Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh and say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, “Let my people go, that they may serve me. ² For if you refuse to let them go and still hold them, ³ behold, the hand of the Lord will fall with a very severe plague upon your livestock that are in the field, the horses, the donkeys, the camels, the herds, and the flocks. ⁴ But the Lord will make a distinction between the livestock of Israel and the livestock of Egypt, so that nothing of all that belongs to the people of Israel shall die.” ’ ” 

⁵ And the Lord set a time, saying, “Tomorrow the Lord will do this thing in the land.” ⁶ And the next day the Lord did this thing. All the livestock of the Egyptians died, but not one of the livestock of the people of Israel died. ⁷ And Pharaoh sent, and behold, not one of the livestock of Israel was dead. But the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, and he did not let the people go. 

⁸ And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Take handfuls of soot from the kiln, and let Moses throw them in the air in the sight of Pharaoh. ⁹ It shall become fine dust over all the land of Egypt, and become boils breaking out in sores on man and beast throughout all the land of Egypt.” ¹⁰ So they took soot from the kiln and stood before Pharaoh. And Moses threw it in the air, and it became boils breaking out in sores on man and beast. ¹¹ And the magicians could not stand before Moses because of the boils, for the boils came upon the magicians and upon all the Egyptians. 

¹² But the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he did not listen to them, as the Lord had spoken to Moses. 

Introduction 

We’re continuing in Exodus this morning, and we’re in a section that looks at a series of ten plagues which were brought upon the Egyptians when Pharaoh refused the Egyptians permission to leave Egypt as the Lord had commanded. 

Last week we look at plagues two, three, and four. 

This week, we look at the next two plagues. 

One thing I’d like to say at the beginning. On a personal note…

I love Exodus. I love these passages. It’s my favorite book of the Old Testament. 

And part of why I love these passages is because we see these pictures, and on the one hand, they’re such extreme situations. But at the same time, they’re also very applicable. 

Because while it was a long time ago and while it was in a different part of the world in a different culture, people are still people. Faith is still faith. Sin is still sin. And God is still God. 

And so while it can all seem so far off and far removed from us, one thing that we see over and over in the Exodus is that we’re really not so different from people of the past. 

At the outset, I want to highlight the commentary of Philip Ryken on Exodus which I’ve found especially helpful with this ninth chapter of Exodus. 

And so we’ll begin with the fifth plague. 

Fifth plague: plague on livestock 

Verses 1-4: 

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh and say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, “Let my people go, that they may serve me. ² For if you refuse to let them go and still hold them, ³ behold, the hand of the Lord will fall with a very severe plague upon your livestock that are in the field, the horses, the donkeys, the camels, the herds, and the flocks. 

⁴ But the Lord will make a distinction between the livestock of Israel and the livestock of Egypt, so that nothing of all that belongs to the people of Israel shall die.” ’

In the preceding four plagues, we had seen times where Pharaoh was warned. 

We had seen times when he had agreed to free the Israelites, until to renege. 

But God gives another warning when Moses tells Pharaoh that if he does not release the Israelites, there will be a plague upon his livestock. 

Verse 2 into 3 says: if you refuse to let them go and still hold them, ³ behold, the hand of the Lord will fall with a very severe plague upon your livestock

The verse says that the hand of the Lord will cause a severe plague. 

It’s noteworthy that in chapter 8, when the Lord brings a plague of gnats, that is the first plague that Pharaoh’s magicians are unable to recreate and they tell Pharaoh this is the finger of God. (Exodus 8:19). 

And here, the Lord says that it will be from his hand that this plague comes. 

There does seem to be an intensification of these plagues. 

This fifth plague is the first plague that brings death. 

There have been plagues where death is a result. For instance, fish die when the Nile is turned to blood in the first plague. But the plague was primarily the Nile turning to blood. Or to give another example, during the second plague when there’s an infestation of frogs, the frogs ultimately die.

