Although Pharaoh continued to exalt himself above the LORD, God made the king of Egypt into a joke in the sight of his people before finally swallowing him down into the deep. Moses, however, gave himself to being God’s servant. In humbling himself, the LORD exalted Moses above Pharaoh.

Following the explosiveness of the first nine plagues, we come now to a very short chapter that serves as an interlude before the tenth and final plague is poured out upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt. Here Moses concludes his dialogue with Pharaoh for good, promising a great wail of death throughout Egypt to come. As we study this chapter (moving somewhat backwards), we will focus upon three main themes: the purpose of the plagues, God’s curse upon the Egyptians, and God’s blessing upon the Israelites.
The Purpose of the Plagues // Verses 9-10
Let us begin with how this chapter concludes, which should be quite familiar to us by now:
Then the LORD said to Moses, “Pharaoh will not listen to you, that my wonders may be multiplied in the land of Egypt.”
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.
Specifically, these two verses are repeating the words that God spoke to Moses before the prelude sign of the staff becoming a serpent was worked before Pharaoh (see 7:3-4). Thus, these two passages form a sort of bookend on these first ten signs that the LORD displayed to Pharaoh, and they build up the tension for the final plague.
This is also a great place for us to conclude by reflecting upon the purpose of the plagues that God brought upon Egypt. The ultimate reason is suggested in verse 9: that my wonders may be multiplied in the land of Egypt. God worked the wonders of the plagues so that His glory would be displayed throughout the land of Egypt. Again, God’s glory is the radiance of His nature and character, the visible display of who He is. Thus, the purpose of the plagues was to show both the Israelites and the Egyptians that the LORD is God and there is none like Him.
Indeed, consider the reasons that God has given for all of the signs in the book of Exodus so far:
Exodus 4:5 | that they may believe that the LORD, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you.
Exodus 7:3–5 | But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and though I multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, Pharaoh will not listen to you. Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and bring my hosts, my people the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great acts of judgment. The Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD, when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring out the people of Israel from among them.
Exodus 7:17 | Thus says the LORD, “By this you shall know that I am the LORD: behold, with the staff that is in my hand I will strike the water that is in the Nile, and it shall turn into blood.”
Exodus 8:22–23 | But on that day I will set apart the land of Goshen, where my people dwell, so that no swarms of flies shall be there, that you may know that I am the LORD in the midst of the earth. Thus I will put a division between my people and your people. Tomorrow this sign shall happen.
Exodus 9:14–16 | For this time I will send all my plagues on you yourself, and on your servants and your people, so that you may know that there is none like me in all the earth. For by now I could have put out my hand and struck you and your people with pestilence, and you would have been cut off from the earth. But for this purpose I have raised you up, to show you my power, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.
Exodus 10:1–2 | Then the LORD said to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants, that I may show these signs of mine among them, and that you may tell in the hearing of your son and of your grandson how I have dealt harshly with the Egyptians and what signs I have done among them, that you may know that I am the LORD.”
Notice the pattern: God did these signs in the land of Egypt as a revelation of Himself, to display His glory. Pharaoh’s ever-hardening heart, His judgment upon the Egyptians, and the blessing of the Israelites throughout these plagues were all about the LORD making Himself known to the all the earth, both in that generation and beyond.
Death Comes to Egypt // Verses 1, 4-8
Our text begins with the LORD speaking again to Moses, saying, 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. As we said of verse 1 in chapter 6, the LORD still has not directly told Pharaoh to let the people of Israel leave Egypt permanently; instead, the demand has only been to let them go a three-day’s journey into the wilderness to worship Him. To emphasize the utter hardness of Pharaoh’s heart, the Egyptian king did not yield to this demand even after nine plagues that left Egypt in ruins. God, however, was determined not only to break the king’s stubbornness but would actually use him to send the Israelites out of Egypt entirely.
But how could the LORD so thoroughly change Pharaoh’s mind when he was so blind to the message of the first nine plagues? He would do so with a final plague that would make the others seem like child’s play in comparison. Verses 4-6 record the warning that Moses gave to Pharaoh:
So Moses said, “Thus says the LORD: ‘About midnight I will go out in the midst of Egypt, 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. There shall be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as there has never been, nor ever will be again. 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.’ 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.
We might first rightly ask how Moses was able to give this warning to Pharaoh after the conclusion of the ninth plague. While we could easily envision Pharaoh going back on his word, the fact that Moses agreed to never see Pharaoh’s face again means that this declaration to Pharaoh likely immediately followed that dialogue at the end of chapter 10. Indeed, we can easily imagine Moses preparing to walk away as he said, “As you say! I will not see your face again.” But before he left the palace, the LORD gave the prophet one last word to speak to the king of Egypt. And what a word it was!
First, the LORD promised to bring death upon the land of Egypt. But this would not be random and indiscriminate death. No, it was going to be a precise, targeted death that fell upon all firstborns in Egypt, from Pharaoh’s own crown prince to the poorest slave girl and even to the cattle. The specificity of this plague would leave no doubt that the LORD Himself had worked this plague.
Also, since the Egyptians were obsessed with death, this was a very fitting climax to the signs and wonders that God performed. Indeed, Ryken notes how this plague also humiliated Egypt’s gods:
The god of the dead was Osiris, whose name meant “the Mighty One; he who has sovereign power.” His assistant was Anubis, the god of the underworld. Anubis supervised the embalming process and guided the dead during their passage to the afterlife. He came in canine form, which incidentally may partly explain the reference to dogs in verse 7a: “But not a dog shall growl against any of the people of Israel, either man or beast.” The Israelites would remain untouched by death, thus proving that Anubis held no power over them. Meanwhile, the death of Egypt’s sons would prove that Israel’s God was the Lord of life and death.[1]
Read More

