Exodus 9:13

The LORD tells Moses to “rise up early in the morning, and stand before Pharaoh,” as he did before the first plague and the fourth (Exodus 7:15, Exodus 8:20). The word for morning, bôqer, is the break of day. God sets the meeting at the start of the day, and Moses goes because God sends him. The whole contest runs through Exodus 7–12. By now Egypt has suffered blood, frogs, lice, flies, the death of its livestock and boils, and after the boils the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart (Exodus 9:12).

Moses speaks for “the LORD God of the Hebrews.” “The LORD” stands for Yᵉhôvâh, God’s personal name, the name of the eternal, self-existent one who told Moses “I AM THAT I AM” (Exodus 3:14). “God of the Hebrews” ties that name to a nation of slaves. In Egypt the king was honoured as a god, a son of Ra and the embodiment of Horus, the keeper of the order the Egyptians called Ma’at. The true God speaks to that king about “my people,” and he speaks in commands.

The verb in “Let my people go” is shâlach, to send away, to send, or to stretch out, and it runs all through this passage. God will “send” all his plagues (verse 14) and “stretch out” his hand (verse 15). He tells Pharaoh to “send” and gather his cattle (verse 19). Pharaoh “sent” for Moses (verse 27) and promised, “I will let you go” (verse 28), and at the end he still refuses to “let the children of Israel go” (verse 35). It is the same verb in every one of these places. Pharaoh keeps God’s people, and so God sends his plagues.

The release has a purpose: “that they may serve me.” The verb ʻâbad means to work, to serve, to till the ground, and to worship. Israel has been forced to labour for Pharaoh, and God is bringing them out to serve him in worship and obedience. When God first called Moses, the sign he gave was that Israel would serve God at the mountain (Exodus 3:12). Moses later told Israel that God brought them out in order to bring them in to the land he swore to their fathers (Deuteronomy 6:23). Paul says the same of us: made free from sin and become servants to God, we have our fruit unto holiness, and the end is everlasting life (Romans 6:22). The freedom God gives is freedom to belong to him.

Before he sends the hail, God tells Pharaoh why he is doing all this, and these are some of the most important words in the whole account of the plagues.

“As yet exaltest thou thyself against my people, that thou wilt not let them go?” God asks this knowing the answer, so the question is an accusation. After everything Pharaoh has seen, he is still at it. “Exaltest thou thyself” is çâlal, to heap up a mound, as for a raised road, and so to lift oneself up, or to set oneself in the way like a dam. Pharaoh has piled himself up as a barrier against the people God has claimed. He treats Israel as his property, and God calls them “my people”, ʻam, a people gathered as one, the people God chose for himself (Deuteronomy 7:6). The demand is the one Moses first brought to Pharaoh’s court (Exodus 5:1).

Pride goes before destruction (Proverbs 16:18), and Pharaoh’s pride will bring down his own land. Christ is his opposite in every way: he “made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men,” and he humbled himself to the death of the cross (Philippians 2:7–8).

“Behold, to morrow about this time I will cause it to rain a very grievous hail, such as hath not been in Egypt since the foundation thereof even until now.” God names the hour a day ahead, which only the Lord of the weather can do, so when the hail comes everyone will know who sent it. The hail, bârâd, is “very grievous”, which joins mᵉʼôd, “very”, to kâbêd, “heavy”, a word that can also mean severe or hard to bear. This hail is heavy in the plainest sense. “Since the foundation thereof” puts together yôwm, “day”, and yâçad, “to found”: since the day Egypt was founded. Hail is rare in Egypt, so a storm like this would be terrifying.

God once asked Job whether he had seen “the treasures of the hail,” which he has “reserved against the time of trouble, against the day of battle and war” (Job 38:22–23). Here God brings that hail against Egypt.

The LORD tells Moses, “Stretch forth thine hand toward heaven,” and Moses “stretched forth his rod toward heaven.” The verb is nâṭâh, to stretch or spread out, the gesture Aaron had made before over the waters of Egypt (Exodus 7:19). The rod, maṭṭeh, is a staff or branch, a word used for a rod of walking, of ruling and of correction, and in Moses’ hand it was the sign of God’s authority. Moses points to heaven because the judgment comes from there. The power belongs to God, and he chose to act at his servant’s obedient gesture so that all Egypt could see that the storm came at the word of the LORD’s messenger.

