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²¹ Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand toward heaven, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, a darkness to be felt.” ²² So Moses stretched out his hand toward heaven, and there was pitch darkness in all the land of Egypt three days. ²³ They did not see one another, nor did anyone rise from his place for three days, but all the people of Israel had light where they lived. 

²⁴ Then Pharaoh called Moses and said, “Go, serve the Lord; your little ones also may go with you; only let your flocks and your herds remain behind.” ²⁵ But Moses said, “You must also let us have sacrifices and burnt offerings, that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God. ²⁶ Our livestock also must go with us; not a hoof shall be left behind, for we must take of them to serve the Lord our God, and we do not know with what we must serve the Lord until we arrive there.” ²⁷ But the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he would not let them go. 

²⁸ Then Pharaoh said to him, “Get away from me; take care never to see my face again, for on the day you see my face you shall die.” ²⁹ Moses said, “As you say! I will not see your face again.” 

Prayer 

¹⁴ Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart 

be acceptable in your sight, 

O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. 

Introduction 

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been moving through passages in Exodus and building up to the Exodus event when God frees the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. 

But before that happened, there was Pharaoh and his refusal to allow the Israelites to leave. 

And so God brought a series of plagues upon Pharaoh which we’ve been covering for the past six weeks. 

This morning, we look at the ninth and penultimate plague. Darkness. 

In the text, this ninth plague is among the shorter plagues but it still covers many of the same themes which we saw in the previous eight. 

As we’ve moved through these passages, we’ve seen an intensification of plagues. 

They started as nuisances. 

Then the death of livestock. 

Disease which caused boils. 

Then God unleashed severe weather from the heavens with terrible hail storms. 

We saw the ecosystem devastated by a plague of locusts. 

And here we come to darkness. 

In comparison to what has come before, at first glance, that might seem almost anticlimactic or more tame than its predecessors. 

But as we move into this plague, we will see that this is anything but the case. 

With that, we’ll jump into our text this morning. 

And the first thing that we’ll see is that this ninth plagues comes without warning. 

Ninth plague: darkness 

Verses 21-23:

²¹ Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand toward heaven, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, a darkness to be felt.” ²² So Moses stretched out his hand toward heaven, and there was pitch darkness in all the land of Egypt three days. ²³ They did not see one another, nor did anyone rise from his place for three days, but all the people of Israel had light where they lived. 

The first thing that we must appreciate about darkness is that it impacted people in ancient times differently than it impacts us today. 

During harvest, you’ll see combines at night. Powerful lights. 

We can travel in the dark. Our cars have lights. We have cell phones. We have street lights, and in bigger cities, you see more and more street lights. 

None of these were luxuries which were enjoyed in ancient times. 

Darkness had a stopping power in the ancient world that it doesn’t have today. It was difficult to travel in the dark – and also dangerous. It’s when unsavory people are most likely to be on the move. And it’s when many dangerous animal predators are most likely to be on the hunt. 

And so God brings utter darkness upon Egypt. 

Verse 21 says that it was a darkness that could be felt. 

Some scholars take that literally and think it’s a reference to some sort of sand storm. 

I don’t like to assume that since a dust storm is never mentioned and that interpretation is speculative. I think the darkness being felt is a metaphor. That it was so utterly dark that it caused this visceral response almost like it was tangible. 

There’s an intensity of the darkness. 

The text says that there was pitch darkness in Egypt for three days. 

Think of how disorienting that would be. 

It’s not like they had clocks or cell phones they could look to in order to check the time or even what day it was. In ancient times, and undoubtedly in places today, people still use the sun in order to help keep the time. 

But with a few days of no sun, how do you know when it is? 

How do you know “well it’s been a few hours, or it should be morning now.” You wouldn’t know any of that. Tme would lose all meaning. 

Three days in utter darkness. 

Three days confined to your house. 

Stumbling around. 

And a theme that we’ve seen in so many of the other plagues we see again with the darkness, but points back to creation and God’s uncreation of Egypt. 

Genesis 1:1-4 says: 

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. ² The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. 

³ And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. ⁴ And God saw that the light was good. 

In the beginning, God made the light. 

In the Exodus, he takes it away. 

And there’s another reason why the darkness would be so disconcerting to the Egyptians. 

Yes, darkness made things more difficult and dangerous. 

But darkness also once again turned their religious worldview upside down. 

Throughout these plagues, we’ve talked about how many of the plagues impacted aspects of Egyptian life which were thought to be under the domain of various gods.  

And one of the most venerated of all the Egyptian pantheon was their creator and sun God: Ra. 

In bringing about a plague of darkness, after all of these other plagues have shown up the Egyptian deities, the plague of darkness shows the ineffectiveness of their greatest deity. 

It also once again showed the powerlessness of Pharaoh. 

The Egyptians believed that Pharaoh was a quasi-divine manifestation of Ra. 

And yet Pharaoh is powerless to stop the darkness. 

I think it’s hard for us to appreciate that mentality and worldview. 

I’ve been listening to the audio book “In order to live’ by Yeonmi Park, a woman who escaped from North Korea. And one of the things she talks about in the book is that when Kim il Sung – the grandfather of current North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un – died, how difficult that was for her family to accept. Kim Il Sung has started the Kim dynasty and had so brainwashed the people into thinking that he himself was a god, that when he died, it was hard for some of her relatives to accept. 

And I think about the Egyptians and their views of Pharaoh. Believing that Pharaoh was a divine figure. 

The plague of darkness would have been earth-shattering.  

Philip Ryken summarizes the situation fantastically: 

 “The plague of darkness proved God’s absolute power over creation. God can unmake what he has made. This is something that all the plagues showed by reversing the six days of creation. The God who made the waters turned the Nile into blood. The God who made green things grow destroyed vegetation with hail and locusts. The God who made creatures swim in the sea and swarm on dry land brought death to fish and frogs. The God who made men and beasts sent them disease and even death. Finally, the God who brought light out of darkness made the light fade to black.”

We continue in our passage. 

Light in the darkness – the light in Israel

Because amid the darkness in Egypt, there was one place with light: 

Verse 23 ends with: 

all the people of Israel had light where they lived.

I mentioned a moment ago that some scholars believe that it was a dust storm.

There are scholars who will try to give purely naturalistic explanations for how they could have happened. 

But then several of the miracles give us other details that are hard to explain with a purely naturalistic explanation. 

So you read about darkness and say, “It was a dust storm. Dust Storms are a thing. That caused the darkness.” 

But then how is it not dark in the Israelite portion of Egypt? 

How is it that their sector just happens to be insulated from the darkness? 

And so what happens is you almost need another miracle to explain the naturalistic explanation. 

The plagues are divine acts of an almighty God. 

That’s what we see in the plagues. 

That the Lord is absolutely sovereign over everything in his creation. 

And so he spares Israel. 

all the people of Israel had light where they lived.

What a great picture that is. 

In a darkened Egypt, God’s people still had light. 

It’s a symbol for how God’s people were to be in the Old Testament and it’s a symbol for how God’s people are to be today. 

Because the world is dark. 

We’ve spent two years in the Gospel of John. John loves the light and darkness imagery. 

The light is a symbol for righteousness and truth. Darkness is a symbol for what is sinful and wicked. 

Jesus is the light of the world. 

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus calls his followers light. 

Matthew 5:14-16: 

¹⁴ “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. ¹⁵ Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. ¹⁶ In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. 

You don’t have light to keep it hidden. 

You have light to shine. 

And as God’s people, we are to shine his light in the world. 

The world is in darkness, but in our church, in our homes, in our families, in our lives, we are called to shine light. 

Jesus doesn’t say “you should be light” or “you could be light” or “it’d be really great if you were light.” 

He says “you are the light of the world.”

In a dark world, the Lord has given us the light of the world, Jesus Christ. 

The light of the world who was the true light. 

And that light is meant to shine so brightly in his people that we shine it on the rest of the world.

We shine by loving people. We shine in truth. We shine in sharing the message of Jesus. We shine in pointing people to Jesus. 

Are you shining for Jesus? 

Do you ever meet someone and it is so obvious when you interact with them by how they talk, how they carry themselves, their countenance, it’s obvious that they know Jesus? 

Let us be a church full of people like that. 

Let us be people who passionately and unabashedly and unapologetically and fully live to shine the light of the glory of Christ in our community and in our world. 

And that will impact people. 

2 Corinthians 2:15-16 talks of how the followers of Jesus will impact society. Some in society will respond favorably, others will not: 

¹⁵ For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, ¹⁶ to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. 

Some will respond favorably. Others will not. Who will and who won’t, we cannot control. 

We’re just called to be faithful, and trust that the Lord will bless that. 

But again as people, and as a church, we are to be the place that’s shining brightest in our community. 

We come to the third act of the passage. Verse 24, we see the response from Pharaoh. 

Pharaoh’s heart

²⁴ Then Pharaoh called Moses and said, “Go, serve the Lord; your little ones also may go with you; only let your flocks and your herds remain behind.”

Now the passage had previously said that there were three days and nights of this darkness. 

It doesn’t specify if that period had ended by this point or if Pharaoh is talking to Moses in the pitch black. 

Moses has been trying to get Pharaoh to allow the Israelites to go. 

