Exodus 8:11, commentary and pictures

The Nile, which the Egyptians revered as a god, was made to send forth frogs that polluted the land and tormented its people, exposing the river's powerlessness and turning an object of worship into a source of pollution. After Pharaoh asked for entreaty to the Lord to take the frogs away, their removal came the next day at the time Pharaoh himself appointed, with the plague continuing until the specified time in answer to prayer. He set the next day secretly hoping the frogs would disappear of themselves and save him from submitting to the God of Israel.

The magicians could imitate bringing the frogs but could not remove them, so Pharaoh was humbled to ask for intercession and to set the time. The frogs did not vanish in a moment or return to dust, but the living cause was removed while the effect remained. They died where they were throughout all Egypt and were gathered in heaps, while their putrid bodies polluted the atmosphere and corrupted the air, with live frogs left only in the river.

God left them to die in this way on purpose so the king and all Egypt could not call the plague or its removal sorcery or enchantment like the work of the magicians, but would have evidence before their eyes that it was a judgment from the God of heaven which their vain philosophy could not explain away. This proof was needed because Pharaoh's hard heart was unmoved by the rod becoming a serpent and the river turned to blood, and the work of the magicians led him to believe those miracles were done by magic and only increased his hatred of Israel. The frog plague and its removal manifested the power of God through Moses to convince Pharaoh that the great I AM sent him to command release of Israel that they might serve Him. It was no human influence or power in Moses that produced the miracles, but the power of God.

Satan consulted with his angels to destroy the influence of God's work through Moses by aiding the magicians Pharaoh called to work with enchantments, working through them to counterfeit the true work of God. He worked through them to harden Pharaoh against God's power and to stagger the faith of Moses and Aaron because he was unwilling for Israel to be released to serve God, and so that the influence of his work through the magicians would reach down through all ages to destroy true faith in the mighty miracles Christ would perform at His coming. Even there God's work was shown superior to Satan's power, for the magicians could do only a few of the miracles God wrought through Moses. Moses being chosen to break the yoke of bondage upon Israel prefigured Christ's first advent to break Satan's power over the human family and deliver those made captives by his power.

The frogs overspreading the land, coming upon people and houses and remaining only in the river when removed, picture the multitude of periodicals and books now overspreading the land that are commonplace, idle, enervating, unclean and degrading. Their effect is to intoxicate and ruin the mind and to corrupt and destroy the soul.