But the entire purpose of this fifth plague is that it brings death. 

And it also foreshadows the death which will happen in the last plague when God strikes dead the firstborn of all of the Egyptians. 

That the early plagues were very severe and significant, but they were largely nuisances. 

But here, the stakes are getting upped. 

The ESV calls this a severe plague.

Some translations will use the word pestilence. 

The King James Version uses the term “murrain,” which is not a common word in modern English but refers to an infectious disease. 

We don’t know specifically what this plague was, but it does seem to be some zoonotic disease, or multiple diseases which were to cause death among Egyptian livestock. 

The passage says: 

a very severe plague upon your livestock that are in the field, the horses, the donkeys, the camels, the herds, and the flocks

So this plague will be wide ranging in its impact. 

It will impact the food supplies, it will impact the economy. 

I made this point last week, but one of the common things that we see in the plagues is a lot of language which mirrors the creation account in Genesis. 

Genesis talks of the Lord’s orderly creation. 

The plagues are an orderly un-creation. 

In Genesis, man is given charge over the animals. 

Genesis 1:26: 

²⁶ Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 

But here, the livestock is taken away. 

Something else that’s noteworthy compared to the other plagues. As I’ve mentioned, many of them are in direct confrontation to Egypt’s pantheon of deities. 

Among other things, the Egyptians believed that their creator God Ptah embodied a bull named Apis and that Apis was an intermediary between humanity and the Egyptian pantheon. 

The Egyptians would actually keep a live bull in the temple at Memphis which was worshipped. When those bulls died, they were given funerary rights similar to what a Pharaoh was given. 

The fact that the bull was such a significant symbol of the divine and of communication with God makes it interesting that shortly after the Israelites were freed from the land of Egypt, when things weren’t going their way, in Exodus 32, in their frustration, they make a golden calf. 

There were also other Egyptian deities who could be associated with horns and other cow-like features. 

But here in this fifth plague, the livestock of Egypt are under attack. 

Continuing in our passage. 

Verse 4, as we had seen last week in the fourth plague, the Lord says that he will spare the Israelites from the destructiveness of this plague.’

Verses 5-6:

⁵ And the Lord set a time, saying, “Tomorrow the Lord will do this thing in the land.” ⁶ And the next day the Lord did this thing. All the livestock of the Egyptians died, but not one of the livestock of the people of Israel died.

Something that’s worth nothing in this verse. 

The passage says in verse 2 that the plague will be upon the livestock that are in the field. 

Verse 6 says when the plague happened all the livestock of the Egyptians died. 

Does it mean literally every single animal that belonged to any Egyptian died? I don’t think the text supports that because later plagues will make references to Egyptian livestock. 

So either the word “all” there is hyperbole and simply means “a lot of the livestock died.” 

For my sensibilities, such a rendering doesn’t bother me. It’s possible that this is what it means. 

Or perhaps it means all livestock that was in the fields, because those were the animals who were contracting diseases from each other.

Or perhaps it means all kinds of livestock saw death, but is not meant to be taken as exhaustively referring to every single animals. 

The ultimate point is pointing us to the vastness of the destruction. 

⁷ And Pharaoh sent, and behold, not one of the livestock of Israel was dead. But the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, and he did not let the people go. 

Verse 7 is very subtle. 

Pharaoh sent. 

That’s almost awkwardly worded in English. 

It can be easy to overlook because it’s just two words. 

The plague has been inflicted. Egyptian livestock have died. 

And Pharaoh sent. 

What that means is that Pharaoh sent people to investigate the conditions in the Israelite territory in the Land of Goshen. 

It’s also ironic. 

Because in the Hebrew, the word “sent” is used twice in this passage. At the beginning when talking about letting the Israelites go – sending them out. And here in verse 7, where it talks of how Pharaoh sent people to investigate Israel. 

In other words, he sent his people to investigate the Israelites, but he did not send the Israelites into the wilderness, as he had been commanded. 

