Exodus 10:28

The ninth plague follows the locusts, which had eaten every green thing the hail had left (Exodus 10:1–20), and it is the last before the death of the firstborn announced in Exodus 11. Like every plague in Exodus 7–12, it begins with God: “And the LORD said unto Moses.” The name is Yᵉhôvâh, the covenant name God made known to Moses (Exodus 3:14), the self-existent, eternal One who keeps his promises. Moses acts at his command and by his power.

Moses is told to stretch out his hand, yâd, toward heaven, shâmayim. The hand often stands in Hebrew for power and agency, and “by the hand of” marks anyone through whom something is done. All through the plagues this outstretched hand is the signal that God is about to act, and here it marks Moses as the LORD’s appointed agent. Raised toward heaven, it points to the source of the darkness, the LORD himself. Moses obeys at once in verse 22, and the darkness comes as soon as his hand goes up.

The common word for darkness, chôshek, means the absence of light, and in Scripture it often carries misery, judgment and destruction with it. Verse 22 joins it to a second word, ʼăphêlâh, and the KJV renders the pair “thick darkness”. The verb behind “which may be felt”, mâshash, means to feel or to grope. This darkness was dense enough to be felt as well as seen, so that people could only grope about in it. It lay over the whole land, ʼerets, of Egypt, Mitsrayim: “in all the land of Egypt,” as verse 22 says.

Verse 23 sets the two peoples side by side. Of the Egyptians it says, “They saw not one another, neither rose any from his place for three days.” The verb râʼâh is the usual word for seeing, and here the Egyptians lose even the sight of one another. Each person stayed where the darkness found him, cut off from his neighbours and unable to rise and go about the day.

Then comes the turn: “but all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings.” The word for light, ʼôwr, means illumination or a source of light, and môwshâb is the plain word for a dwelling, the place where a person lives. The miracle lies in what happened. In the same land and in the same three days, the homes of God’s people had light while Egypt sat in darkness. God gave this light, and he gave it where they lived.

This is the distinction God had already drawn in the earlier plagues, when he set apart the land of Goshen, where his people lived, so that the swarms of flies stayed out of it (Exodus 8:22–23). He drew it so that Egypt would learn who he is: “And the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD” (Exodus 7:5). Malachi speaks of a day when God’s people will “discern between the righteous and the wicked” (Malachi 3:18), and Isaiah uses the picture of darkness and light for God’s people in the same way: “For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the LORD shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee” (Isaiah 60:2). A psalm that retells the plagues remembers this one in a line: “He sent darkness, and made it dark; and they rebelled not against his word” (Psalm 105:28).

Egypt worshipped many gods tied to the powers of nature, and first among them was Ra, the sun god, honoured as creator and as the source of light, life and plenty. Pharaoh was held to be his son, the go-between of the gods and men. When the LORD put out the light of Egypt for three days, he struck at the heart of that worship. The sun Egypt honoured stayed dark, and the king who claimed to be its son was helpless to bring it back. God had said he would do this: “against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the LORD” (Exodus 12:12).

The God who said “Let there be light” (Genesis 1:3) can withdraw light from a land and keep it shining in the homes of his people. Light and darkness are his to command. The plague shows his rule over creation, his judgment on idols and his faithful care for the people he has called his own.

When the three days are over, Pharaoh calls for Moses, and the summons itself shows how hard the plague had pressed him. He has bargained before. He once agreed to let Israel go on condition that “ye shall not go very far away” (Exodus 8:28), and when Moses warned of the locusts he offered to let only the men go (Exodus 10:10–11). Now he gives more ground than ever: “Go ye, serve the LORD ... let your little ones also go with you.” The children he had refused to release may go too.

One condition remains: “only let your flocks and your herds be stayed.” tsôʼn is the collective word for a flock of small cattle, sheep and goats, and bâqâr means cattle of the ox kind, a herd. Together they are all of Israel’s livestock. The verb yâtsag means to set or place, and here it means to leave the animals where they are, in Egypt.

For Israel the animals were food, clothing, trade and wealth. They were also the offerings their worship required. With the herds kept in Egypt, Pharaoh would hold Israel’s wealth as a pledge of their return, and Israel would go out to worship with nothing to offer.

