ Moses said to Pharaoh, “Be pleased to command me when I am to plead for you and for your servants and for your people, that the frogs be cut off from you and your houses and be left only in the Nile.” ¹⁰ And he said, “Tomorrow.” Moses said, “Be it as you say, so that you may know that there is no one like the Lord our God. ¹¹ The frogs shall go away from you and your houses and your servants and your people. They shall be left only in the Nile.” ¹² So Moses and Aaron went out from Pharaoh, and Moses cried to the Lord about the frogs, as he had agreed with Pharaoh. ¹³ And the Lord did according to the word of Moses. The frogs died out in the houses, the courtyards, and the fields. ¹⁴ And they gathered them together in heaps, and the land stank. ¹⁵ But when Pharaoh saw that there was a respite, he hardened his heart and would not listen to them, as the Lord had said.

 

In many ways, our text is an odd text for a Lord’s Supper service.  After all, the plague of frogs in Egypt was a symbol of God’s wrath and judgment for the disobedience of Pharaoh, and the symbols of bread and juice are symbols of the grace that God has offered the world through Jesus Christ.  The frogs make us cringe in disgust.  The cross causes our hearts to soar on wings of praise.  The frogs spoke of coming doom.  The cross speaks of coming salvation.  The frogs were a vile inconvenience.  The cross is a beautiful declaration of God’s love.

Yet in both cases God reveals something true and necessary about Himself to the world.  In both cases God works in shocking and jarring ways.  In both cases these shocking acts spell hope and coming deliverance for the people of God.  And in both cases the way is being paved for an Exodus from bondage.

So maybe this is not such a strange Lord’s Supper text after all.

I. Pharaoh begins to differentiate between greater and lesser powers. (v.1-11)

Having, in his view, survived the first plague of blood, Pharaoh steels his resolve to continue his cruel subjugation of the Hebrews.  He had promised to let them go into the wilderness to worship God if the waters of the Nile were turned back to water from the blood.  When Moses interceded for him, however, he changed his mind.  In doing so, he set the stage for the second plague, and a rather grotesque one at that.

¹ Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh and say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord, “Let my people go, that they may serve me. ² But if you refuse to let them go, behold, I will plague all your country with frogs. ³ The Nile shall swarm with frogs that shall come up into your house and into your bedroom and on your bed and into the houses of your servants and your people, and into your ovens and your kneading bowls. ⁴ The frogs shall come up on you and on your people and on all your servants.”’” ⁵ And the Lord said to Moses, “Say to Aaron, ‘Stretch out your hand with your staff over the rivers, over the canals and over the pools, and make frogs come up on the land of Egypt!’” ⁶ So Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt, and the frogs came up and covered the land of Egypt.

Yes, rather grotesque indeed!  I once saw a documentary about the 1993 Australian mouse plague that cost that nation over $70 million in crop damage.  It was a jarring documentary.  Mice were everywhere, moving here and there in foul, teeming waves.  It was unbelievable!  It was also a national catastrophe.  A solution was finally discovered, and the mice were poisoned.   Then the country had to deal with countless piles of mice carcasses.

That gives me the shivers just thinking about it!  And there can be no doubt that this plague of frogs was even worse.  Just imagine.  One commentator pointed out that the Egyptians apparently did not wear shoes indoors.  It is quite possible, then, that there are things worse than stepping on the stray Lego block barefooted.  Yuck!  And it has also been pointed out that the Egyptians did not sleep in raised beds, but on mats on the floor.  Just imagine sleeping on a frog-infested ground.

So the frogs came in foul multitudes.  The Egyptians were used to periods of frog infestation, depending on the condition of the Nile, but they had never seen anything like this.  Yet, just as with the first plague, the Egyptian magicians show that they are able to do the same, at least on a limited scale.

⁷ But the magicians did the same by their secret arts and made frogs come up on the land of Egypt.

Again, what we are seeing in a microcosm is the cosmic battle between the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness.  We have already seen that the devil does indeed have some power, only, of course, as it is allowed him by the Lord (Job 1:6-12).  However, it is interesting to see that Pharaoh himself appears less and less impressed by the limited power his magicians yield.

⁸ Then Pharaoh called Moses and Aaron and said, “Plead with the Lord to take away the frogs from me and from my people, and I will let the people go to sacrifice to the Lord.” ⁹ Moses said to Pharaoh, “Be pleased to command me when I am to plead for you and for your servants and for your people, that the frogs be cut off from you and your houses and be left only in the Nile.” ¹⁰ And he said, “Tomorrow.” Moses said, “Be it as you say, so that you may know that there is no one like the Lord our God. ¹¹ The frogs shall go away from you and your houses and your servants and your people. They shall be left only in the Nile.”

Pharaoh appears to recognize the difference between the greater and lesser powers.  Why?  Perhaps he notices that his magicians can only mimic the power that Moses and Aaron yield.  Why can they not work their own magic?  Why must they only copy and distort?  Of course, we know that is how the devil works:  he copies and distorts, but he does not have creative power.  He may also note that his magicians appear to have no power over Moses and Aaron themselves.  There is a wall of protection around them, and, indeed, around all of the Hebrews as well.