Overture 15 from Westminster Presbytery asked the PCA General Assembly to amend BCO 7-4 by adding the following sentence: “Men who describe themselves as homosexual, even those who describe themselves as homosexual and claim to practice celibacy by refraining from homosexual conduct, are disqualified from holding office in the Presbyterian Church in America.” The GA approved this as wording on June 23, 2022, which will be sent to the PCA Presbyteries for ratification. During the debate Dr. Palmer Robertson made the following speech which many believe put the proposed amendment is a helpful context. Read the speech below and/or listen to the it here.
 
Mr. Moderator, Palmer Robertson, Piedmont Triad Presbytery.
We could quote a famous statement, “There is a tide in the affairs of men,” and say there is also “a tide in the affairs of churches.” And that tide rises when the culture demands a response.
Over the past 25 years I have had the privilege of serving in a country in Africa where the parliament passed the death penalty for homosexuality, which is somewhat an extreme. Coming back every five years over these last 25 years, I have seen the drift. First, all the sitcoms of one year were homosexually oriented. Not just many sins, not different kinds of sins, but specifically homosexual sin. Then there was laughter—the introduction of laughing over this matter. Not of any particular sin except homosexuality. And then I come five years later and now there’s a celebration of a marriage, here and there, of homosexuals. Specifically, that particular item.
And now we are moving toward a position in which it would become very difficult, and in some countries, in England (where I have visited on occasion) to even read the Apostle Paul, Romans Chapter 1, in public, and you can be arrested.
What is it in Romans Chapter 1 that is stressed so strongly here, as Paul is trying to establish the need of humanity? He says, “Therefore,” and he begins to specify; and what is it that he specifies? “God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. Men exchanging their natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion” (Romans 1:26-27).
Mr. Moderator, you never hear the word “perversion” anymore. It used to be that you could speak of “sodomy” and “sodomites.” That is a specification of a sin in the Old Testament that is just as relevant for today. And though, with all love, and here, if we are to say those who are captured by this sin, then we must speak that wonderful word, the first word of salvation, which is “repent.” Repent of what? Repent of that specific sin that is the one that is pressing the wedge between truth and behavior and untruth in the totality of our culture today.
And so, Mr. Moderator, I would urge you to respond…you know, in history, you will see that there is this floating, this movement along in history. And then somewhere, something cuts the line and says, “this far and no further.” And then, everyone reads the history and says, “Why of course, that line should have been drawn right there.” And that’s where we are today. Somewhere we must draw the line about this specific item of homosexuality. And if we are to draw any line in the public eye, it would be with respect to the ordained minister of the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. And therefore, Mr. Moderator, I would speak in favor of this amendment. 
Related Posts:

Both Esau and Jacob were members of the covenant family of God, it was not as if these two men were from different parts of the world, they were literally crib brothers. Of course we have to remember that Jacob was obviously not without his own sin. The scheme drawn up by Rebekah is something else, but irrelevant to the situation. Esau is responsible for himself. In one sense it’s not Jacob’s fault that Esau takes the route of allowing the trial of the moment to change the direction of his life. That comes precisely because Esau had allowed the bitterness of his own heart to make everything be seen through that lens of rage and animosity. 

Whenever the Apostle Paul lists out the “vices” in Ephesians or in another one of his letters a particular item which always strikes me as being in some sense the most personally damaging to the soul of an individual is without a doubt: bitterness. Yet the place where it really stands out to me when I am reading God’s word can be found in Paul’s sermon in the epistle to the Hebrews.
There in chapter twelve he says:
Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord: looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled; lest there be any fornicator or profane person like Esau, who for one morsel of food sold his birthright.
It’s instructive that when Paul is looking for an example to help the people understand what he is getting on about here he goes back almost to the beginning of the history of Israel, the brother of Israel himself. Those familiar with the story know that Esau was hungry. Ironically the great hunter had no food to eat. So, what does he do? Entreat his brother to make him some stew and the price, which in hindsight is more precious than gold, is something which he felt like he did not need at the time. Take a second and think for a moment why this would be an image a Bible writer like Paul would turn to… For it really shouldn’t take much time to see the wisdom here. What Esau did was not just silly in the moment, it was self-defeating in the long term. His hatred of God manifested itself in the way he considered Jacob, and himself.
The larger context of what the apostle is writing about here is the way the believer deals with suffering in the Christian life. His particular concern is that the lover of Jesus recognize that to be embittered towards those who are persecuting them only gives the tormentor power over them. While it is true to say that we are to rise above pettiness that is definitely one of those truths that is more easily said than done. Our minds are not necessarily drawn towards grace as people we are in conflict with are engaged in doing the kinds of things that really get our goat. Of course, no one reading this in America is really going through any kind of real persecution.
Read More
Related Posts: