NOTES for Exo 8:1-32
1 And the LORD spake unto Moses, Go unto Pharaoh, and say unto him, Thus saith the LORD, Let my people go, that they may serve me. |
2 And if thou refuse to let them go, behold, I will smite all thy borders with frogs: |
3 And the river shall bring forth frogs abundantly, which shall go up and come into thine house, and into thy bedchamber, and upon thy bed, and into the house of thy servants, and upon thy people, and into thine ovens, and into thy kneadingtroughs: |
4 And the frogs shall come up both on thee, and upon thy people, and upon all thy servants. |
5 And the LORD spake unto Moses, Say unto Aaron, Stretch forth thine hand with thy rod over the streams, over the rivers, and over the ponds, and cause frogs to come up upon the land of Egypt. |
6 And Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt; and the frogs came up, and covered the land of Egypt. |
7 And the magicians did so with their enchantments, and brought up frogs upon the land of Egypt. |
8 Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron, and said, Intreat the LORD, that he may take away the frogs from me, and from my people; and I will let the people go, that they may do sacrifice unto the LORD. |
9 And Moses said unto Pharaoh, Glory over me: when shall I intreat for thee, and for thy servants, and for thy people, to destroy the frogs from thee and thy houses, that they may remain in the river only? |
10 And he said, To morrow. And he said, Be it according to thy word: that thou mayest know that there is none like unto the LORD our God. |
11 And the frogs shall depart from thee, and from thy houses, and from thy servants, and from thy people; they shall remain in the river only. |
12 And Moses and Aaron went out from Pharaoh: and Moses cried unto the LORD because of the frogs which he had brought against Pharaoh. |
13 And the LORD did according to the word of Moses; and the frogs died out of the houses, out of the villages, and out of the fields. |
14 And they gathered them together upon heaps: and the land stank. |
15 But when Pharaoh saw that there was respite, he hardened his heart, and hearkened not unto them; as the LORD had said. |
16 And the LORD said unto Moses, Say unto Aaron, Stretch out thy rod, and smite the dust of the land, that it may become lice throughout all the land of Egypt. |
17 And they did so; for Aaron stretched out his hand with his rod, and smote the dust of the earth, and it became lice in man, and in beast; all the dust of the land became lice throughout all the land of Egypt. |
18 And the magicians did so with their enchantments to bring forth lice, but they could not: so there were lice upon man, and upon beast. |
19 Then the magicians said unto Pharaoh, This is the finger of God: and Pharaoh's heart was hardened, and he hearkened not unto them; as the LORD had said. |
20 And the LORD said unto Moses, Rise up early in the morning, and stand before Pharaoh; lo, he cometh forth to the water; and say unto him, Thus saith the LORD, Let my people go, that they may serve me. |
21 Else, if thou wilt not let my people go, behold, I will send swarms of flies upon thee, and upon thy servants, and upon thy people, and into thy houses: and the houses of the Egyptians shall be full of swarms of flies, and also the ground whereon they are. |
22 And I will sever in that day the land of Goshen, in which my people dwell, that no swarms of flies shall be there; to the end thou mayest know that I am the LORD in the midst of the earth. |
23 And I will put a division between my people and thy people: to morrow shall this sign be. |
24 And the LORD did so; and there came a grievous swarm of flies into the house of Pharaoh, and into his servants' houses, and into all the land of Egypt: the land was corrupted by reason of the swarm of flies. |
25 And Pharaoh called for Moses and for Aaron, and said, Go ye, sacrifice to your God in the land. |
26 And Moses said, It is not meet so to do; for we shall sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians to the LORD our God: lo, shall we sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians before their eyes, and will they not stone us? |
27 We will go three days' journey into the wilderness, and sacrifice to the LORD our God, as he shall command us. |
28 And Pharaoh said, I will let you go, that ye may sacrifice to the LORD your God in the wilderness; only ye shall not go very far away: intreat for me. |
29 And Moses said, Behold, I go out from thee, and I will intreat the LORD that the swarms of flies may depart from Pharaoh, from his servants, and from his people, to morrow: but let not Pharaoh deal deceitfully any more in not letting the people go to sacrifice to the LORD. |
30 And Moses went out from Pharaoh, and intreated the LORD. |
31 And the LORD did according to the word of Moses; and he removed the swarms of flies from Pharaoh, from his servants, and from his people; there remained not one. |
32 And Pharaoh hardened his heart at this time also, neither would he let the people go. |
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Today's reading continues the description of how the Egyptian magicians competed with the God of Moses in the ability to perform miracles. Of course, here, as in every other case, God's miracle can be explained by natural causes, but such an explanation in itself does not in the least diminish the meaning of the miracle as an act of God. It is no accident that in the Hebrew text of the Bible a word that would more accurately be translated as "sign" is very often used to designate a miracle: God's miracle very often turns out to be precisely such a sign, and the fact that a natural phenomenon becomes that sign does not diminish the sign's significance at all, because in this case the point is not nature, but the One who stands behind it.
For the magicians, however, the situation looked different. Magic, in a worldview sense, is very close to science, including in the fact that the magician, like the materialist scientist, is inclined to explain everything that happens exclusively by natural causes. Of course, a magician's and a scientist's ideas about the boundaries and laws of nature can differ noticeably, but neither one will ever allow anything in his theories and concepts that goes beyond the natural framework. Methodologically this is, of course, correct, but as a worldview it often leads into a dead end.
And one of the most common worldview errors is the opinion that a natural explanation of one phenomenon or another in itself rules out any possibility that it has a spiritual component. The magicians, having managed to bring frogs up from the river (v. 7), apparently considered this fact sufficient proof that there was no miracle to speak of in this case.
Meanwhile, such an approach is a serious mistake: it confuses the spiritual and the natural. Nature always remains within the framework of causes and effects; causal chains fully determine and describe all natural processes. The spiritual begins where causes and effects recede into the background, and tasks and purposes come to the fore. Spiritual life begins where there are relationships, above all the relationship between a person and God, but also relationships between people. And a miracle becomes a miracle only in the context of the relationship between a person and God; otherwise it remains merely a natural phenomenon.
And even when reproducing the experiment proves impossible, as happened in the case of the gnats (v. 18), that impossibility in itself does not prove a miracle: for a materialist or a magician it becomes only evidence of an unsolved scientific problem at the present moment or of a phenomenon unexplained at this stage of scientific development. Pharaoh is even ready to turn to Moses for help if other means do not help (v. 28), but his heart does not become softer because of it (v. 32), for relationships with God are not established by compulsion.
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