Thursday, July 20, 2023
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Plagues be upon you, O great and glorious Pharaoh
Come unto me, all ye who labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.
Outside the cicadas are singing. These are annual Texas cicadas, not the seventeen year kind. The males sing to attract a mate. Their green wings and brown bodies are beautiful to us humans. We were invited to swim at our friend’s neighborhood pool, and before we even got in the water Jasper found a cicada. Beautiful, unbroken, but dead. I held it for awhile, and Jasper and Miles touched it, perhaps wondering what it would be like to be a cicada.
Actually, I don’t know what they were thinking, because they did not speak. Jasper was quiet for a couple of minutes, then he and Miles were off into the pool. To me it felt like a memorial service for the beautiful insect, and then … we were gone, back into our lives, back breathing and talking and laughing and swimming! Morning had broken.
The king of Egypt will not allow you to go unless he is forced. I will stretch out my hand, therefore, and smite Egypt by doing all kinds of wondrous deeds there. After that he will send you away.
“Wondrous deeds” … eventually they came to be called the plagues of Egypt. And one of the plagues was locusts. Or grasshoppers. Or cicadas. Singing as they ate every kernel of wheat off the stalks, ruining the Egyptian crop, piling it on, misery upon misery.
God sent Moses his servant; Aaron, whom he had chosen. They wrought his signs among them. And the Lord remembers his covenant forever.
The plagues pursued Pharaoh and his people:
- The water of the Nile turned to blood
- Frogs and frogs and frogs
- Gnats all over people and animals
- Flies inundated everything and everyone
- All Egyptian livestock died, but not one animal of the Israelites
- Dust and boils on people and animals, which started with handfuls of soot from a furnace
By now I could have stretched out my hand and struck you and your people with a plague that would have wiped you off the earth. But I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.Â
- The worst hailstorm ever to befall Egypt, except no hail in the land of Goshen, where the Israelites lived
- Locusts filled the houses and covered the face of the ground, devouring what the hail did not destroy
When Pharaoh saw the storm had stopped, he sinned again. He and his officials hardened their hearts, as the Lord had said through Moses.Â
- A felt comprehensive darkness came over Egypt for three days, except where the Israelites lived
Pharaoh said to Moses, “Get out of my sight! Do not appear before me again. The day you see my face you will die. “Just as you say,” Moses replied.Â
- All firstborn Egyptians will be killed in the night
As they at last left this horrifying devastated Egypt, the Israelites were protected and guided and loved by their God, the voice in the burning bush, Yahweh, I Am Who I Am. This first day of their exodus was commanded to be commemorated as the first day of their calendar year – then, now and forever.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
(Exodus 3, Psalm 105, Matthew 11)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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