Livestock Die and Boils

Story: Livestock Die and Boils

Passage: Exodus 9:1-12

Characters:  Moses, Aaron, God, Pharaoh



Summary: Moses warned Pharaoh that if he didn’t let them worship, god would strike the Egyptian livestock with a plague.  Pharaoh ignored the warning and all of the Egyptian livestock died, but not one of the Hebrew livestock died.  Pharaoh still hardened his heart.  God told Moses to throw handfuls of soot from a kiln into the air and the people and animals would get boils.  They did it and it happened.  The magicians could not stand before Moses because of the boils, but the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart and he did not let them go.

Notes: This is the second plague which did not affect the Israelites.  The cow was considered sacred in Egypt.  To kill all of the cows was a direct attack on the Egyptian religious system.  I find it interesting that Pharaoh actually checked to see if Israel was indeed unaffected by the plague, but when he saw it was true, he did not let them go.  The next plague came without warning, just like the gnats.  These boils were painful and probably burned.  The animals were also affected by this plague.  That is the animals who were not livestock were affected.  The Egyptians had a God of medicine.  The magicians did not appear in public because they also had boils.  This showed that God was stronger than their god of medicine.  I wonder if they were required not to appear so that the Egyptian people would not know that they too were affected.  It amazes me that Pharaoh still hardened his heart!  At this point, he had to know that he would be ruined if he kept denying God.

Questions:  Why did Pharaoh harden his heart when he knew that God was behind these plagues?  How did the Egyptian people feel about what was going on?  Were they angrier at the Israelites or Pharaoh?  How did the Hebrews feel at this point?  Did the boils affect Israelites as well?  Was Pharaoh affected?

Lessons:  Pharaoh looks like an idiot in this passage.  We need to careful to learn from his mistake though.  When God told him what to do and what the consequence would be if he did not obey, Pharaoh ignored and despised God.  How many times does God give us a command with a promise or a consequence?  How seriously do we take it?  Let’s be honest here, often times we don’t take it that seriously.  Aren’t we just acting like Pharaoh when we do this?  We need to take God’s word as if it was spoken by an all powerful and holy ruler and creator of the universe.  Because it was.