Study Desk

And Moses said to Pharaoh, "I am entirely at your service: when shall I plead [with the Lord] for you and your servants and your people, so that the frogs may leave you and your houses and remain only in the Nile?"

"For if you do not let My people go, hear this: I will send swarms of [bloodsucking] insects on you and on your servants and on your people and into your houses; and the houses of the Egyptians will be full of swarms of insects, as well as the ground on which they stand.

Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron and said, "Go, sacrifice to your God [here] in the land [of Egypt]."

But Moses said, "It is not right [or even possible] to do that, for we will sacrifice to the LORD our God what is repulsive and unacceptable to the Egyptians [that is, animals that the Egyptians consider sacred]. If we sacrifice what is repulsive and unacceptable to the Egyptians, will they not riot and stone us?

So Pharaoh said, "I will let you go, so that you may sacrifice to the LORD your God in the wilderness; only you shall not go very far away. Plead [with your God] for me."

The magicians (soothsayer-priests) could not stand before Moses because of the boils, for the boils were on the magicians as well as on all the Egyptians.

"For this time I will send all My plagues on you [in full force,] and on your servants and on your people, so that you may know [without any doubt] and acknowledge that there is no one like Me in all the earth.

"For by now I could have put out My hand and struck you and your people with a pestilence, and you would then have been cut off (obliterated) from the earth.

"But indeed for this very reason I have allowed you to live, in order to show you My power and in order that My name may be proclaimed throughout all the earth.

Then Pharaoh sent for Moses and Aaron, and said to them, "I have sinned this time; the LORD is righteous, and I and my people are wicked.

"Pray and entreat the LORD, for there has been enough of God's thunder and hail; I will let you go, and you shall stay here no longer."

"But as for you and your servants, I know that you do not yet fear the LORD God."

Then the LORD said to Moses, "Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants [making them determined and unresponsive], so that I may exhibit My signs [of divine power] among them,

'For if you refuse to let My people go, then hear this: tomorrow I will bring [migratory] locusts into your country.

Moses said, "We will go with our young and our old, with our sons and our daughters, with our flocks and our herds [all of us and all that we have], for we must hold a feast to the LORD."

Then the LORD said to Moses, "Stretch out your hand over the land of Egypt for the locusts, so that they may come up on the land of Egypt and eat all the plants of the land, all that the hail has left."

For they covered the [visible] surface of the land, so that the ground was darkened; and they ate every plant of the land and all the fruit of the trees which the hail had left. There remained not a green thing on the trees or the plants of the field throughout all the land of Egypt.

Then Pharaoh hurried to call for Moses and Aaron, and he said, "I have sinned against the LORD your God and against you.

So Moses stretched out his hand toward the sky, and for three days a thick darkness was all over the land of Egypt [no sun, no moon, no stars].

The Egyptians could not see one another, nor did anyone leave his place for three days, but all the Israelites had [supernatural] light in their dwellings.