Bo / Enter, Go!
Shemot (Exodus) 10:1 – 13:16
Haftorah: YirmeYahu (Jeremiah) 46:13–28
Brit Hadashah: Luke 22:7-30; I Cor 11:20-34
“What goes around comes around,” so they say. Some call it karma. Yah calls it reaping what we sow.
Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. Galatians 6:7
The word ‘mock’ comes from the Greek word ‘mukterizo’, meaning ‘to turn up the nose or sneer at, to mock, deride.’ This attitude pictures the pride and arrogance of Pharaoh and his taskmasters over their lowly Hebrew slaves. They snubbed their noses at their God for Whom he had no regard. Today’s authorities in positions of power are so much like Pharaoh. They really do think that Yah’s people are inferior intellectually, economically, technologically, culturally, and in every way that the world thinks what makes the elite superior over the rest of us.
But Pharaoh would reap what he sowed through the ten plagues. Not only did Yah judge and destroy the gods of Egypt, but He also brought upon Pharaoh the natural consequences of his sins against the God of Israel.
Now don’t get me wrong, the plagues were demonstrations of the miraculous power of God like the world has never seen. However, there was an element of cause and effect, creation manifesting the results of the evil works of an evil ruler, measure for measure.
The name Paroh, “Pharaoh” in paleo-Hebrew, pictures a big mouth (pey) speaking evil (ra) that is revealed (hey). Pharaoh spoke from an evil heart and evil would manifest. Ra, the word for evil is spelled resh ayin, the exalted head with a haughty eye, and is the etymological root for ‘wrong.’ Do you know any rulers today with haughty eyes that speak about what is just wrong?
It’s easy to point out the evil in politicians in positions of authority, but the first three plagues in Egypt show that judgment also begins with the house of God.
For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begins at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the Gospel of God? 1 Peter 4:17.
Here, Peter parallels the judgment of God with the Gospel of God. Does the Gospel parallel the ten plagues? The first three plagues touched the Hebrews, and the last seven they were spared from. What will we experience when judgment falls on the world? The ten plagues start with blood, blood in the waters, and end with blood, blood on the doorposts from the blood of the lamb.
But you have come to Mount Zion – to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels, a joyous gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are written in a scroll in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous ones made perfect, and to Yeshua, the Mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks of something better than the blood of Abel.
See to it that you do not refuse the One Who is speaking! For if they did not escape when they refused the One who was warning them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject the One who warns us from heaven.
Hebrews 12:22-25
One thing the plagues delivered the Hebrew slaves from is the evil that Pharaoh spoke. The blood of Yeshua spoke better things, better than even Abel’s blood. What does Yeshua’s blood speak? What warnings from Heaven must we listen to so we can also escape the great shaking of the Judge in the earth in our day?
For judgment is merciless to the one who does not show mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment. James 2:13
The apostle Jacob taught us that every judgment, whether it rains on the just or the unjust, is always tempered with mercy. Always true to His nature, Yah is a merciful judge even when He sends plagues upon the earth.
It wasn’t until the children of Israel groaned for deliverance that Yah responded with these plagues. The plagues were designed to cut all ties with the gods of Egypt and the slavemasters of Israel.
Groaning in Mitsrayim (Egypt) pictures a mother in travail with a child wanting to come out of her womb, pictured by the two-letter mems in Mitsrayim. Could it be that all of creation was wanting to manifest like kind as Yah delivered His judgments on Mitsrayim?
Considering Yah is merciful and how creation responds to the evil of the people, let’s take a look at each plague and what they may reveal about today’s world. Today the whole creation is groaning in travail (Rom 8:22), what may manifest in our day?
First Plague: Waters Turned to Blood
The ten plagues start and end with blood, both having to do with the death of the firstborn. Pharaoh had his authorities slay the sons of the Hebrews. Where did that blood end up? In the waters of Egypt. The time was up for the consequences of slaughtering innocent lives.
Where do aborted babies end up? The ‘fetal material’ often is flushed into the sewers of America. In the end times, an angel will pour out its bowl and the sea will ‘become blood like that of a corpse.’ Revelation 16:3. Why a corpse? Because of judgment on the slaying of innocent lives.