“And the LORD sent thunder and hail, and the fire ran along upon the ground; and the LORD rained hail upon the land of Egypt.” The LORD is named as the one who sent the storm and as the one who rained the hail. Thunder is qôwl, “voice” or “sound”, and the psalmist hears the voice of the LORD in the thunder of the storm (Psalm 29:3–9). “Ran along” is hâlak, to walk: fire walked along the ground. Psalm 78 remembers God destroying Egypt’s crops and cattle with hail and lightning (Psalm 78:47–48), and Psalm 105 says he gave them hail for rain and flaming fire in their land (Psalm 105:32–33). Whether we picture lightning of terrible power or a fire that only God could send, it moved across the land at his command.

“So there was hail, and fire mingled with the hail, very grievous, such as there was none like it in all the land of Egypt since it became a nation.” The Hebrew behind “fire mingled with the hail” pictures fire taking hold of itself in the midst of the hail, fire and ice in one storm, side by side. “Very grievous” is the same pair of words God used when he announced the hail in verse 18: what he said, he did. Gôwy is a nation, and “since it became a nation” covers the whole of Egypt’s history.

“And the hail smote throughout all the land of Egypt all that was in the field, both man and beast; and the hail smote every herb of the field, and brake every tree of the field.” “Smote” is nâkâh, the striking word of verse 15, and it falls on everything in the open. ʼÂdâm is a human being, and it reminds us that people died that day, along with the beasts, the green plants of the field, and the trees, which the hail broke apart. “Every herb” and “every tree” are sweeping words for the full force of the storm across Egypt’s fields, for the wheat and spelt came through it (verse 32) and the locusts later found green things left to eat (Exodus 10:15).

Egypt looked to gods of the sky, the air, the storm and the harvest, among them Nut, Shu, Seth, Osiris and Isis. The hail came down out of their sky and broke their fields, and Pharaoh, who was supposed to keep the land in order, could only send for Moses. Hail falls again in the judgments of the last days in Revelation (Revelation 8:7, Revelation 16:21), and the God who ruled Egypt’s sky rules to the end.

“Only in the land of Goshen, where the children of Israel were, was there no hail.” Gôshen was the region in the eastern Nile Delta where Jacob’s family had been settled generations before (Genesis 47:6). The verse gives the reason it was spared: “where the children of Israel were.” Bên means a son, and “the children of Israel” are the descendants of Jacob, the whole nation. The protection rested on the people who lived there, and God guarded them.

God had made this distinction already in the plague of flies (Exodus 8:22–23) and in the plague on the livestock (Exodus 9:4–6), and it would reach its height at the Passover (Exodus 12) and at the sea (Exodus 14). It rests on his covenant, from his call and promise to Abraham (Genesis 12:1–3) to his word that Abraham’s descendants would be brought out of the land that enslaved them (Genesis 15:13–14). Malachi looks to the day when all will discern between the righteous and the wicked (Malachi 3:18).

Scripture holds out the same care to all God’s people. The psalm of the one who dwells in the secret place of the Most High says that a thousand may fall beside him and the plague will stay far from his dwelling (Psalm 91:7–10), and through Isaiah God promises that when his people walk through the fire they will be kept (Isaiah 43:2). Jesus told his disciples plainly that in the world they would have tribulation (John 16:33), and he prayed that the Father would keep them from the evil one (John 17:15). So God’s keeping may be shelter from the storm or his presence in it, and for those who love God all things work together for good (Romans 8:28).

“And Pharaoh sent, and called for Moses and Aaron, and said unto them, I have sinned this time: the LORD is righteous, and I and my people are wicked.” Pharaoh sends for Moses and Aaron, and for the first time he confesses sin. Every word he says is true. To sin, châṭâʼ, is properly to miss the mark. Tsaddîyq, righteous, means just and lawful, and râshâʻ, wicked, means morally wrong and guilty. For a king honoured as a god it is a staggering thing to say, and Scripture agrees with it: “The LORD is righteous in all his ways” (Psalm 145:17). Pharaoh’s verdict on himself is Scripture’s verdict on all of us, that none is righteous (Romans 3:10–12).

Yet the words “this time”, paʻam again as in verse 14, narrow the confession to the moment. Pharaoh is confessing under the hail.

