Welcome to lesson 12 of our introduction to salvation history. Let's begin with the prayer our Lord taught us the name of the Father and the Son of the Holy Spirit Amen Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation But deliver us from evil amen and name the Father and the Son of the Holy Spirit amen All right. Well this lesson 12 is entitled the plagues of Egypt This is a really fun lesson really all the lessons on Exodus are so much fun because on the one hand everybody has some degree of familiarity with these Awesome stories the plagues and the Red Sea and all this fun stuff But when you begin to understand the theological foundation be in the spiritual foundation and all the amazing typology behind it It just it's the riches are unfathomable. You just apply so much to our faith and so this is gonna be a fun lecture I really love teaching this particular lecture now we're gonna pick up right where we left off with lesson 11 and the call of Moses and God brings him to the people to Pharaoh to deliver his people for three day journey So that's where we left off I want to begin reading chapter 5 verses 1 through 3 and then we'll draw the connections as we go along So chapter 5 verse 1 says afterwards Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said thus says Yahweh That says the Lord the God of Israel let my people go that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness But Pharaoh said who is the Lord that I should heed his voice and let Israel go I do not know the Lord and moreover, I will not let Israel go Then they said the God of the Hebrews has met with us Let us go we beg a three-day journey into the wilderness and sacrifice to the Lord our God All right, these first three verses here is the perfect segue after God gives Moses all these amazing signs and wonders To prove to the people and to Pharaoh what God has commanded Which is if you remember the three-day journey in the wilderness a lot of people don't realize this little detail because of Charlton has in our brains We think oh just let my people go total emancipation see you later alligator we're out of here But that's actually not the reality It's a three-day retreat to go and worship God to make sacrifices to purify them from Israel from their sins and ultimately to return back We first saw this command back in chapter 3 verse 18 when God said I command you to go to To Pharaoh and say let us go a three days journey in the wilderness and here Moses obedient does that yet He says to Pharaoh let us go just a three-day journey not total emancipation All right, that's that's really important here So it's not like Moses is saying all right.
We're never gonna see you again Just three days all we're asking here and Pharaoh scornfully replies who is the Lord who is Yahweh that I should heed his voice and let Israel Go I do not know the Lord. I will not let Israel go This is interesting on a number of fronts It certainly echoes what his predecessor said so many years before about Joseph if you remember back in chapter 1 verse 8 There are rows a new king a new Pharaoh over Egypt who did not know Joseph and I had explained like how it was impossible To draw the conclusion that this new Pharaoh didn't know about Joseph like he didn't pay attention in his history class That's not what's going on is that he didn't have this covenantal relationship or this treaty or this agreement with Joseph So this new Pharaoh is kind of saying the same thing about Joseph's God. They don't know Joseph's people They don't know the Israelites have no covenantal relationship with them and Consequently, they don't have a covenantal relationship with Yapweh either I do not know Yapweh and one other interesting point about this is that you can just hear the hubris and the rebellion you can hear Pharaoh Completely flatly refusing to heed Moses's request to go to three-day journey We'll in a lot of hubris really like who is this Yahweh? You know, I'm not gonna let him go and part of the reason for this is because if Pharaoh who thinks himself divine is Hasn't slave and oppressed and overpowered the Israelites then Pharaoh is going to think that he is superior to the Israelites God The so I shouldn't I shouldn't fear this Yahweh of yours because you're enslaved and if you're enslaved this God of yours must not be all that powerful Because otherwise you wouldn't be enslaved right so you can hear kind of this underlying tone of complete mockery right scornfully saying look You're basically your God is pathetic.
I have nothing to fear if I've enslaved your people I must be better than not only you as a people but I must be better than your God as well So I hope that makes sense. I hope you're tracking with me here. A Pharaoh is completely rejected this command All right now this gets us to the purpose of the plagues There's a lot of reasons why these plagues are leveled against Egypt and I'm ultimately gonna boil them down to two I want to introduce the point I'm here and the notes the purpose and meaning of the ten plagues So Pharaoh says I do not know the Lord well What you're going to find repeated over and over and over again in these plagues is so that you would know that there was one true God Right so that way you would know Yahweh Yaddah is that Hebrew word that covenant relationship by the end of the plagues the purpose will be you will know You don't know him now, but at the end of this you will know him Okay, so all nations not just Egypt not just Israel But the point is that all nations would come to Yaddah come to know that there is one true God in heaven and that Israel is his people That's one of the big important things about this whole sequence and this whole narrative that all would know So the second related point to this is that it's also what I like to affectionately call this the divine smackdown It's the divine smackdown is God the one true God I can this corner the one true God of all of creation being itself Yahweh and in this corner all the false gods of Egypt God is going to be the superior victor. Oh, I mean to the extreme defeating Egypt in every way ship or form God is going to again smack down defeat all the false pagan gods of Egypt So those are really the two main points that all would get dach that there's one true God in heaven and is secondarily to Completely defeat all of the Egyptian gods and that actually brings us to the number 10 That wires are 10 plagues and why are they're not seven why are they're not 11 12 whatever it might be well 10 is the number of completion totality perfection Not seven people get this wrong all the time.
Unfortunately here in homily is our you know catechist or whatever Seven is the number of a covenant so it next to the primary meaning of seven as we discussed with the creation of the world in seven days God is creating the world to be in covenant to relationship with him and Adam is the mediator the high priest Between God and the rest of creation so seven is covenant you swear and oath by seven in yourself If you're going to say it's completion or to a towel to your perfection, it's always in reference to the covenant So 10 is the number of completion and all the variants of 10 You know a hundred or a thousand is like ten cubed So a thousand is like the epitome of perfection So as you read the scriptures keep that in mind 10 is the number of completion You've got ten plagues here, which basically mean then therefore this is going to be a total complete perfect defeat of Egypt and her false gods In order that all would you dach and order that all would know there is one true God in Israel So I hope that makes sense one other quick a reference to kind of prove my point about 10 are the commandments We'll talk about the commandments in a later lecture briefly, but there are ten commandments not seven not twelve whatever There's ten because it's the complete total perfect summation of the natural law that governs all of our actions the natural law that we're all born with Ten perfectly summer at the Ten Command is perfectly summarizes the law so there's another little connection for you to help remember the difference between seven and ten So ten plagues total defeat Alright, this is Dr. Nick Levy. Thank you so much for listening. If you like access to my complete courses, please visit Scripture in tradition calm.
God bless