Yah mocked Pharaoh as being a great god by sending Moses down to the river in the morning where they met. History has it that one ‘proof’ of Pharaoh being a god was that he didn’t need to relieve himself like mortal humans. He’d sneak down to the river to take care of his business early in the morning before anyone noticed. He wasn’t fooling Yah and His servant Moshe!
Then there came a day when Pharaoh came down to a river running with blood! There the manifestation of the blood of the slain would have been in-your-face disgusting to Pharaoh and all of Egypt.
Everyone, Egyptians and Hebrews too, had to dig for water. Here the wonderful mercy of God is revealed. Subsurface water could have been turned into blood as well. But Yah gave clean water to those who would humble themselves and dig deep for the living waters. Isn’t that what we have to do to experience the Spirit of Yah in our souls?
Surely he scorns the scorners: but He gives grace unto the lowly. Proverbs 3:34
Second Plague: Frogs
The river will swarm with frogs. Exodus 7:27-29.
The river in which all the fish died produced the plague of frogs. Without the top predators in the river, large fish, and frogs could easily dominate the food chain and reproduce quickly. The Hebrew word for frogs is sharats – to teem, swarm and multiply. Frogs lay large clusters of eggs and multiply quickly if they aren’t preyed on. This was a sign that the aquatic environment of the Nile was cursed and out of balance.
That’s not to say there was no miraculous manifestation of these critters to come hopping into beds, kneading bowls, ovens, and even on the people themselves! Frogs normally avoid humans and their homes.
This was another judgment on the river gods of Egypt. Osiris was a river god through whom the river’s waters flowed, supposedly. Legions of frogs are what flowed from their god!
Why did the Hebrews have to suffer from these nasty critters? Unlike the other plagues, frogs don’t do much permanent damage – they’re just disgusting! The children of Israel needed a dose of reality to see that from both these plagues, the gods of the world are both repulsive and abhorrent. Yet sin is uglier than a frog!
Third Plague: Lice!
The environment was cursed with decaying fish on the river banks and piles of frogs all over the land. What would breed out of all those carcasses? Swarms of tiny insects. But they had to supernaturally reproduce to have them afflict all the people in the land.
Here’s where the paleo-Hebrew gives us a clue as to why the children of Israel had to suffer with this plague of gnats, or lice. The Hebrew word for gnat/lice is ken, spelled kaf, nun. It is the same root word for kohen, the word for priest. What do gnats/lice and priests have in common? They both fasten to someone else for a base of support for their lives. The kaf represents an open hand that is used to provide that support for its’ nun – activities of life. Gnats and lice are tiny creatures that fasten their legs on the skin and suck the blood out of their hosts.
Maybe this picture shows us what priests of other gods do – they’re tiny in size spiritually, are pesky, and like to suck a little life out of everyone they can get a hold of for their life support system. Doesn’t this look like many, but not all, pastors, preachers, and teachers of denominational religions today?
Scholars can prove that the children of Israel spoke and wrote in paleo-Hebrew. Archaeologists have proven this from petroglyphs on cave walls that Hebrews engraved in that part of Egypt (Jeff Benner, ancient Hebrew scholar). I believe they made this connection of the gnats/lice to the priests of the gods that were being judged in these plagues. Are not many of the priests of today’s religions being revealed as diminutive, pesky little life suckers of the common people of today’s world?
Yeshua called His disciples to not be served like the religious leaders of their day, but to support the lives of others as servants to be first in His Kingdom (Mark 9:35). The priests were the first ones to approach Elohim in the tabernacle. One reason Yahweh had to deliver the children of Israel out of Egypt was not only to establish a new Theocratic government but to establish a new priesthood of service to the people helping them draw near to Him.
Fourth Plague: Flies!
Who is the lord of the flies? The dung god, Be’elzebul, was being revealed to the world as to whom the Egyptians really served. The Hebrews didn’t serve this god. Yah spared them from his agents, the swarming flies.
Again the environment was suffering from the consequences of the curses of Egypt for serving ha’satan. The rotting carcasses of fish and frogs could have also bred swarms of incessant insects swarming all over the place. But for it to be a plague, Yah supernaturally reproduced them unchecked all over the land; but not in Goshen where the Hebrews served the Creator!
The Hebrew root word for ‘flies’ is ‘arov’, the same spelling as ‘erev,’ meaning ‘intermixed, mixture, incessant or involved motion.’ These mixed arov were not just flies but is also translated as ‘mosquitos’, including a mixture of biting and swarming insects. Mixing numerous gods into a religion with intermixed priests produced the consequence of pesky, biting, blood-sucking insects – a horrific plague!
Read the prophecies of the fall of Babylon. Babylon also means mixture, where there is ‘incessant or involved motion’ of mixed religions breeding confusion and insanity in our world today. Never have civilized people been more insane and out of their minds than the people of this crazy world in this generation!
But praise Yah, we are not appointed to His wrath (1 Thes 5:9). We have sound minds and a steady course on a straight and narrow way serving One God, not serving many confusing false gods. We do not serve the lord of the flies, but the God of Creation in all His wholeness and life!
Fifth Plague: Diseased Livestock
With swarms of flies come the transference of diseases. That’s one thing I hate about pesky flies in my house; we do whatever we have to to get rid of them.
Although the previous plague of flies went away, they probably left diseases on every surface. Yah manifested this curse to the point of the Egyptian’s livestock dying by this plague. Why do you think livestock are dying all around the world in large numbers? The curse of rampant diseases is in the earth.
What kind of disease afflicted the livestock of the miserable Mitsriy, and not the Hebrews? Again, the Hebrews give us clues. This pestilence is called ‘dever kavad me’od, translated as ‘a very severe pestilence.’ But the word ‘dever’ is spelled exactly like debar’ the word for ‘word or matter.’ Kavad literally means heavy, one of the same words for when Pharaoh ‘hardened’ his heart.
Pharaoh’s heart was heavy with all his great wealth that he did not want to let go. If he let go of the children of Israel, he would have let go of his workforce that produced the great wealth and substance of his kingdom.
This plague could also be translated as an ‘exceedingly heavy matter’ that killed his true wealth – the lives of his livestock. Livestock is what made Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob wealthy, not the infrastructure of cities and great pyramids like Pharaoh thought made him wealthy and substantive. Life is a blessing; living is where true wealth and glory are.
Remember the name Paroh means an open mouth speaking exalted, heady words. His evil words produced not life and blessing, but cursing and death. His own hardened, heavy, evil heart was clearly manifested by this plague causing the death of his livestock.
Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit. Proverbs 18:21
Sixth Plague: Boils!
YHWH had Moshe take ashes from a kiln and throw them to the sky to make the boils spread upon the miserable Mitsriy, Out of a kiln, out of which the molten, phony gods of Egypt, and the bricks the Hebrews were made, came the boils. The word ‘boil’ in Hebrew is shechiyn, which means a fiery hole or pit with sharp walls, to go down or sink down into a pit, according to (Jeff Benner AHLB). A boil is a burn, ulcer, inflamed spot, inflammation, and eruption (Strongs and BDB).
A shichiyn boil describes a kiln in the skin. Like-kind begets like kind. The great kilns of Egypt were reduced to small fire pits in the skin to afflict the miserable Mitsriy!
But like Pharaoh who still did not repent, so do those who blaspheme God in the end times because of their pains and sores (Rev 16:11). Why will pains and sores in their skin afflict the kingdom of the Beast? Because of the mark the Beast system imposed on everyone who took the mark on their skin. Those who push any affliction in the skin, whether it’s the jab, the mark, or whatever is inflicted to cause enslavement, sickness, or death, will themselves be afflicted in their skin.
Seventh Plague: Thunder, Hail and Fire!
Here’s where worship of the false gods of heaven got the Egyptians in big trouble. Up until now, they were judged in the earthly realms, now the heavens came down to destroy their crops and animals left out from under cover. The Creator can send the temperate, gentle rains as a blessing upon the land and its inhabitants, or as a destructive judgment to all who worship the made-up gods of heaven.
YHWH Elohim revealed to the world that He was in control of the heavens, not their gods. He sits on His throne in heaven and does what He pleases.
Wherefore should the heathen say, “Where is now their God?”