“Intreat the LORD (for it is enough) that there be no more mighty thunderings and hail; and I will let you go, and ye shall stay no longer.” ʻÂthar, intreat, means to pray, to plead. Pharaoh knows the LORD is the one to stop the storm and that Moses can pray to him. “It is enough” renders rab, “much” or “great”: the storm has been great, and Pharaoh has had all he can bear. “Mighty thunderings” joins qôwl, the “voices” of verse 23, to ʼĕlôhîym, the word for God, so the phrase reads “voices of God”, the Hebrew way of speaking of thunder at its most fearful. Then he promises what God has asked from the start: “I will let you go,” shâlach. “Ye shall stay” is ʻâmad, the same verb God used in verse 16 for keeping Pharaoh standing, and “no longer” is yâçaph, to add, to go on doing.

“As soon as I am gone out of the city, I will spread abroad my hands unto the LORD; and the thunder shall cease, neither shall there be any more hail; that thou mayest know how that the earth is the LORD’S.” Pâras means to spread out, and kaph is the hollow of the hand, the open palm. Moses will pray with his palms spread toward God, the posture of earnest prayer in Scripture that Solomon would later take before the altar of the LORD.

The purpose is the one God gave in verse 14: “that thou mayest know.” At the beginning Pharaoh had asked, “Who is the LORD?” (Exodus 5:2), and here is the answer. The earth belongs to the LORD, and Egypt with it, its sky, its fields and its crops. “The earth is the LORD’s” (Psalm 24:1), because he made it (Genesis 1:1).

Moses prays for the king who has oppressed his people, and God answers. God hears his servants even when they pray for his enemies, as he heard Elijah pray for the rain to stop and to come again (James 5:17–18). God could have stilled the storm by his word alone, and he chose to still it in answer to his servant’s prayer, which honours prayer and marks Moses as his messenger.

“And the flax and the barley was smitten: for the barley was in the ear, and the flax was bolled. But the wheat and the rie were not smitten: for they were not grown up.” The hail fell on some crops and passed over others, and the reason is the season. “In the ear” is ʼâbîyb, a young, green ear of grain, the word that also gave its name to the month Abib: the barley had headed. “Bolled” is gibʻôl, “in bud”: the flax had come into bud. Both stood tall in the field, and the hail flattened them.

The wheat, chiṭṭâh, and the “rie”, kuççemeth, came through. Kuççemeth is spelt, a hardy grain related to wheat, and since modern rye was hardly grown in Egypt, most newer translations read “spelt”. “Not grown up” is ʼâphîyl, “late”: these are late-ripening crops, still young and low when the storm came.

In Egypt flax and barley were sown in the autumn and harvested in late winter or early spring, and wheat and spelt came later in the spring, so the hail fell in late winter, just before the first harvest. The loss struck hard. Flax made linen, Egypt’s cloth for clothing, sails and burial wrappings and a great article of trade, and barley made bread and beer and fed the livestock.

What was left had its own purpose. The locusts of the next plague would eat what the hail had spared (Exodus 10:1–20). Even in judgment God measured the blow and left something standing for a time, for he will have mercy on whom he will have mercy (Romans 9:15). Whatever the LORD pleases he does, in heaven and in earth (Psalm 135:6), his counsel stands for ever (Psalm 33:11), and he directs the steps of men (Proverbs 16:9).

“And Moses went out of the city from Pharaoh, and spread abroad his hands unto the LORD: and the thunders and hail ceased, and the rain was not poured upon the earth.” Moses did what he said, and the storm stopped as he said it would. “Ceased” is châdal, to leave off, to stop. The storm began at God’s word and ended at it.

“And when Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the thunders were ceased, he sinned yet more, and hardened his heart, he and his servants.” The moment the pressure lifted, the confession was gone. “Sinned” is châṭâʼ, the very word Pharaoh had used to confess (verse 27), and “yet more” is yâçaph, to add, the same verb behind his promise that Israel would “stay no longer” (verse 28). Pharaoh kept adding, and what he added was sin. “Hardened” is kâbad, to be heavy, in a form that means he made his own heart heavy, dull and unmoved. God had sent a hail “very grievous”, kâbêd, heavy, and Pharaoh answered it with a heavy heart. His officials hardened with him.

“And the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, neither would he let the children of Israel go; as the LORD had spoken by Moses.” Here “hardened” is a different verb, châzaq, to be strong, to make firm: Pharaoh’s heart grew firm in refusing. “Spoken” is dâbar, to speak, and “by Moses” is literally “by the hand of Moses”, yâd, the usual Hebrew way of naming the one through whom something is done. God had told Moses before the plagues began that he would harden Pharaoh’s heart and that Pharaoh would refuse (Exodus 4:21–23), and he said it again (Exodus 7:3). Pharaoh’s guilty refusal happened inside what God had already said, and so God’s word stands sure.

