The Nightmare Takes Over

    The People have lived through their water source turning to blood, frogs, gnats, flies, death of the live stock, boils, and killer hail.   What else could there be?  It had to end.  How could there be anything else to take from them?  However, there was more.  A lot more and it only gets worse for the Egyptians.  The Hebrews had time to prepare for each plague before it hit.

    I imagine that the Egyptians would have done anything that God asked at this point, but their leader would not let them be educated.  A bad leader can make life altering decisions for the people.  National leaders make life and death decisions for their nation.  The Pharaoh in his pride chose to allow his people to suffer.  The people had been suffering for weeks at this point.  I imagine he hid himself away from them, so that he would not have to face reality.  If he did not see their suffering, then they must be okay.  Or worse, he just did not care.  The Hebrew nation helped make the Egyptian nation strong and beautiful since Joseph.  Now, they were a part of tearing it apart.

    The eighth plague followed the deadly hail storm in a matter of days.  It was a horde of locust unlike anything anyone has seen before or since.  If you know anything about locust you know in a group they can cause a lot of harm.  They eat anything that is not rock hard or living flesh.  They ate the decimate crops and all that survived.  They would eat your clothing.  The crops had been destroyed, so who cares if the locust ate that.  It is the clothing that would be hard to deal with.  It was only the Egyptians being affected at this point.  I bet they would had paid a lot of money to take their servant's clothing by the end of this plague.

    The ninth plague would have been scary.  It was a blanket of darkness that lasted for three days.  This kind of darkness that engulfs you.  They could not see the stars, no moon, no sun.  They could barely see the candle light that was with them.  It would be like wondering in a cave with a mere candle to give you direction.  That is impossible.  This kind of darkness also bring the cold.  Their clothes had been destroyed.  They had no way of keeping warm.  It had to end there.  There was nothing else to take away from them.  Their pride had been broken, but the Pharaoh wanted Moses dead more.

    However, there was one more thing to loose and they got no warning this time.  Moses couldn't go to the Pharaoh anymore.  The last, the tenth, plague was the most unbearable.  It is one that would affect everyone even if their household was not touched.  It is one that no one could get over.  The last plague was the death of the first born of all people and animals.  There was only one way out of it and the Egyptians had no warning.

    How does anyone come back from that?  How does a community, let alone a nation recover?  God had a plan, but it doesn't mention what it was for the Egyptians.  I know He had a plan more than pain and devastation for them because He has a plan for everyone.  He has a plan for you and me.  We are beginning to recover from a bad situation, but in comparison it is not that bad.  It is just different because it is happening to us instead of a nation long ago.  We can and will recover.

Exodus 10- 11: