Moses and Aaron Before Pharaoh With Serpent and Frogsby CNSDA
8:6Exodus 8:6
And Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt; and the frogs came up, and covered the land of Egypt.
The second plague on Egypt came when the rod was stretched over the waters and frogs came up from the river in a vast swarm that covered the land and spread over the country into houses and bedchambers and ovens and kneading-troughs, swarming even in Pharaoh's palace. Pharaoh had been faithfully told beforehand the nature and effect of this plague, that he might save himself from it by letting Israel go to serve God in sacrifice. The judgment struck directly at Egypt's religion, for the frog was regarded as sacred and would not be destroyed, so the protected pests became intolerable, while it also profaned the Nile which was revered as a god, turning the sacred river into a source of pollution and torment, exposing its inability to protect its worshipers and showing Jehovah's power over the objects of idolatry.
The coming of the frogs was wrought by the power of the living God through Moses, not by magic nor by any human influence or power that Moses and Aaron possessed, to convince Pharaoh that the great I AM had sent Moses to command him to let Israel go. The earlier signs of the rod becoming a serpent and the river turning to blood had not moved Pharaoh's hard heart but had moved him to greater hatred of Israel, because the work of the magicians led him to believe those miracles were performed by magic. The Egyptian magicians by their enchantments appeared to bring up similar frogs, over which Pharaoh exulted and gloried against Moses and Aaron and was led to think the miracles were done by magic.
Behind the magicians stood Satan, who was on the ground and consulted with his angels and came to their aid to work signs and wonders through them and imitate a few of God's miracles. His purpose was twofold: to destroy the influence of God's work through Moses, and to reach down through all ages to destroy true faith in the mighty miracles and works Christ would perform when He came; and he so worked to harden Pharaoh's heart against God's power, to stagger the faith of Moses and Aaron in the divine origin of their mission, and to keep Israel from being released to serve God, but God would not suffer him to proceed beyond a limit. Though they could produce frogs, the magicians could not stay the plague or take the frogs away, and their failure proved God's work superior to theirs.
Their failure somewhat humbled Pharaoh and began to make him know something of the God whom he had professed to be wholly ignorant of, so he asked Moses and Aaron to entreat the Lord to take the frogs from him and his people and promised to let the people go to sacrifice. Moses answered his former haughty boasting in his magicians by asking where his glorying was now and where was the magicians' power to remove the plague, and asked him to set the time for removal. Pharaoh set the next day, secretly hoping the frogs might disappear by themselves and save him from humiliation before the God of Israel.
At the appointed hour the living frogs were taken away and the rest died throughout Egypt and were left to be gathered into heaps whose putrid bodies lay in sight and polluted the atmosphere with corruption. God could have caused them to disappear and return to dust in a moment but did not do so, lest the king and the Egyptians call the removal magic or sorcery like the magicians' work. So the king and all Egypt were given evidence their vain philosophy could not deny or explain away that the work was not accomplished by magic but was a judgment from the God of heaven.
Moses was chosen of God to break the yoke of bondage on Israel, and his work prefigured Christ's first advent to break Satan's power over the human family and deliver those made captives by his power. The overspreading of the frogs pictures the immense tide and great multitude of periodicals and books now overspreading the land, multiplied and spread everywhere. Many are commonplace, idle and enervating, and many are unclean and degrading, intoxicating and ruining the mind and corrupting and destroying the soul, and the idle and aimless mind falls an easy prey to their evil.
The second plague on Egypt came when the rod was stretched over the waters and frogs came up from the river in a vast swarm that covered the land and spread over the country into houses and bedchambers and ovens and kneading-troughs, swarming even in Pharaoh's palace. Pharaoh had been faithfully told beforehand the nature and effect of this plague, that he might save himself from it by letting Israel go to serve God in sacrifice. The judgment struck directly at Egypt's religion, for the frog was regarded as sacred and would not be destroyed, so the protected pests became intolerable, while it also profaned the Nile which was revered as a god, turning the sacred river into a source of pollution and torment, exposing its inability to protect its worshipers and showing Jehovah's power over the objects of idolatry.
The coming of the frogs was wrought by the power of the living God through Moses, not by magic nor by any human influence or power that Moses and Aaron possessed, to convince Pharaoh that the great I AM had sent Moses to command him to let Israel go. The earlier signs of the rod becoming a serpent and the river turning to blood had not moved Pharaoh's hard heart but had moved him to greater hatred of Israel, because the work of the magicians led him to believe those miracles were performed by magic. The Egyptian magicians by their enchantments appeared to bring up similar frogs, over which Pharaoh exulted and gloried against Moses and Aaron and was led to think the miracles were done by magic.
Behind the magicians stood Satan, who was on the ground and consulted with his angels and came to their aid to work signs and wonders through them and imitate a few of God's miracles. His purpose was twofold: to destroy the influence of God's work through Moses, and to reach down through all ages to destroy true faith in the mighty miracles and works Christ would perform when He came; and he so worked to harden Pharaoh's heart against God's power, to stagger the faith of Moses and Aaron in the divine origin of their mission, and to keep Israel from being released to serve God, but God would not suffer him to proceed beyond a limit. Though they could produce frogs, the magicians could not stay the plague or take the frogs away, and their failure proved God's work superior to theirs.
Their failure somewhat humbled Pharaoh and began to make him know something of the God whom he had professed to be wholly ignorant of, so he asked Moses and Aaron to entreat the Lord to take the frogs from him and his people and promised to let the people go to sacrifice. Moses answered his former haughty boasting in his magicians by asking where his glorying was now and where was the magicians' power to remove the plague, and asked him to set the time for removal. Pharaoh set the next day, secretly hoping the frogs might disappear by themselves and save him from humiliation before the God of Israel.
At the appointed hour the living frogs were taken away and the rest died throughout Egypt and were left to be gathered into heaps whose putrid bodies lay in sight and polluted the atmosphere with corruption. God could have caused them to disappear and return to dust in a moment but did not do so, lest the king and the Egyptians call the removal magic or sorcery like the magicians' work. So the king and all Egypt were given evidence their vain philosophy could not deny or explain away that the work was not accomplished by magic but was a judgment from the God of heaven.
Moses was chosen of God to break the yoke of bondage on Israel, and his work prefigured Christ's first advent to break Satan's power over the human family and deliver those made captives by his power. The overspreading of the frogs pictures the immense tide and great multitude of periodicals and books now overspreading the land, multiplied and spread everywhere. Many are commonplace, idle and enervating, and many are unclean and degrading, intoxicating and ruining the mind and corrupting and destroying the soul, and the idle and aimless mind falls an easy prey to their evil.