So Pharaoh sends people to scout out Goshen and sees that the Israelites did not suffer the same consequences that the Egyptians had.

Application – a time for choosing

Philip Ryken has a helpful observation on this situation as Pharaoh’s investigation. 

And what Ryken gets at is the idea that there can be a time and place for healthy skepticism and questioning. Especially for someone who is not a Chrisitan or who does not believe in God. 

There can be a time to investigate the claims of Chrsitianity, to look into the person of Jesus, the evidence for his historical ministry, the evidence for the resurrection, and a number of other topics in the Bible. 

But there also becomes a time to trust, a time to believe. 

I had a friend in seminary. I’ve tried to get in touch with him over the years, but unsuccessfully. 

I don’t think he’s walking with the Lord today. 

Brilliant guy. 

One of the few people I’ve ever known who I will not hesitate to acknowledge that I know he’s smarter than me. 

And he had had a church background before seminary. 

But it hadn’t been the healthiest church that he had grown up in and he had a lot of questions, and he had a lot of things he wanted to figure out. 

Again, there’s nothing wrong with questions. 

But for some people, the questions never stop. 

And it’s like you have to have it all figured out before you can believe. 

You will never get there. 

More than a century ago, mathematician, Alfred North Whitehead and philosopher Betreand Russell wrote their famous book Principia Mathematica – Principles of Mathematics.

In establishing the basic axioms and proofs of math, they famously took 379 pages to get to their definitive proof that 1+1+2. 

We can’t explain the whole world before we can live in it. We can’t know everything about God before we can believe in him. 

There’s a time to question but then there comes a time to believe. 

Pharaoh continues to be given evidence but continues to disobey. 

We come to the sixth plague. 

Sixth plague: boils 

Similar to what we had seen from the third plague, this one comes with no warning. Beginning in verse 8: 

⁸ And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Take handfuls of soot from the kiln, and let Moses throw them in the air in the sight of Pharaoh. ⁹ It shall become fine dust over all the land of Egypt, and become boils breaking out in sores on man and beast throughout all the land of Egypt.”  ¹⁰ So they took soot from the kiln and stood before Pharaoh. And Moses threw it in the air, and it became boils breaking out in sores on man and beast.

Boils. 

Just as a reminder from what we’ve seen in these plagues. 

Plagues of the ecosystem when the river is turned to blood and the frogs are driven from the river. 

We’ve seen plagues which caused nuisances such as the gnats and flies. 

We’ve seen plagues that impact the animal kingdom such as the death of the livestock. 

And now we see physical suffering with this plague of boils. 

It’s some sort of skin disease. 

Various conditions such as leprosy, smallpox, and skin anthrax have all been suggested as possible causes. 

Whatever it is, it’s undoubtedly unpleasant. 

Moses is told to take handfuls of soot from the kilns and to throw them in the air. 

Bricks without straw

There is irony in that. In Exodus 5, Moses first goes to Pharaoh with the command to let the Israelites go into the wilderness in order to have a feast to God in the wilderness. 

Pharaoh goes out of his way to punish the Israelites and make their lives just a little bit more difficult. 

Exodus 5:6-8:

⁶ The same day Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters of the people and their foremen, ⁷ “You shall no longer give the people straw to make bricks, as in the past; let them go and gather straw for themselves. ⁸ But the number of bricks that they made in the past you shall impose on them, you shall by no means reduce it, for they are idle.

Straw was used in the brick making process because it helped add some stability to the bricks and also helped with the drying process. 

Apparently, the Israelite brickmakers had been given straw but when Moses asked Pharaoh to allow them into the wilderness, as a punishment, Pharaoh made them get their own straw without reducing their quota of bricks. 

Now when we come to our passage in chapter 9, the residue from those bricks that the Israelites had been forced to make is taken from the kiln and thrown into the air and the Lord uses that to bring a judgement upon the Egyptians. 

