He spoke to Moses (v1-4) and told him to go to Pharaoh again to let His people go. Again, God graciously gave Pharaoh a warning that if he refused, God would bring frogs on his land, his house, bedroom, bed, his servants houses, the people, their ovens and kneading bowls. Pharaoh had another opportunity to repent.
The Egyptian goddess Heket was pictured with the head of a frog as they were considered sacred and couldn’t be killed and being amphibian could live on land and water. God was saying, in effect, you worship frogs, so I’ll give you as many as you want.
The devil was still at work and the magicians also brought forth frogs from the water and yet again they couldn’t remove them but simply bring forth more. Pharaoh was still not impressed and remained hard in his heart. Then he called for Moses and Aaron (v8-15) and asked them to “Entreat 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 sacrifice to the LORD.”
Was this a breakthrough? Moses went and spoke to him and said, “Accept the honor of saying when I shall intercede for you, for your servants, and for your people, to destroy the frogs from you and your houses, that they may remain in the river only.” So he said, “Tomorrow.” And he said, “Let it be according to your word, that you may know that there is no one like the LORD our God. And the frogs shall depart from you, from your houses, from your servants, and from your people. They shall remain in the river only.”
Moses left and went to The LORD to intercede and ask God to remove the frogs and The LORD answered by killing them off the land, the houses and the courtyards. They gathered them in heaps but when Pharaoh had his request answered he went back on his word.
How often are our prayers to God not genuine, we only want what we want and then continue as we did before as if God did not matter or even exist.
Before the third plague there is no warning, and this time God tells Moses to instruct Aaron to stretch out his rod over the dust and it became lice or gnats on man and beast (v16,17). They were everywhere affecting hygiene, ritual cleansing and sacrifices.
Over to the magicians, they had managed blood and frogs and even a snake, but they couldn’t manage lice. Satan may be powerful, but he is limited. God is all powerful and unlimited! Even the magicians conceded that this was the hand of God (v18,19) but Pharaoh ignored them and still remained hard.
The fourth plague is described in verses 20-23 and Moses warns Pharaoh in advance. The LORD had told Moses to get up early and go to Pharaoh and tell him to let God’s people go otherwise, tomorrow, a swarm of flies would come upon them all as well in their houses. God’s people dwelt in the land of Goshen but there would be no flies there thus showing the power of God to direct the flies away from Goshen and keep His people immune from them. We are not told that God’s people did not suffer under the previous plagues. The flies came (v24) and the people of Egypt were corrupted by the flies, so this affected their cleanliness just as the lice did and this would affect their worship of their gods.
I don’t want to read something into this except to say that God in His great power can and does often keep us safe from dangers. We are not always immune from difficulties and illness and certainly not from persecution, but God promises never to leave us nor forsake us and will be with us throughout. Psalm 23 tells that even though we walk through the shadow of death, He is with us.
We are not told of Pharaoh’s reply, but it is evident that he still had a hard heart and refused because the plagues continued. There is no mention of the magicians any further attempting to copy the plagues, maybe they gave up with the lice/gnats and having told Pharaoh that it was the hand of God. Perhaps he didn’t like them saying that and had no further use for them. We see them in the sixth plague when they are suffering from boils, there would be no use trying to create lice and boils because they would suffer too.
Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron (v25-27) and, by way of compromise, told them that they could sacrifice to God in Egypt, but Moses refused saying, “It is not right to do so, for we would be sacrificing the abomination of the Egyptians to the LORD our God. If we sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians before their eyes, then will they not stone us? We will go three days’ journey into the wilderness and sacrifice to the LORD our God as He will command us.”
The world will always try to get us to compromise but we must stand firm for Almighty God as Moses did.
Pharaoh appears to repent (v28-32) and said that He would let them go into the wilderness to sacrifice to their God, but not very far away and he added, “Intercede for me”. It all sounded good and genuine, but it wasn’t. He didn’t keep his word; however, Moses was different, he showed his integrity and said he would speak to God for him, and he did. He also asked Pharaoh to stop being deceitful and to keep his promises. He asked The LORD to stop the plague of flies and God did so, not one remained. Pharaoh, however, did not keep his word and hardened his heart and wouldn’t let them go.
It seemed that when Pharaoh got his wish, he returned to harden his heart. Often, we see that people ‘pray’ when things are bad, but they soon forget when God answers their prayer, and go back to their old ways. People often make promises to God – ‘if You do this for me I will….’ but when God keeps His side of the bargain, they fail to keep theirs. We should never strike bargains with God, we are not always in a position to keep our side, and actually God doesn’t want that sort of commitment. He wants our whole-hearted commitment to follow and obey Him whatever the circumstances.
