The Seventh Plague (Ex. 9:22-26)

4/7/2008 8:42 AM

SPIRITUAL DIARY

My Worship Time           Focus:  The 7^th Plague

Bible Reading & Meditation               Reference:  Exodus 9:22-26

            Message of the verses:  “22 ¶  Now the LORD said to Moses, "Stretch out your hand toward the sky, that hail may fall on all the land of Egypt, on man and on beast and on every plant of the field, throughout the land of Egypt."  23  Moses stretched out his staff toward the sky, and the LORD sent thunder and hail, and fire ran down to the earth. And the LORD rained hail on the land of Egypt.  24  So there was hail, and fire flashing continually in the midst of the hail, very severe, such as had not been in all the land of Egypt since it became a nation.  25  The hail struck all that was in the field through all the land of Egypt, both man and beast; the hail also struck every plant of the field and shattered every tree of the field.  26  Only in the land of Goshen, where the sons of Israel were, there was no hail.”

            Moses is the one who stretches out his hand toward the sky, and he may have used the rod that was his, the rod that Aaron had been using.  Perhaps Moses has now become so used to speaking to Pharaoh that his problem with speech is now over.

            The plague comes against all of Egypt, especially those who were left out in the open, for God had warned the Egyptians through Moses that they should not leave their servants out in the open, but as verse 21 says they did not listen:  “but he who paid no regard to the word of the LORD left his servants and his livestock in the field.”

            John Gill writes this commentary on verse 23:  “Artapanus {g}, an Heathen writer, who speaks of this storm of hail, says, that Moses, besides the hail, caused earthquakes by night, so that those that escaped the earthquakes were taken away by the hail, and those that escaped the hail perished by the earthquakes, which he says overthrew all the houses, and most of the temples.”  I don’t see any evidence of any earthquakes in the Scriptures, but this may be so.  There was a great hail storm along with lighting which caused fire as the lighting was so close to the ground that the storm seemed to look like it was actually on the ground.  This was a very unusual thing to happen in the land of Egypt, for Egypt rarely gets rain let along thunder and lighting.  Thunder when used in the Scriptures sometimes speaks of the voice of the Lord and also great works of the Lord.

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I realize that verse twenty-one was in yesterday’s SD, but that is the verse that truly spoke to me this morning for I must listen to the Word of God and if I don’t then it can cause a lot of problems for me.

My Steps of Faith for Today:  First I want to yoke up with the Lord this morning as spoken of in Matthew 11:28-30, “28  "Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.

29  "Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS.

30  "For My yoke is easy and My burden is light."

            Next I wish to ask the Lord to give great success to putting the floor down in the bathroom, with the help of Bruce Baker.  I trust that the Lord will give us great wisdom to do this job today.

Memory verses for the week:                                Philippians 3:7-8

7. But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ.

8.   More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing vale of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ.