A full week passed by before God lifted the terrible plague of blood from the waters of Egypt. Then he sent Moses and Aaron to tell Pharaoh that, another terrible plague was coming. This time when Aaron, at God’s command, stretched his rod over the rivers and lakes and ponds, frogs came hopping up out of the water in great numbers and covered all the land. They went into the people’s houses, and even into Pharaoh’s palace, and hopped onto the beds and into the cooking-vessels. The magicians tried, and they, too, brought frogs up out of the water.
Pharaoh was greatly troubled. He had been too stubborn to let any one know how much the plague of blood had annoyed him. But now the frogs worried him very much. When he could endure them no. longer he called for Moses and Aaron and begged them to ask God to take the frogs away. “I will let your people go to sacrifice to the Lord,” he promised; and Moses asked, “When do you want God to destroy the frogs out of your houses?” Pharaoh answered, “Tomorrow.”
Moses prayed, and on the next day frogs died everywhere, except in the river. The Egyptians gathered them out of the houses and from the fields and piled them up in great heaps.
But when the frogs were gone Pharaoh did not keep his promise. He grew stubborn again, and refused to let the people go. Then God sent another plague. This time Aaron struck his rod upon the dust of the ground, and the dust became lice and fleas. The magicians tried, but they could not perform this miracle. They told Pharaoh that God’s power was greater than theirs. Still Pharaoh would not listen. How hard his heart was growing!
Then God sent Moses and Aaron to the king again as he walked along the river’s bank early one morning. “Because you will not let Israel go,” they told him, “tomorrow God will send another plague upon your land. Great swarms of flies will fill your palace and the houses of your servants. Everywhere—indoors and out-of-doors, the flies will trouble you. But no flies will enter the houses of the Israelites in Goshen.”
When the swarms of flies came upon the Egyptians, Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron again. “Tell your people to sacrifice to their God in Goshen,” he said.
But Moses replied, “They must go away out of the land, for the Egyptians would stone them if they should see their sacrifices.” The Egyptians worshiped oxen, and the Israelites killed oxen and sacrificed them on the altars that they built to worship God. The Egyptians would be very angry if they should see the Israelites kill oxen to sacrifice, because they believed oxen were sacred, or holy animals.
When Moses refused Pharaoh’s offer to let the Israelites worship in Goshen, the King said, “I will let them go to the wilderness, only do not take them very far away.”
Moses answered, “We must go three days’ journey; and you must not break your promise to God, for he is a terrible God when once he is angry and he will surely punish you for your wickedness.”
But just as soon as God removed the plague of flies in answer to Moses’ prayer, Pharaoh grew stubborn again and refused to let the Israelites go.
The next great plague that God sent upon the land of Egypt affected the cattle, and horses, and camels, and oxen, and sheep. Many of the cattle in Egypt died of this great plague, and Pharaoh became alarmed. But when he sent a messenger down to Goshen he learned that the Israelites’ cattle were all alive and well. Even after this Pharaoh remained stubborn.
God kept telling Moses what to do next, and so the sixth plague came when Moses sprinkled a handful of dust in the air before Pharaoh. Boils now broke out upon the people of Egypt. Dreadful boils they were, and painful. Because of them the magicians could not stand before Pharaoh. Still the king remained stubborn, and unwilling to obey God. Then Moses warned him that the greatest trouble he had ever seen in Egypt should come the next day if he still refused to let the people go. Messengers were sent out through the land of Egypt to warn the people to seek shelter for themselves and for their beasts lest they should be killed by this terrible plague. Some of the Egyptians had learned to believe Moses and Aaron, and they hurried to their homes. But others, like Pharaoh, were not willing to listen to the warning, and they remained in their fields.
When the sky grew black with storm-clouds and the thunder began to peal, the people became afraid. It seldom rains in Egypt, and they had never heard thunder nor seen lightning before. Soon the hail-stones began to fall as fast as rain-drops, and the lightning ran like fire along the ground. All living things that had remained in the fields were killed by the lightning and hail.
Now Pharaoh was terribly frightened. Hie called loudly for Moses and Aaron to come at once. And he cried out, “I have sinned this time; I and my people are wicked.” He promised that the Israelites might go at once if God would only cause the awful thunder and lightning and hail-storm to cease. Moses answered, “I will spread out my hands toward heaven as soon as I am outside the city, and the storm will cease, that you may know the earth belongs to God. But I know that you and your people do not yet fear the Lord God as you should fear him.”
When the storm-clouds rolled away, Pharaoh looked out upon the bright sunlight again and his heart grew as hard as before. He was not at all willing to obey God.
Moses may have grown tired of going so often to the king. But God told him that more plagues should yet come upon! Egypt before Pharaoh would really let the Israelites get out of the land of Goshen. The hail-storm had destroyed all the growing crops in the land, but the wheat and rye were not damaged because they had not grown up. The next plague, God told Moses, would be locusts, and they would eat up every green thing which appeared above the ground. When the Egyptians heard that another plague was coming upon the land they hurried to Pharaoh and said, “How long are you going to let these men bother our country! The land is spoiled already by the hail, and if the locusts come they will destroy everything.”
So Pharaoh called Moses and Aaron and asked, “Whom do you in-tend to take with you when you go to worship your God!”
Moses replied, “We will take all of our people, and we will also take our flocks and herds.”
Pharaoh told Moses that danger would surely come upon the women and children if they should be taken out into the wilderness. He pretended to be very thoughtful about the safety of these people. “Take only your men and let them sacrifice,” he said, and, refusing to hear Moses’ reply, he drove them from his presence.
When Moses went out from Pharaoh’s palace, the Lord said,
“Stretch out your hand over the land of Egypt for the locusts to come,” and Moses obeyed. Then an east wind began to blow. All that day and all the next night the east wind blew, and when morning came again a great cloud of locusts appeared in the sky. They covered the whole land of Egypt, and were so many that they darkened the land.
Fear came into Pharaoh’s heart again, and he sent in haste for Moses and Aaron. “I have sinned against the Lord your God, and against you,” he said. “Now forgive me this time, and pray that God will take these locusts away, or I and my people shall die.’? And Moses prayed again, and the Lord sent a strong west wind, which carried the locusts away and drowned them in the Red Sea.
When Pharaoh hardened his heart again, God told Moses to stretch his hand out toward heaven once more, and this time a great darkness would come upon the land of Egypt. Moses did so, and a thick darkness covered the land. For three days there was no light at all in Egypt—not even moonlight nor starlight.
Pharaoh sent the last time for Moses and Aaron, and said, “I will let all the people go as you have asked; only they must not take their flocks and herds.”
But Moses answered boldly, “We shall take with us everything that we have when we go to serve our God.”
Now Pharaoh became very angry, and he said, “Get out of my sight. And if I ever see your face again I shall kill you.”
Moses answered bravely, “It shall be just as you say; for you shall never see my face again. But know this: God will send one more terrible plague upon you and your people, after which you will drive the Israelites away out of your land.” And so saying he walked out of the Egyptian court.