In the most recent plague, Pharaoh tried to allow just the men. 

In this verse, he will allow all of the Israelites to go but says that they must leave their livestock. 

We again see the incredible pride of Pharaoh that he is trying to still negotiate. He is still trying to save face. 

A person can be totally beaten down and defeated and still refuse to look to God in all of that. 

Pharaoh really doesn’t have any buying power with trying to negotiate. Him and his kingdom have been repeatedly turned upside down. 

And so Moses says in verses 25-26: 

²⁵ But Moses said, “You must also let us have sacrifices and burnt offerings, that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God. ²⁶ Our livestock also must go with us; not a hoof shall be left behind, for we must take of them to serve the Lord our God, and we do not know with what we must serve the Lord until we arrive there.”

The Israelites go and the livestock goes. 

The passage says not a hoof shall be left behind. 

They’re taking everything. 

How does Pharaoh respond? Contrition? Humility? 

Verses 27-28:

²⁷ But the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he would not let them go. ²⁸ Then Pharaoh said to him, “Get away from me; take care never to see my face again, for on the day you see my face you shall die.”

Pharaoh’s heart is hardened. 

Now as we wind down this morning, I want to revisit that subject. I talked about it over a month ago. The plagues series in Exodus repeatedly mentions Pharaoh’s heart being hardened. 

In this verse and others, it says that it was the Lord who hardened Pharaoh’s heart. 

In other places, it says that Pharaoh hardened his own heart. 

And in some places, it doesn’t specifically say the cause but reports that Pharaoh’s heart was hardened. 

These are always interesting verses to consider when we think of doctrines like providence and divine sovereignty. 

I don’t think that these verses are enough on their own to build entire doctrines. 

Pharaoh does harden his own heart. He does that by his sin and by his refusal to listen to God. 

We live in a world full of hard hearted people who refuse to obey God. 

We’re fallen and sinful. 

We choose to sin. 

We’re responsible for our own sin. 

But in God hardening the heart of Pharaoh, I think that points us to how God can use sinful people who refuse him for his own divine purposes. 

God doesn’t harden the heart of someone who otherwise would have loved him or obeyed him. 

Again, God doesn’t cause Pharaoh to sin. 

But God does utilize a sinful Pharaoh for his divine and eternal purposes. We see that throughout the Bible. 

In the prophets, we see God using entire kingdoms as instruments of judgment upon the Israelites. Kingdoms who were pagan such as the Assyrians and the Babylonians. 

In Jesus’ day, we see pagan Roman officials such as Herrod. 

And we see it with Pharaoh. 

His heart is hardened to God. He will not listen and so he will instead be an object of God’s judgment. 

Don’t feel sorry for him. Pharaoh is not a victim. He’s guilty of his sins. He sins against God and his people. 

And there will be consequences for that. And the wheels are now in motion for one final plague. 

Moses leaves Pharaoh and says in verse 29:

“As you say! I will not see your face again.” 

Pharaoh would soon meet the God whom he continued to refuse to obey. 

Chapter 11

I close by reading chapter 11, which is the final warning for the final plague. 

Everything else the Lord had said would come to pass came to pass. And after nine plagues, God promises one final and ultimate plague upon Egypt. After all of the refusal to release the Israelites, God will strike down the firstborn of all of the Egyptians.  

The Lord said to Moses, “Yet one plague more I will bring upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt. Afterward he will let you go from here. When he lets you go, he will drive you away completely. ² Speak now in the hearing of the people, that they ask, every man of his neighbor and every woman of her neighbor, for silver and gold jewelry.” ³ And the Lord gave the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians. Moreover, the man Moses was very great in the land of Egypt, in the sight of Pharaoh’s servants and in the sight of the people. 

⁴ So Moses said, “Thus says the Lord: ‘About midnight I will go out in the midst of Egypt, ⁵ and every firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his throne, even to the firstborn of the slave girl who is behind the handmill, and all the firstborn of the cattle. ⁶ There shall be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as there has never been, nor ever will be again. ⁷ But not a dog shall growl against any of the people of Israel, either man or beast, that you may know that the Lord makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel.’ 

⁸ And all these your servants shall come down to me and bow down to me, saying, ‘Get out, you and all the people who follow you.’ And after that I will go out.” And he went out from Pharaoh in hot anger. ⁹ Then the Lord said to Moses, “Pharaoh will not listen to you, that my wonders may be multiplied in the land of Egypt.” 

¹⁰ Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh, and the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he did not let the people of Israel go out of his land. 

Because of sin, Egypt will bear great consequences. 

Next week – Lord willing, we look at the tenth and final of the plagues of Exodus. 

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