November 16, 2006

• Exodus 8:16-19

  Tonight I had to miss Wednesday Bible study because my son’s school had a financial aid for college workshop, and this is his senior year, sigh. They grow so fast!

   Let the plagues begin. Our cliffhanger so far: Pharaoh has taken a hardened heart stance, and refuses to let the Israelites go. God has shown that this stance was unreasonable because the first request was to go three days out into the wilderness to sacrifice to God but Pharaoh refused to give the Israelites even one day off. God showed His power by turning Aaron’s rod into a serpent and swallowing up the magician’s imitation serpents, then He caused the water to turn to blood, and then we saw the plague of frogs. At the end of the plague of frogs, Pharaoh hardened HIS heart and refused to honor his promise to Moses. Remember, God does not harden Pharaoh’s heart at first, that is a choice that Pharaoh makes. But, God – knowing the end from the beginning – knew that Pharaoh would choose the hard heart.

  The next plague is one where we see the last of the magicians – they are unable to replicate it, and recognize that God is God. It is a plague of lice.

                                                            

  Exodus 8:16-17 So the LORD said to Moses, “Say to Aaron,’Stretch out your rod, and strike the dust of the land, so that it may become lice throughout all the land of Egypt.’”  And they did so. For Aaron stretched out his hand with his rod and struck the dust of the earth, and it became lice on man and beast. All the dust of the land became lice throughout all the land of Egypt.

  Again, this is not a Egyptian specific plague, all the people (including the Israelites) and animals suffered from this plague. I don’t know if you have ever had to deal with lice. One day my daughter brought home the lovely pest from her preschool class. She shared the lice with my husband, my three kids and myself. Trust me, some things are better NOT shared. We used the shampoo, picked out nits, washed clothing and toys, threw out a lot of stuff and many of their favorite toys were put into plastic bags for months until the infestation was quelled. My scalp still itches just thinking about it, and the funny thing we learned was that lice tended to like clean hair and moved much easier to clean hair than dirty hair. Trust me, having lice is no fun and every time that letter came home from school after that, we would check out heads for the first signs of infestation. Those eggs cling tenaciously to the hair.

  The Egyptians valued cleanliness of the person so much that, even though their pictures display long hair, the hair was really wigs and men and women shaved their heads. I was researching lice on the internet and found a Egyptian comb that resembles the lice nit removing comb of today, only this one was found in a tomb, and one scientist even found the dead bodies of lice on the comb! Yech!

                                                

   

  Head shaving had benefits, one was the climate was hot and bald heads were more comfortable, and bald heads helped to keep lice from infesting the people (except when God intervenes).

  What is interesting is that Egyptian priests were fastidious about cleanliness. They went so far as to not only shave their heads, but to remove all body hair including eyebrows and eyelashes. They shaved every third day to avoid the danger of lice and other uncleanness. So this plague of lice also impacted their “ministry.”

  Exodus 8:18 Now the magicians so worked with their enchantments to bring forth lice, but they could not. So there were lice on man and beast.

  Remember, the magicians up to now were able to replicate what Moses and Aaron did through God’s instructions. But creating more lice was not really a solution to that pesky problem, in fact it would have made matters worse. We know that that is satan’s plan, to make things worse.

  Exodus 8:19 Then the magicians said to Pharaoh, “This is the finger of God.” But Pharaoh’s heart grew hard, and he did not heed them just as the LORD had said.

  The magicians realized that God’s work was in this plague, and they acknowledged God. But Pharaoh hardened his heart again.

  Before I got saved, in my first reading of the Bible I used to bristle when I saw Pharaoh’s heart being hardened, thinking that maybe God had hardened my heart. I was so wrong. Having kids of my own, I sort of understand why God could predict that Pharaoh’s heart would harden. I know my kids so well that I can predict their reactions in certain situations. One son is best approached in the evening and is a poor morning person. Certain words can trigger certain reactions. I know what will make their tempers flair, and where their sensitive areas are.  God knows us so well that he has numbered the hairs on our head. He knows how we will react in certain situations, but gives us the chance to choose to react differently. God also knew the numbers of hair follicles on Pharaoh’s bald head.

  The finger of God is seen in various places in the Bible. God fashioned Adam from the dust of the ground with His fingers. We know that God wrote the first set of the Ten Commandments on stone with His finger (Exodus 31:18). We see God’s finger in Daniel 5 when King Belshazzar had a feast using Israelite sacred items, and the finger came down and wrote on the wall MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN. Which meant that King Belshazzar had been weighed in the balance and found wanting by God.

  When the woman caught in adultery was brought before Jesus, he stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger, telling the woman’s accusers that whoever was without sin would cast the first stone. (I really wonder what he wrote). In Luke 11:20 Jesus talks about casting out demons with the finger of God.

  The magicians were not heard of after they acknowledged God. I guess Pharaoh felt that they were no longer useful to him.

  I used to marvel at the blindness of Pharaoh, I certainly by now (I tell myself) would realize that something was afoot, and that maybe God meant what He said about letting the Israelites go, but not so. I also suspect that there are times when God gives us warnings and we don’t heed them, ultimately dealing with the consequences of our disobedience.

  Today, with so many of the prophesies in the Bible having been fulfilled, those prophesies that are remaining loom. People believe that God is not going to act on them, so they walk through life making God into their image, assuming that there won’t be the judgment that Jesus and God have shown will happen. They assume that, since God hasn’t stopped some of the sinful behavior that is rampant in our culture today, that God doesn’t care. They try to assume that God’s word is not relevant today because times have changed, so God’s feelings about issues would change. This is not so. God is true to His word. When He says there will be judgment, there will be. It is just the mercy of God that He is withholding judgment until more can come to know Him. But God will fulfill every prophesy. He fulfilled hundreds of prophesies in the life of Jesus, so many that statisticians say that it would be 1 to the 157th power to have all of them fulfilled. But that is exactly what God did. Why would He leave prophesies hanging? God is true to His word.

  Pharaoh should have recognized the finger of God and saved himself and his people some grief, but he did not care, his heart was hardened. I pray that God keeps my heart tender to His will so that I obey.

  Have a blessed night!

  Heather

   

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