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The LORD said to Moses, "I will harden Pharaoh's heart that I may multiply MY signs and MY wonders in the land of Egypt." Exodus 7:3. To get a better understanding of here is a short movie, The Plagues of Egypt. Just reading about these plagues doesn't quite give the full impact, in my opinion, so watching this will give you some greater understanding of the judgement Pharaoh was under. Just ONE of these plagues would be difficult to endure; yet alone to suffer all 10 of them. This too gives us a picture of the stubbornness and hardness of Pharaoh. Whenever we read scriptures, we need to stop and pause and ask the Lord if WE too, would need correction. Is there stubbornness in our own hearts? Jesus, come and heal our hearts too!
Here are the plagues in the order the Lord sent them.
1. Nile River into Blood
2. Frogs
3. Gnats (Lice)
4. Flies
5. Death of Livestock
6. Boils
7. Hail
8. Locusts
9. Darkness
9. Death of Firstborn
After the final angel of death was unleashed on ALL of the Egyptians, with the final plague resulting in the death of Pharaoh's first-born son, Pharaoh finally let the Israelites go. There is much more to read about in this historical event, but for now, I want to focus on this; they wandered in the desert for the next 40 years (Numbers 14: 33-34 and 32:13). Moses died at the end of those 40 years - just being allowed to see into the promised land when he was 120 years old (Deuteronomy 34:7). I am a sharing this to give you an outline of the timeline; based on these numbers, we know that ALL of these plagues had to have happened in under a year.
We can even narrow this time down even more by looking at a few more things. The first three plagues were against ALL the people in the land, including the Jews and we know the duration of these plagues. In Exodus 7:25 it says the blood turned to blood for 7 days. In Exodus 10:21-23 we also know the 9th plague lasted for 3 days and finally, according to Exodus 12:29-31 the 10th plague lasted for one night, beginning at midnight.
I haven't found any information on the length of the other plagues but I would think that they couldn't be much longer than these listed; they would have been too much to endure. I have read that it only takes a few days for a swarm of locust (like the 8th plague) to destroy every bit of green vegetation in sight. This being said, doing the math, if each plague were to have lasted 4 days, that would be a total of 40 days.
Forty seems to be a reoccurring number for God when dealing with punishment. As we have read above, the Israelites wondered in the dessert for 40 years. Remember it rained for 40 days in Noah's flood. Goliath tormented Israel for 40 days before God helped David kill him and finally, God gave Nineveh 40 days to repent or be destroyed.
A final thought is that we know the final plague came at Passover, on the14th day of Nissan. He again is moving, and just like back then, when God moves, He moves swiftly.
We too are being "shut in" in this season of Passover. Coincidence? I think not. Seek the Lord while He may be found. This is a time of repentance and cleaning of our hearts. Shalom.
