GOD warns before He smites. Having sent one terrible plague upon Egypt, the Lord bade Moses deliver this message to Pharaoh, “Let My people go, that they may serve Me. And if thou refuse to let them go, behold, I will smite all thy borders with frogs.” (Ex. 8:1, 21And 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. 2And if thou refuse to let them go, behold, I will smite all thy borders with frogs: (Exodus 8:1‑2).)
But the former plague having passed away, the king did not heed Jehovah’s word. Thus, step by step, ever downwards, goes the sinner who sets not his heart to consider the words and the warnings of God.
The river which had flowed with blood was cleansed of its corruption by the fresh waters sweeping towards the sea. Nevertheless, Egypt had received a deadly wound, which not even these flowing waters could heal. The land still ached from the effects of the first great plague.
Frogs are numerous in Egypt in the present day, though the channels leading the Nile water through gardens and fields are now comparatively few. The Nile frogs lie hidden away in the sunbaked mud of the river and its channels during the dry season, but when the water gradually softens this sun-baked mud fills ponds and channels, and renders the atmosphere moist, these reptiles wake from their summer torpor, and begin to crawl and croak.
We can form some idea of what must have been their numbers in the ancient days of countless channels and innumerable ponds, by remembering that the Egyptians had a special divinity, to whom they looked to preserve them from these pests. Yet, with the peculiar contradiction of the Egyptian system of divinities, these creeping frogs were held to be sacred in some localities, and so obnoxious in others that gods were implored to destroy them.
When Jehovah warned Pharaoh of a plague of frogs, the king could well form some idea of what kind of chastisement was in store for him. The warning message announced to him a known trouble intensified into a terrible torment. “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 kneading troughs; and the frogs; hall come both upon thee, and upon thy people, and upon all thy servants.”
But had not Pharaoh the goddess Heki, the driver away of frogs, in whom to trust? He did not bow to God, and accordingly Aaron’s rod was stretched out over the waters of Egypt—over streams, rivers, and ponds, and forthwith, creeping and croaking, in countless myriads, the plague began. Contrary to their ordinary instincts, these noisy reptiles left the moist banks and swarmed over the country, invading alike villages and palaces covering beds, filling ovens and kneading-troughs, and even crawling upon the very persons of the inhabitants.
We cannot possibly imagine with what horrible scenes and sounds these loathsome multitudes filled the land of Egypt, and with what helpless efforts the people wearied themselves to drive them away.
We can, however, picture the magicians, with their enchantments, adding to their own misery, and themselves assisting to intensify the plague. Probably these wise men would be the priests of the goddess Heti, or Buto, whose shrine was so splendid, and to whose honor a city was built.
This picture of Egyptian bakers, the right-hand figure kneading, shows us how readily the frogs could creep over them while at work. Kneeling to their work, as they did, they would be exposed, in a very evident manner, to the reptiles. In very many of the trades in Egypt we find the workpeople seated upon the ground. They did not stand, or sit upon stools, as we do.
Then Pharaoh, seeing the utter powerlessness of the priests, bowed before Moses, saying, “Intreat Jehovah,” and promised to let the people go. He had before proudly said, “I know not Jehovah,” but now he was forced to own His name, and to confess His power over both the water and the land of Egypt.
Moses replied, “Glory over me, when shall I intreat for thee?” He would give Jehovah all the glory. He would teach Pharaoh that Jehovah was the hearer of prayer, and His servant merely an intercessor.
Pharaoh fixed the morrow for the time when the plague should cease, and Moses cried aloud and earnestly to Jehovah. Then, according to the king’s word, and that he should know that there was no god like Jehovah, the frogs died out of houses, villages, and fields, and were only to be found alive in their usual haunts about the river.
The people gathered the plague in heaps, and as the water of the Nile had been made to stink, so now “the land stank.” Both river and land had been polluted.
But Pharaoh, having gained time, hardened himself. Alas! how seldom is the promise of repentance which trial extracts from a guilty soul of any value whatever! We have heard men, who thought themselves on dying beds, promise to live different lives if spared, who, when they recovered, returned more wickedly to their old sinful course.
THE THIRD PLAGUE.
Pharaoh had broken his word, and quick retribution followed. The third plague came without warning. The plague of lice—or, as it is believed it should be read, gnats or mosquitoes—like that of the frogs, was a miraculous enlargement of an ordinary occurrence.
From the time of the first plague we have to suppose the water of the Nile still gradually rising. We have seen it moistening the mud where the frogs harbor, and slowly filling channels and ponds. Now the waters have reached the crown of the banks of the different channels, which conduct it to the fields waiting for the water. All around these channels the fields are covered with fine dust. This is formed from the mud left by the overflow of the previous year, which the many months of summer heat has rendered like powder.
It is in this dust that the gnats lay their eggs. Travelers tell us, when the Nile begins to overflow the banks of the channels, and the water touches this dust, turning it into soft loam, that in an instant the gnats’ eggs hatch, and float before the water in dark masses.
“Aaron stretched out his hand with his rod and smote the dust of the earth,” and accordingly the dust of the land throughout all the land of Egypt became gnats.
It was at this point that Jehovah chose to stay the hands of the magicians. They mutter in vain.
Their enchantments avail them not. Then they own that there is a power greater than theirs. “This is the finger of God” (or a god), but they do not bow to the God of Israel, to Jehovah; Him they still despise, and simply own a power superior to their gods. Pharaoh’s heart again was hardened. H. F. W.