God still rules every storm, because the earth is the LORD’s, and we know the hail on Egypt was his judgment because he announced it beforehand through his prophet and named its purpose. The disasters of our own day come in a creation that groans under the curse of sin (Romans 8:22). God can use them to warn, to call people to repentance, to test and refine believers, or to show his power and care, and it is wise to be slow to tie any one of them to any one sin. The judgment the New Testament holds before every person is the day when Christ judges the nations (Matthew 25:31–46), for the Father has committed all judgment to the Son (John 5:22), and even now God’s wrath is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness (Romans 1:18).

Moses stood before Pharaoh as God’s messenger and prayed for the man who oppressed his people. The letter to the Hebrews sets Jesus over God’s house as the Son, where Moses was faithful in it as a servant (Hebrews 3:1–6). There is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus (1 Timothy 2:5), and he lives to make intercession for us (Romans 8:34).

In Christ, the Lord who sent the hail and stilled it stood in a boat and rebuked the wind, and the sea was calm (Mark 4:39, Matthew 8:23–27). He walked on the sea (Matthew 14:25) and fed the multitude from a few loaves (Matthew 14:19–21, John 6:11), and all things were created by him and hold together in him (Colossians 1:15–17). The word of the LORD that the God-fearing officials heeded has come to us in person, for the Word was God and the Word was made flesh (John 1:1, John 1:14). Whoever hears his word and believes has everlasting life (John 5:24).

The houses where those officials sheltered their servants, and Goshen untouched by the hail, point to the refuge God gives in his Son. God sent his Son so that the world through him might be saved, and whoever believes in him has everlasting life (John 3:16–18). Being justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him (Romans 5:9), and Jesus delivers us from the wrath to come (1 Thessalonians 1:10). He can shelter us because he took the judgment himself. Pharaoh was threatened with being cut off from the earth, and the Servant was “cut off out of the land of the living” (Isaiah 53:8). God made the sinless one to be sin for us, so that we might be made the righteousness of God in him (2 Corinthians 5:21). He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29), and by his death he destroyed the one who had the power of death and set free those held in fear of it (Hebrews 2:14–15). God turned even the cross, the worst sin of men, into his saving plan, for Jesus was delivered up by the determinate counsel of God and slain by wicked hands (Acts 2:23).

God brought Israel out so that they could serve him, and Christ sets us free for the same end. Whoever commits sin is the servant of sin (John 8:34), and our old man was crucified with Christ so that we would serve sin no longer (Romans 6:6–7). Made free from sin, we have become servants of righteousness (Romans 6:17–18), and the Father seeks those who worship him in spirit and in truth (John 4:23–24). Christ has made us free (Galatians 5:1), and God has delivered us from the power of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of his dear Son (Colossians 1:13–14).

Pharaoh’s heart only grew harder, and Christ’s work brings the change such a heart needs. God gives a new heart and a new spirit, takes away the heart of stone, and puts his Spirit within his people so that they walk in his ways (Ezekiel 36:26–27). So Jesus and his apostles called people to repent and believe the gospel and be converted, that their sins might be blotted out (Mark 1:15, Acts 2:38, Acts 3:19).

Pharaoh was told that the earth is the LORD’s. The day is coming when at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that he is Lord (Philippians 2:9–11), when he comes as the Faithful and True who judges in righteousness (Revelation 19:11–16) and God shakes “not the earth only, but also heaven” (Hebrews 12:26).

This passage shows a God whose word holds. He named the hour of the hail a day ahead, and it came. Moses said the storm would stop, and it stopped. God said Pharaoh would refuse, and Pharaoh refused. The same God has spoken his promises to us, and they are as sure as his warnings.

It shows a God who warns before he strikes. In the middle of judgment he told Egypt what was coming and how to be safe, and the officials who feared his word saved their households. His warnings are mercy.

It shows a God who keeps his people. Goshen was untouched while the rest of Egypt was beaten flat, because the children of Israel lived there, and those who belong to Christ have their refuge in him.

It shows a God who hears prayer, even prayer for his enemies, and who stopped a storm when his servant spread his hands.

And it shows how far words alone can go. Pharaoh could say “I have sinned” and “the LORD is righteous” and hold to them only as long as the storm lasted. The fear of the LORD that God looks for bows the heart, and he gives it through his Son. The earth is the LORD’s, and so are we.