But our God is in the heavens: He has done whatsoever He has pleased. Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands. They have mouths, but they speak not: eyes have they, but they see not: Psalm 115:2-5
No, the gods of this world do not speak, but YHWH our Elohim sure does when He wants to do! With the hail came thunders from heaven. In the Book of Revelation, the seven thunders are YHWH making His voice known to the world.
In paleo Hebrew, the word for heavens reveals exactly what YHWH revealed to the world what the real heavens were like, unlike what myths depict in false religions. Shamayim pictures fire (sheen) mixed with (mayim) waters. The paleo picture of the two mems picture frequently reproduced through heaven. What frequency could that be?
The hailstones came down with fire on Egypt with the voice of Yah, Thunder in Hebrew is ‘qol,’ the word for ‘voice.’ The thunder of heaven is the mighty voice of our awesome God! His voice like thunder will shake the world when the seven thunders are released on earth and there will be no mistaking who rules heaven.
Back in 1984, I took a college class called ‘Weather Modification.’ Back then, I was surprised to find out how common cloud seeding had already become. For almost a century, man has seeded clouds with hundreds of millions of tons of chemicals and metals routinely. It’s no longer a conspiracy theory, but an undeniable, proven fact.
How will judgment fall as a consequence of man playing god with the weather? Great hail will fall from the sky (Rev 16:21). All that particulate matter and maybe the space junk orbiting the planet could contribute to hailstones composed of man’s own making from all the pollution put up in the skies.
Man will reap what he sows, but since YHWH controls the heavens, He will not allow great hail to fall upon His people. We have that assurance from the Exodus account. May none of us be isolated from Goshen, wherever that is in your locale, but all found gathered together as the people of Israel trusting our great Elohim.
Eighth Plague: Locusts!
Mercy triumphed over judgment in the previous plague, because the king’s crops, the wheat, and the spelt, were not ruined (Exodus 9:31). YHWH gave Egypt a chance to repent and still have a grain crop for food.
Abba is always offering mercy, hope, and a way of escape in every judgment, but it is up to man whether he will repent or not. Because Pharaoh hardened his heart, literally made his heart kavad, heavy with the glorious substance of the kingdom he wouldn’t let go of, the next plague came – the locusts – that would destroy the final spring crop to feed the Egyptians.
Although they lost their next food crop, YHWH sent them something they could eat right away – the locust, kosher on the list of Leviticus’ dietary laws! In a way, I see Yah mocking them on one hand, but extending mercy on the other for them to eat and live if they chose to do so.
Reading Revelation chapter 9, we find locusts represent far more than large insects, but instruments of cruel warfare. Looking at the Hebrew word for locust, arbeh, we can discover who the people are waging that war. The root word for arbeh is arab, yes, the name of the Arabian people of the deserts of the Middle East. How can I be sure of this connection?
When Moshe stretched forth the rod of God over Egypt, an easterly wind came bringing locusts to the land. What is to the east? Arabia, today, Saudi Arabia!
Now catch this! In the wind of the financial world is the Sandman Project. Have you heard of it? The Sandman represents a ruler in the deserts of the petro-producing countries of the Middle East, primarily Saudi Arabia. The Saudi government is now taking steps for ditching the US petrodollar and accepting other currencies for their petroleum. Petroleum makes fire and heat. A hot, scorching wind is bringing locusts to the US dollar that will consume its value and drive up inflation like nothing Babylon has ever seen!
But this pestilence will not afflict Hebrews who will ditch the Babylonian fiat currency for what truly is money – silver – according to the Torah and all the rest of the Scriptures. The US dollar is not backed by gold but is backed only by the Saudi’s trust in the US military to protect them from radical Islamist militia. In exchange, they have sold petro in US dollars. But that faith is drying up like locusts consuming whatever’s left of US supremacy in the world.
Never fear, radical Islamists of the seed of Ishmael and Esau will not prevail, read Obadiah. The remnant of Israel will overcome in the end and no plague of locusts, however, they manifest, will overtake Yah’s remnant.
Ninth Plague: Darkness!
An evil heart is more than dark, it suffocates any light that comes in. As the light of YHWH was being revealed to Pharaoh’s heart, the heaviness in his hard heart quenched any flame of the Spirit of Yah.
