Pharaoh’s Resolve Weakens

Exodus 10

            As the eighth and ninth plagues are narrated, I see a change in Pharaoh. He’s wavering; he’s willing to entertain some accommodation to the Israelites. He will consider letting their menfolk go. (Keeping the women and livestock is a way to ensure the men return. They’re to be hostages.) If we’re going to be accurate, though, we have to say that Pharaoh’s officials are the one’s who pushed him, not his own better sense. They’re the ones who were counting the economic cost on the country.

            After the locusts, the Lord doesn’t give Pharaoh a chance to reconsider. The plague of darkness follows immediately. This time Pharaoh is willing to let even the women and children go, holding only the livestock hostage. (Frankly, given the devastation on the land, Pharaoh probably needs the Israelites livestock.) That incident ends with Moses banished from Pharaoh’s presence. Things are coming to a head.

            About natural causes, locusts were a regular danger in that part of the world, and the darkness may have been caused by a sandstorm, also common. But the intensity is insane and to have these disasters on the heels of the other disasters, reminds us that, although the Lord may cover His actions in natural phenomena, He is the actor; He is the one directing events.