Wednesday: Now that is powerful!!

From Exodus 9-11:

1. Why did Pharaoh send people to investigate about the cattle? Was there still doubt in his mind about this all being from the Lord? Especially after his magicians had already told him that it was the finger of God? And later, during the boils, it says that the magicians could not stand before Moses. Why did they need to? They had already established that Moses was involved in the "finger of god" doing things, right?

2. Why did God have Moses use soot to demonstrate the plague of boils being made? Why couldn't he just wave his staff or state that it would happen at such and such a time? God must've had his use for Moses doing this. I suspect it was for illustration to Pharaoh and the Egyptians to see where the plagues were coming from. Plus, it gave more credibility to anything Moses might say or do.

3. It is interesting that this plague of boils was not just isolated to man or animal, but both. It is on the scale of a "bird flu" type thing, where it affects all living things.

4. With regard to the hail that God sent, it says that those Egyptians who left their slaves in the field along with the livestock lost them. I wonder, were these slaves Israelites? That would be terrible! I think that I would decide as a slave to ignore my master's request if he had asked me to stay out in the fields when this hailstorm was supposed to commence.

5. Pharaoh was a very stubborn guy. He chased Moses off a number of times and refused to acknowledge that God was in charge, not him. I think he resented that Moses was telling him what to do.

6. It is interesting that Pharaoh kept wanting to make compromises. He was not willing to allow what had been requested. At one point Pharaoh decided that they could all go, but that they must leave their livestock. I think that at this point they had a large amount. Otherwise, it would have been awful easy to just leave the livestock and leave the country.

7. Now that is powerful!!: Many times we wonder why God doesn't do this or that to resolve a situation much easier or more quickly, but God has his own way of doing things. In Exodus 9:15, God stated through Moses that he could have wiped the Egyptians off the face of the earth. The only reason he allowed Pharaoh's insolence was so that he could glorify his own name. He maximized the plagues to give him the most powerful publicity possible. I think that many times he allows people to go through hard times just so that he can show just exactly how awesome he is. If it had been one act in Egypt, many could have explained it away as a coincidence or accident. Also, it built up the Israelites' faith in him (or at least, it should have).