That is exactly what happened when Moshe stretched out his hand toward heaven, blocking out its light. Ancient Torah teachers believed that this darkness was substantive and heavy like a thick fog. The reason the Egyptians had zero light in their dwellings is because a fire could not be kindled. Nobody could light a match because it would be immediately extinguished by the heavy darkness.
Hey, but there was light in the Hebrew dwellings down in Goshen! Here we begin to see the Gospel light emerging, starting with the three days of darkness. Yeshua’s body lay in a dark tomb, concealed from any light for three days and nights, so that we may have His light in our souls and our dwellings.
In him was life; and the life was the light of men. John 1:4
In the next plague, we will see how life caused death to pass by the firstborn of the believer in the blood of the Lamb. At the end of the Book of Revelation ,we see that the Lamb, YHWH Elohim, will illumine His people.
Tenth Plague: Death of the Firstborn
This plague cut the final tie with Pharaoh and all the Egyptians. YHWH had a temporary purpose for Mitsrayim to be a womb, a place for the Hebrew nation to gestate and then to be delivered out of and into the wilderness. Now was the time to leave the birth canal, as pictured by the blood around the doorposts. It was by blood on the threshold of the womb that Yeshua entered this world from the womb of the virgin Mary. It was by His blood that He left this world, making a way for us to be born from Heaven, born again by His Spirit.
The death of the firstborn hearkens back to the first plague, the blood in the waters manifesting the slain blood of the Hebrew baby boys. Now even Pharaoh and all his cruel taskmasters were about to lose their firstborn children and livestock, just retribution, measure for measure. By this, we can know that anyone responsible for the blood of the innocent, such as aborted babies, will receive their due reward and will be stopped from keeping on with their murderous practices.
But by the mercy of YHWH, even they can find salvation from their sins and receive eternal life, if, and only if, they put their faith in the blood of the lamb. The blood applied to the doorposts wasn’t like a good luck charm, whoever was inside the dwelling had to trust in the God of Israel to save them from their sins. When that God of Israel revealed Himself as Savior, He manifested Himself as Yeshua, for His Name means ‘Yah saves!’
Yet I am YHWH, your Elohim from the land of Egypt; and you shall know no other gods than Me. For there is no Savior without Me. Hosea 13:4. That’s the purpose of all ten plagues, to know YHWH as our Savior and to grow in the grace and knowledge of Yeshua the Messiah.
One misunderstanding of the ‘Passover’ was that a death angel came to pass over whatever house he saw the blood on the doorposts. Moshe explained to the people, “And YHWH will pass through to strike Egypt. And He will see the blood on the lintel and the two doorposts, and YHWH will pass over the door. And He will not allow the destroyer to come into your houses to strike you. Exodus 12:23
So YHWH Himself passed over the threshold of every home that had put their faith in the blood of the Lamb. He saved them from the plague of death. He didn’t say an Angel saved them, but YHWH Himself saved them.
How does YHWH manifest as Yeshua other than showing up as the Angel? The previous plague revealed that – as light in their dwellings. Yeshua is the Light of life that drives out and delivers us from darkness and death.
Experiencing Yeshua Through the Plagues
What do we have to worry about? We shouldn’t fret over the wicked seeming to prosper in financial wealth and political power enslaving the common people of the world, for their due reward is bound to come! There is no escaping ‘measure for measure.’ However, we can expect to experience mercy triumphing over every judgment, if we: ‘do justly, love mercy and walk humbly before our Elohim.’ Micah 6:8
We can also expect protection from the most devastating plagues coming to this earth. The promises of Psalm 91 will be more relevant than ever. Sure, we will receive chastisement and correction from our loving Father, breaking our hearts from the soul ties to the world and its false gods in ways that we may or may not understand.
But above all, through all the tribulations coming, we can grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Yeshua the Messiah. We will see the greatest demonstrations of the power of Yah this world has ever seen liberating and saving His people Israel. He is about to introduce Himself once again to a world that has refused to know Him! The King is coming!
Come, let’s go outside the camp, seeking Yeshua, and coming together to worship our Elohim as His redeemed people. There truly is no one greater than our God!
In the Name of our Savior and Redeemer,
David
