If you were to take a poll of the world as to what they dislike most about God, I’m guessing they’d come up with quite the list. One of the dislikes that would stand near the top, though, would probably be God’s stern and severe punishments. People, even Christians, have problems with the actions God’s taken in the flood, or with the creation of hell, or with what we have here in the 10 Plagues of Egypt.
Yet, even here, with the 10 Plagues, God never misses an opportunity to show his love. How can we say that, though? God caused so much pain and affliction to fall upon the Egyptians! He turned their water to blood, gave them gnats, flies, frogs, boils, darkness, hail, and eventually killed off many of their livestock and people. You would assume that there’s no possibility of God’s love making an appearance here. But there was. In fact it appeared in multiple ways to multiple different people.
Just with this first plague, we’re going to see God displaying his love in three distinct ways. Then the Lord said to Moses, “Pharaoh’s heart is unyielding; he refuses to let the people go. 15 Go to Pharaoh in the morning as he goes out to the water. Wait on the bank of the Nile to meet him, and take in your hand the staff that was changed into a snake. 16 Then say to him, ‘The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has sent me to say to you: Let my people go, so that they may worship me in the desert. But until now you have not listened. 17 This is what the Lord says: By this you will know that I am the Lord: With the staff that is in my hand I will strike the water of the Nile, and it will be changed into blood. 18 The fish in the Nile will die, and the river will stink; the Egyptians will not be able to drink its water.’ ” 19 The Lord said to Moses, “Tell Aaron, ‘Take your staff and stretch out your hand over the waters of Egypt—over the streams and canals, over the ponds and all the reservoirs’—and they will turn to blood. Blood will be everywhere in Egypt, even in the wooden buckets and stone jars.” 20 Moses and Aaron did just as the Lord had commanded. He raised his staff in the presence of Pharaoh and his officials and struck the water of the Nile, and all the water was changed into blood. 21 The fish in the Nile died, and the river smelled so bad that the Egyptians could not drink its water. Blood was everywhere in Egypt.
At first, this appears to be a cruel God acting in a cruel way. He took the water away from the people in Egypt and instead turned it to blood. Not only would this have affected their thirst, with the Nile River being fresh water, it also would’ve affected their economy. Without water fishing industries would’ve taken a massive hit, travel would’ve halted in many ways, and crops would’ve been ruined without the irrigation.
Yet, if all we see is the pain, we are only getting one perspective from the account. We must agree with those who say that God’s actions were severe, because they were, but we also must say that it could’ve been worse. God could’ve gone ahead and simply wiped the Egyptians off the map. In that way, God would’ve been able to bring his people to their homeland of Israel as he had promised.
However, God is an opportunist. He is always looking to show that he is slow to anger and abounding in love. Even with the Egyptians. And especially because they didn’t deserve it. God didn’t go with the nuclear option because the plagues would allow him to reveal his love multiple times to a people who did not know him. His love made it evident to them that their gods were not real. If they would’ve been real, they wouldn’t have allowed God to destroy them one by one. Such as here with the Nile River, which they worshiped, and the sun, and other things too. Secondly, it would reveal to them who the real God was, that he is love. And thirdly, these plagues gave the Egyptians opportunities to repent. People will reject God’s love continually unless they are shown their need for it. God’s plagues would’ve given openings for that need to be revealed to those people.
Contrast then the patience of God for his enemies to us with our impatience to those we supposedly love. Rather than looking for opportunities to show more love, we instead look for opportunities when we might shrink back from that love because the person has wronged me in some way. Just because you feel like it sometimes you’ll grow impatient with your spouse over something they have no control over. They might not have come home at exactly the time they said they were going to, so you decide that they don’t deserve as much of your love today. Sometimes it’s as simple as a family member didn’t put the pickle jar on the right shelf in the fridge. Then we have the audacity to ask why God would remain so patient and so caring.
It’s because of people like you that it’s good God is slow to anger. The Egyptians weren’t the only enemies God has been kind toward. You are as well. Sure, God could often make it much easier on himself. He could show the bare minimum of love required to remain faithful to his promises. But, he never does that. God always fills your cup to the brim. Look at how often that is the case in the Scriptures. He didn’t just get the Israelites out here, he showed his love to the Egyptians too. He didn’t just promise you a little better existence after this earth, he gives you paradise. He didn’t just promise Jesus would rise from the dead, he had him reveal himself to witnesses so that we could receive additional comfort and confidence.
Likewise, God found other avenues to show his love in the remaining verses in our text. But the Egyptian magicians did the same things by their secret arts, and Pharaoh’s heart became hard; he would not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the Lord had said. 23 Instead, he turned and went into his palace, and did not take even this to heart.
This one again seems odd. Why, if God is trying to confront the people’s false gods, would he allow Satan and the magicians the power to do this? One reason is because it shows you the foolishness of sin. Why in all the world would these magicians create more blood out of water? If they truly were thinking, wouldn’t they have tried to reverse what God had done? In this way, God also would’ve shown the people how useless it was to stand in God’s way. All that happened when they did this was that they created more problems for themselves. It would’ve been better for everyone if they never even tried this.
Also, by allowing them this opportunity to flex their muscles, God set them up for an even bigger failure. Think back to the glory days of high school when you were paired up against a very even opponent. The game went back and forth, back and forth. If you ever lost a game like that, you know how long it took to get over it. I’m guessing you can still remember a portion of that feeling. Those losses were worse than the ones you know you had no chance in from the start. What God did here was crush the hopes and dreams of those trusting in the devil’s power even more so with this sort of tactic. They were made even more aware of their inadequacy compared to him. The only hope they had was to recognize him as the only true God.
And finally, there is the third way of God finding to reveal his love. 24 And all the Egyptians dug along the Nile to get drinking water, because they could not drink the water of the river. Was this harder than before when the people could’ve just gone to the Nile to get their water? For sure. But, God still allowed the people water to drink. He didn’t kill them off by refusing them anything, but was merciful when he did not have to be. Jesus would go on to tell us in the New Testament not to worry because if God takes care of lilies and birds, he will remember us as well. Here too we see that God even provides for those who are currently his enemies. You do not need to fear that God has forgotten about you. Rather, God is always searching out new ways to show you how much he loves you.
The 10 Plagues of Egypt were a severe set of actions outpoured upon the Egyptian people. Yet, even in their severity, God displayed love. This is simply who God is. He is the God who never misses an opportunity to show love. Amen.
