NOTES for Exo 8:1-32

Egypt has been defeated once again, and even the priests of the Egyptian gods acknowledge the victory of the God of Israel. For the author and readers of this account, the Lord is stronger than every circumstance and every enemy, even the stubborn Pharaoh and the entire Egyptian realm. Here we touch upon the astonishing mystery of faith. Nearly every one of us knows and remembers situations in which God overcame adverse circumstances, helped in distress, or healed someone... Yet we also know cases in which God did not heal, did not save, did not avert disaster. Every day, both in the news and immediately around us, we see how much misfortune occurs in the world. Against this background, Egypt’s victorious defeat by God’s “plagues” seems like a naive and childishly cruel fairy tale about a kind yet stern God who destroys entire hosts of enemies in a single stroke. Will we have enough faith, like the biblical author, to see God’s victory in the midst of this world even before that triumph is revealed to our eyes?