So once again Pharaoh pleads for mercy.  He claims, again, that he will let the Hebrews go.  Thus, Moses agrees to pray for Pharaoh on the following day, per Pharaoh’s instructions.

II. God was yet willing for Pharaoh to repent, even as God knew he would not. (v.12-13)

Here we find a great mystery.  On the one hand, the Lord has already revealed His own knowledge that Pharaoh ultimately would not repent.  He did so in Exodus 7.

¹ And the Lord said to Moses, “See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron shall be your prophet. ² You shall speak all that I command you, and your brother Aaron shall tell Pharaoh to let the people of Israel go out of his land. ³ But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and though I multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, ⁴ Pharaoh will not listen to you. Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and bring my hosts, my people the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great acts of judgment. ⁵ The Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring out the people of Israel from among them.”

On the other hand, the Lord called off the second plague after Moses’ intercession for Pharaoh following Pharaoh’s second declaration that he would let the Hebrews go.

¹² So Moses and Aaron went out from Pharaoh, and Moses cried to the Lord about the frogs, as he had agreed with Pharaoh. ¹³ And the Lord did according to the word of Moses. The frogs died out in the houses, the courtyards, and the fields.

We might ask, “Why?”  Why let this play out if God ultimately knows that Pharaoh will not repent?  No doubt the answer lies in the great mystery of the interchange between the sovereignty of God and the response of man.  Some call this dynamic an antinomy or even a paradox, a mystery arising from two ideas that would appear to be contradictory but that ultimately prove not to be.

In a sense, we might say that God was yet willing for Pharaoh to repent even as God knew He would not.  To be sure, the Lord God knows how our lives will play out, yet we still have before us the choice of rebellion or repentance.  In short, I believe this is a comforting passage that gives us hope, even though it may confuse the more analytical parts of our minds.  Regardless, we find here the mercy of God in ending the vile plague of frogs.

III. What appeared to be repentance was really just discomfort. (v.14-15)

Pharaoh appears to repent, but, alas, it is only in appearance.

¹⁴ And they gathered them together in heaps, and the land stank. ¹⁵ But when Pharaoh saw that there was a respite, he hardened his heart and would not listen to them, as the Lord had said.

How unbelievable!  How tragic!  Once again Pharaoh goes back on his word and reveals his supposed repentance to be a fraud.  There is a telling phrase here:  “But when Pharaoh saw that there was a respite…”

I believe that what appeared to be repentance was really just discomfort.  Pharaoh makes certain promises, not because he was genuinely grieved over his sin and desirous for real reformation, but because he was uncomfortable and wanted the plague to stop.  But once stopped, his feigned sorrow disappears.

We may very well see a parallel between the “repentance” of Pharaoh and the “repentance” of Judas Iscariot.  We read of Judas’ despair in Matthew 27.

³ Then when Judas, his betrayer, saw that Jesus was condemned, he changed his mind and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders, ⁴ saying, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.” They said, “What is that to us? See to it yourself.” ⁵ And throwing down the pieces of silver into the temple, he departed, and he went and hanged himself.

Judas appears to repent, yet Jesus’ words in Matthew 26 would suggest that Judas would not show real repentance leading to salvation.

²⁰ When it was evening, he reclined at table with the twelve. ²¹ And as they were eating, he said, “Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.” ²² And they were very sorrowful and began to say to him one after another, “Is it I, Lord?” ²³ He answered, “He who has dipped his hand in the dish with me will betray me. ²⁴ The Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.” ²⁵ Judas, who would betray him, answered, “Is it I, Rabbi?” He said to him, “You have said so.”

What, then, was this that Judas demonstrated in taking his own life?  Was it genuine repentance?  Likely not.  It would appear to be psychological distress or despair or perhaps regret that he had caused a good man to die, but not genuine repentance.  So too with Pharaoh.

It raises an unpleasant but absolutely essential question:  have I genuinely grieved over my sin or have I simply asked God to make the discomfort resulting from my sins go away?  Have I genuinely pled for a new heart or have I simply asked for the cessation of consequences?  Have I really repented?

That chilling passage from Matthew 7 comes to play here:

²¹ “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. ²² On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ ²³ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

Is it not the case that there will be people who meet their death with the steady assurance and confidence that they are children of God, but who will discover at the moment of their passing that the Lord does not know them as children?  The Lord Jesus says this is so.  And how else can we delude ourselves on this count except we do so through bluffing repentance, through confusing discomfort for real conviction and sorrow?

If we do not actually repent, then we do not actually know Jesus.  This is a key truth for us to grasp as we approach the Lord’s Supper table.  As we take the ordinance, declaring thereby that we are one with Christ, we must ask ourselves if we truly are one with Him.  Paul put it this way in 1 Corinthians 11:

²⁷ Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. ²⁸ Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. ²⁹ For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. ³⁰ That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. ³¹ But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. ³² But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world.

Yes, it is imperative that we are one with the Christ whose death we memorialize in the Supper.  How do we know if we are one with Christ?  If we have bent heart and knee and mind and body and soul before Him in sincere, heartbroken repentance.

Do not be like Pharaoh, playing games with words while all the while trying to hold on to your own kingdom.