Plagues of Egypt
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It was the hand of God, and no human influence or power possessed
by Moses and Aaron, that wrought the miracles which they showed
before Pharaoh. Those signs and wonders were designed to convince
Pharaoh that the great “I AM” had sent Moses, and that it was the
duty of the king to let Israel go, that they might serve the living God.
The magicians also showed signs and wonders; for they wrought not
by their own skill alone, but by the power of their god, Satan, who
assisted them in counterfeiting the work of Jehovah.
The magicians did not really cause their rods to become serpents;
but by magic, aided by the great deceiver, they were able to produce
this appearance. It was beyond the power of Satan to change the rods
to living serpents. The prince of evil, though possessing all the wisdom
and might of an angel fallen, has not power to create, or to give life;
this is the prerogative of God alone. But all that was in Satan’s power
to do, he did; he produced a counterfeit. To human sight the rods were
changed to serpents. Such they were believed to be by Pharaoh and
his court. There was nothing in their appearance to distinguish them
from the serpent produced by Moses. Though the Lord caused the real
serpent to swallow up the spurious ones, yet even this was regarded by
Pharaoh, not as a work of God’s power, but as the result of a kind of
magic superior to that of his servants.
Pharaoh desired to justify his stubbornness in resisting the divine
command, and hence he was seeking some pretext for disregarding the
miracles that God had wrought through Moses. Satan gave him just
what he wanted. By the work that he wrought through the magicians
he made it appear to the Egyptians that Moses and Aaron were only
magicians and sorcerers, and that the message they brought could
not claim respect as coming from a superior being. Thus Satan’s
counterfeit accomplished its purpose of emboldening the Egyptians
in their rebellion and causing Pharaoh to harden his heart against
conviction. Satan hoped also to shake the faith of Moses and Aaron in
the divine origin of their mission, that his instruments might prevail.
He was unwilling that the children of Israel should be released from
bondage to serve the living God.
But the prince of evil had a still deeper object in manifesting his
wonders through the magicians. He well knew that Moses, in breaking
the yoke of bondage from off the children of Israel, pre-figured Christ,
who was to break the reign of sin over the human family. He knew that
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