Year 7, Day 56: Exodus 7

Theological Commentary: Click Here

The conflict begins between God and Pharaoh.  From God’s perspective, this is a conflict between an egotistical man and an eternal almighty God.  However, from the perspective of the Egyptians, this is a battle between gods.  This is a supernatural conflict between the power of the God of the Hebrews and the power of Pharaoh, who was himself considered a god among the gods of the Egyptians.

Notice how this story starts.  God does supernatural acts.  There are consequences to the acts.  Aaron’s staff becomes a snake and eats the snakes of the Egyptian magicians.  The Nile turns to blood and the Egyptian people can no longer find water to drink and use to cook.  We start relatively small compared to what is about to come.

Notice that Pharaoh’s heart remains hard.  Why does it remain hard?  It remains hard because Pharaoh refuses to attribute God’s work to Him.  Pharaoh’s magicians come in and imitate God’s work and give Pharaoh every reason to doubt.  Pharaoh can doubt because he takes the opportunity to attribute God’s work to that which he can explain.

Learn this lesson.  When God acts, it is important that we acknowledge His action.  How will we ever be faithful to Him if we do not acknowledge His presence in the first place?  How will we ever see His hand at work if we are constantly attributing His work to others?  This is the first reason why Pharaoh’s heart is hardened.  God starts with small miracles capable of being imitated to allow this aspect of Pharaoh’s character to come to the surface.

Before I leave this post, though, I feel the need to make sure that we don’t go to the other extreme, either.  We do not want to go too far and attribute everything to God.  This behavior leads to superstition and ritualized religion.  We often hear this when normal natural disasters strike such as hurricanes and droughts.  God can bring large events like that upon us, but sometimes they just happen or they can even be manmade!  For example, read up on the dustbowl in the early 1900s in western America.

What we need to seek is genuine relationship with God, not ritual and superstition.  It is important to attribute God’s action to Him, but to not see everything that happens as a direct result of God’s will.  They only way to strike this balance is to be in relationship with Him, listening to Him and seeking His will.

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