Torah Portion: Exodus 10:1-13:16

The plagues of Egypt must be one of the Old Testament’s all-time most popular stories – immortalised in Hollywood epics, illustrated Bibles and Sunday School displays around the world.

As a result, we can perhaps become over-familiar with the narrative and de-sensitised to its gritty, terrible reality.

Here was a prosperous, cutting-edge nation – a world leader - brought to its knees by a series of disasters that led government officials to lament to their leader after only the seventh plague, “Do you not yet realise that [the country] is ruined?” (Ex 10:7). We hear the same laments in Parliament and the media today regarding Brexit – but rarely do our officials recognise the hand of God in the nation’s troubles.

Looking back on the miraculous plagues outlined in Exodus, it is easy for the reader to accept their divine origin, as the narrative embeds them in a broader picture of God’s greater purposes. One understands as one reads why the plagues happen and where they are leading. It’s harder to accept today that awful, nation-shaking events might be ‘of God’, and part of a bigger picture which many are totally unable to see – but which the Lord will reveal to those who would truly seek Him.

This week’s Torah portion is immensely encouraging in so many respects, not least because of its many parallels with Britain’s present crises (though I am by no means elevating our experience to that of Israel): a deteriorating national situation, the hearts of leaders only growing harder, the prospect for freedom and good triumphing only seeming to grow dimmer. Encouragingly, in this context God reassures His people that the situation at large has been allowed – and may yet get worse – for specific reasons, “so that I may perform these miraculous signs of mine among them…and that you may know that I am the Lord” (Ex 10:1-2). Not only this, but He gives them specific instructions about how to behave.

In other words, through great national (and international) tribulation the Lord is always working, unfazed, to achieve His purposes. That which appear to the undiscerning as great and terrible disasters may actually be miraculous signs from the Lord which ultimately lead to the rescue of many, the display of His splendour and His great glory.

What matters, then, is not so much the events themselves (life-altering though they may be in a practical sense) but how humans respond. We must expect some to dig in their heels – although, ultimately, even Pharaoh was forced to acknowledge the Lord God of Israel (even if this didn't lead to true repentance and faith). Others, like the Egyptian people, will soften their hearts and respond with openness and generosity, many even joining God’s people in their journey of redemption (Ex 11:3; 12:38).

This week’s portion culminates in the dramatic story of the first Passover, a subject deserving of a thousand ‘Thoughts for the Week’. But there is a little picture just beforehand which is easy to miss. It is of a beleaguered nation suffering in every conceivable way, now covered in a supernatural darkness so thick it can be felt. In the midst of this, somehow, glimmers of hope: for wherever God’s people are, there is light (Ex 10:23).

Author: Frances Rabbitts