Pharaoh says “serve the LORD”, and the verb, ʻâbad, means to work, labour, serve, till and worship. The whole contest of the plagues turns on it. Israel had laboured for Pharaoh, and God was bringing them out to serve him. Pharaoh will let them serve the LORD on terms that Pharaoh sets. He has come to fear the LORD’s power, he wants the plagues stopped and his kingdom kept, and he treats the LORD as a force to be managed. Submission to him as God is still far from his heart.

Moses answers the offer in two verses. “Thou must give us also sacrifices and burnt offerings, that we may sacrifice unto the LORD our God.” The Hebrew of “thou must give us” reads literally “you give into our hand”, so Moses asks Pharaoh to provide for Israel’s worship as well as to permit it. The two words for the offerings cover the range of what Israel would need. zebach means properly a slaughter, and so a sacrifice, and it often names the peace offering, in which the worshipper, the priests and God shared a meal. ʻôlâh comes from the verb “to go up” and names the whole burnt offering, in which the entire animal, apart from the hide that went to the priest, was burned on the altar and went up to God (Leviticus 1:3). It speaks of a worshipper’s complete dedication.

“The LORD our God” joins God’s covenant name, Yᵉhôvâh, to ʼĕlôhîym, the common word for God. ʼĕlôhîym is plural in form, and when it names the true God it is a plural of majesty, usually taking a singular verb. Together they name the God who has bound himself to Israel and who rules over all.

Then Moses goes further: “Our cattle also shall go with us; there shall not an hoof be left behind.” The word for cattle, miqneh, means livestock, and also a possession or a purchase. parçâh is a claw or split hoof, and “not an hoof” is a way of saying all of it, down to the smallest part. Pharaoh’s offer kept back a part, and Moses’ answer claims every animal.

The reason follows: “for thereof must we take to serve the LORD our God; and we know not with what we must serve the LORD, until we come thither.” The same verb, ʻâbad, appears again, and now the service in view is the LORD’s. The verb yâdaʻ, to know, here confesses that God had yet to tell them what offerings he would require. He had asked from the start that his people “hold a feast unto me in the wilderness” (Exodus 5:1), at the place of his choosing, likely Mount Sinai, and Israel would learn there what he asked. Moses speaks in faith, ready for whatever God commands, and so he will take everything God might ask for.

This is why Israel was being set free. God’s word to Pharaoh had always been, “Let my people go, that they may serve me” (Exodus 8:1), so the exodus was a release from slavery for the service of God. The law would later describe that service as to “love him, and to serve the LORD thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul” (Deuteronomy 10:12–13), loving him “with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might” (Deuteronomy 6:5). God claimed the whole of Israel, their people, their goods and their future, and every part of it belonged in his service.

“But the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he would not let them go.” The verb here is châzaq, which in this form means to make strong, strengthen, make firm or harden. Exodus uses other verbs for Pharaoh’s hardening as well: kābad, to make heavy or dull, and qāshāh, to make hard. The heart, lêb, is the centre of the whole person in Hebrew thought, his understanding, his will and his moral character, so a hardened heart is a mind and will set against God. “He would not let them go” joins the verb ʼâbâh, to be willing, to shâlach, to send, and it means “he was not willing to send them away.”

This verse comes at the end of a long story. Before Moses ever stood before Pharaoh, God told him that Pharaoh’s heart would be hardened and that it would come to Egypt’s firstborn (Exodus 4:21–23), and he said it again as the plagues began (Exodus 7:3). In the early plagues we read that Pharaoh’s heart was hardened (Exodus 7:13) and that Pharaoh hardened his heart (Exodus 8:15, 8:32). Later we read that the LORD hardened it (Exodus 9:12), and so it is here. Pharaoh chose his stubbornness again and again, and God then confirmed and strengthened the choice Pharaoh had made.

God also tells us why. He said to Pharaoh, “for this cause have I raised thee up, for to shew in thee my power; and that my name may be declared throughout all the earth” (Exodus 9:16), and Paul cites those words when he writes, “Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth” (Romans 9:17–18). Proverbs says the same of every ruler: “The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will” (Proverbs 21:1). Even the resistance of a king served God’s purpose, for it led to the last plague, to Israel’s going out (Exodus 12:31) and to the end of Pharaoh’s army in the sea (Exodus 14).