This sixth plague inflicts both man and beast.

As we’ve seen in other plagues, this one takes aim at the religion of Egypt. 

The Egyptians had several deities associated with healing, and yet here the Egyptians are afflicted with boils but not upon the Israelites. 

 ¹¹ And the magicians could not stand before Moses because of the boils, for the boils came upon the magicians and upon all the Egyptians. ¹² But the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he did not listen to them, as the Lord had spoken to Moses. 

Once again, we see a scene which is almost comical. 

The magicians are the people who had recreated the first two plagues. 

The plague of gnats, they could not duplicate. 

The third and fourth plagues, they didn’t even try to do.

And now we’re at a plague of boils, and they’re in so much pain that they can’t even stand up in front of Moses. 

They’re totally ineffective. 

It’s also a play on words with verse 10 which says that Moses and Aaron took soot from the kiln and stood before Pharaoh.

But the magicians cannot stand before Moses. 

It’s true physically, and it’s also true Spiritually.

They and their false gods have been totally defeated.

Pluralism

In our day and age, pluralism is the flavor of the month. 

We like to affirm what others believe and treat other ideas like they’re all equally valid. 

But we cannot do that when it comes to faith. 

Yes, we must always be courteous, and loving, and gracious. 

But we cannot compromise on what we believe. 

We can be loving but also lovers of truth.. 

I made this point last week, but for the various sentiments that people give about religion of “no faith is any more true than any other” or “all roads lead to god” or “all religions are basically teaching the same thing.

All throughout the Exodus, we’re seeing the Lord God and the fake gods of the Egyptian pantheon and it’s again and again pointing us that the Lord is true and that the Egyptian religion was false. 

But that’s true today for any competing religion. 

When people say that no religion is any more true than any other or that all religions are equally valid, that is making an absolute statement about the religions of the world. 

That’s not open minded. It’s arrogant. 

If there is one thing that all religions agree on it’s that they’re not all the same as every other religion. 

Throughout the Exodus, the Lord is showing himself to be true. 

Throughout the history of his people in the Old Testament, God showed himself to be true. 

Through the ministry of Christ, God has shown himself to be true and for his promises to be true. 

Through the resurrection of Jesus, God has shown himself to be faithful. 

And God has been faithful to his church for almost 2,000 years. God has been faithful to change lives. God has been faithful to bless his church and to bless the ministry of the gospel as it has gone throughout the world. 

It says in our passage that the magicians couldn’t stand. I take that both literally and figuratively. 

That they couldn’t stand because of the painful boils, but that they also could’t stand up to the Lord. 

Similarly to what the Psalmist says in Psalm 1.

Blessed is the man 

who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, 

nor stands in the way of sinners, 

nor sits in the seat of scoffers; 

² but his delight is in the law of the Lord, 

and on his law he meditates day and night. 

³ He is like a tree 

planted by streams of water 

that yields its fruit in its season, 

and its leaf does not wither. 

In all that he does, he prospers. 

⁴ The wicked are not so, 

but are like chaff that the wind drives away. 

⁵ Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, 

nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; 

Psalm 1 contrasts the person who delights in the Law of God against he person who does not. 

And in verse 5 says that the wicked will not stand in judgment. 

And the point of that is that the wicked have nothing to stand on before a holy God. 

And Pharaoh’s magicians cannot stand a they’re afflicted by this plague, because they are in sin and are opposing God. 

We cannot stand before to a holy God. 

But the good news of the gospel is that we have someone who could, because he was the Son of God, he was righteous, he was sinless, he was holy, he was God himself, the word of God who became flesh. 

Jesus. 

While we are fallen, he is gracious and allows us to be forgiven and to go into the presence of the Lord. 

That’s the good news of the gospel. 

That when we believe in Jesus, 

the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. ¹¹ So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus (Romans 6:10-11).

Thanks for listening! I hope this sermon blessed you.