“Get thee from me,” Pharaoh says. yâlak means to walk or go, and here it is an order to leave. “Take heed to thyself, see my face no more; for in that day thou seest my face thou shalt die.” To see a king’s face, with râʼâh, to see, and pânîym, face or presence, was to be admitted to his presence, and Pharaoh shuts that door for good. “No more” comes from yâçaph, to add, used here for “any more”. The threat is plain, for mûwth means to die. Pharaoh has run out of bargains, and in his rage he answers God’s messenger with a sentence of death.

The threat turns back on Egypt. Death is coming, and it will fall on Egypt’s firstborn on the night of the Passover (Exodus 12). Moses, standing before the most powerful man of his day, was kept by God. Hebrews says of him, “By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible” (Hebrews 11:27), and the psalm speaks of the shelter he enjoyed: “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty” (Psalm 91:1–2).

Moses replies, “Thou hast spoken well, I will see thy face again no more.” The verb dâbar is the ordinary word for speaking. “Well” is kên, which as an adverb means “so” or “thus”, and in its adjective use “right”, so Moses is saying, in effect, “So you have said, and so it will be.” The word “again” is yâçaph once more, echoing Pharaoh’s own “no more”. Pharaoh’s words would come true, in a way that served God’s purpose and ended Pharaoh’s hold over Israel.

The darkness and light of this plague point to Jesus, who said, “I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life” (John 8:12). “And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not” (John 1:5). Isaiah promised that the people who walked in darkness would see a great light (Isaiah 9:2), and Matthew shows that promise fulfilled in the ministry of Jesus (Matthew 4:16). The darkness over Egypt also looks ahead to the darkness that covered the land for three hours while Jesus hung on the cross (Matthew 27:45), a sign of God’s judgment on sin, which Jesus bore there. As light returned to Egypt after the three days, his resurrection broke the power of death.

Those who refuse him are the ones who “loved darkness rather than light” (John 3:19). Those who follow him God has called “out of darkness into his marvellous light” (1 Peter 2:9), for he “hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son” (Colossians 1:13–14). “For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord” (Ephesians 5:8). The light in Israel’s dwellings looks ahead to the holy city, lit by the glory of God with the Lamb as its light (Revelation 21:23), where “there shall be no night there” (Revelation 22:5).

The animals Moses refused to leave behind were for sacrifice, and every sacrifice pointed to “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). Christ offered himself, holding nothing back, and “became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:8). His blood achieved what the blood of bulls and goats could never do (Hebrews 9:11–14), and his one offering fulfils the repeated sacrifices of the old covenant (Hebrews 10:1–10). Now God’s people offer “spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:5) and present their bodies “a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service” (Romans 12:1). That is the whole offering of the new covenant, the life given to the Lord who said, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me” (Luke 9:23).

Moses brought Israel out of Pharaoh’s grip, and Christ brings his people out of a greater bondage. Through death he destroyed the devil, who had the power of death, and set free those who all their lives were held by the fear of it (Hebrews 2:14–15). “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed” (John 8:36). Where Pharaoh’s heart was made hard, God promises his people, “A new heart also will I give you” (Ezekiel 36:26).

In these nine verses the LORD rules the light of the sun and the darkness of the sky, and he draws a line through one land so that judgment falls on one side and light shines on the other. His people had light in their dwellings because he gave it to them, and that same care rests on all who are his in Christ, the light of the world.

He also claims everything. Pharaoh offered most of what God asked and kept back the rest, and Moses refused the bargain because the people and all they had belonged to the LORD, to be used in his service as he would show them. Israel went out ready to learn “with what we must serve the LORD”, trusting God to make it known when they arrived, and those who follow Christ walk the same way.

And the passage shows how grave it is to set the heart against God. Pharaoh saw nine plagues, gave ground and took it back, and at the end drove away the messenger who brought him God’s word. The God who hardened Pharaoh’s heart is the God who gives a new heart to those who come to him, and in this story his patience runs long before his judgment falls.