EasyEnglish Bible Commentaries

Exodus 10:1-29

Exodus: Israel becomes a nation

The *Israelites leave Egypt

Exodus Chapter s 1 to 18

Hilda Bright and Kitty Pride

Chapter 10 Plague number 8: Locusts – verses 1-20

Moses warns *Pharaoh again – verses 1-6

v1 Then the *LORD spoke to Moses again. ‘Go to *Pharaoh. I have caused him to be proud. And I have caused his officials to be proud too. They will not give in to me. Therefore I will do terrible things among them as wonderful *signs. v2 Then you can tell your children and your grandchildren how I punished the *Egyptians. Tell them how I did these wonderful acts among the *Egyptians. Then everyone will know that I am the *LORD.’

v3 So Moses and Aaron went to *Pharaoh. They spoke to him. ‘This is what the *LORD, the God of the *Hebrews, says to you. “You are refusing to respect me. You must let my people go. Then they can *worship me. v4 If you refuse to obey me, I will bring *locusts into your country tomorrow. v5 Those terrible insects will cover the ground so that nobody can see it. The *hail has not left much in your fields. But the *locusts will eat it all. They will eat every green thing, and that includes every tree in your fields. v6 They will fill your palace and your officials’ houses. And they will fill all houses of the *Egyptians. Your parents and your people before them have lived here for a very long time. But never have they seen anything like this.” ’ Then Moses turned away and they left *Pharaoh.

Verses 1-2 God had shown his power very clearly when he punished the *Egyptians. They were stupid to oppose the *LORD. The *Israelites must tell their children and their grandchildren about the *LORD’s wonderful acts. Then everyone would know that God is the most powerful Ruler. And he rules for all time.

Verses 4-6 *Locusts are large insects that can jump and fly. They usually live in areas near deserts, especially in Africa and in West Asia. They gather in enormous numbers and they move together. They are like a great, black cloud that rises high in the sky. They make the sky so dark that people cannot see the sun. When they land, they cover a large area. People are very afraid of these clouds of *locusts because they eat everything. They eat everything that is green. They destroy crops and trees. As a result, the people and the animals have no food. God used *locusts to punish people at other times too (Joel Chapter s 1-2).

*Pharaoh tries to bargain – verses 7-11

v7 Then *Pharaoh’s officials spoke to him. ‘This man will continue to cause trouble for us’, they said. ‘Let the people go. Let them *worship the *LORD their God. We can see how their God has ruined Egypt’

v8 So the officials brought Moses and Aaron back to *Pharaoh. *Pharaoh said to them, ‘Go. *Worship the *LORD your God. But who will be going?’

v9 Moses answered him. ‘All of us will go. We will take our young people and our old people. We will go with our sons and our daughters. And we need our animals for a special *feast. So we will take all our sheep, all our goats, and all our cows. We must have a special *feast together to give honour to the *LORD.’

v10 Then *Pharaoh replied. ‘The *LORD will certainly be with you! I will never let you go with your women and children! Certainly, you intend to do some evil thing. v11 No! Only the men can go and *worship the *LORD. That was what you requested!’ And *Pharaoh forced Moses and Aaron to leave him.

Verses 7-10 *Pharaoh’s officials were becoming anxious about their situation. So they protested to *Pharaoh. They reminded him that the *Hebrew God was destroying their country. So *Pharaoh ordered Moses and Aaron to come to him again. He asked them who would go with them. And Moses said that everyone must go. He said that the animals must go too. They needed them for the special *feast. And they needed them for the gifts that they would give to God. That would be a special occasion to give honour to the *LORD.

Verse 10 ‘The *Lord will certainly be with you’. But *Pharaoh was not blessing them. He meant that in a negative way. He did not really want the *Lord to be with them. If he let the families go, he would be doing a good thing to the *Israelites. But *Pharaoh did not want to do a good thing for the *Israelites. It was usual for the men to kill the animals and to give them to God. But *Pharaoh wanted to keep the women and the children and the animals in Egypt. He wanted to be sure that the *Israelite men would return to their families and their animals.

The plague of locusts – verses 12-20

v12 Then the *LORD spoke to Moses again. ‘Reach out your hand towards Egypt. Then *locusts will cover the country. They will eat everything that is growing in the fields. They will eat everything that remains after the *hail.’

v13 So Moses reached out with his stick towards Egypt. And the *LORD caused a wind to blow from the east. The wind blew across the country all that day and all that night. When the morning came, the wind had brought the *locusts. v14 They came into every part of Egypt. Many *locusts landed in every part of the country. There had never been so many *locusts there before. And never again will there be so many. v15 The *locusts covered the ground so that it seemed black. They ate every green thing that remained after the *hail. They ate everything that was growing in the fields. And they ate all the fruit on the trees. No green thing remained on the plants or on the trees anywhere in Egypt.

v16 *Pharaoh sent quickly for Moses and Aaron. ‘I have *sinned against the *LORD your God and against you’, he said. v17 ‘Now forgive my *sin once more. Pray to the *LORD your God to take these terrible insects away from me.’

v18 Moses left *Pharaoh and Moses prayed to the *LORD. v19 And the *LORD changed the wind. Then a very strong wind blew from the west. It carried away all the *locusts to the Red Sea. No *locusts remained anywhere in Egypt. v20 But the *LORD caused *Pharaoh to become proud again. So still he would not let the *Israelites go.

Verse 13 The *locusts came from the *desert. A wind from the east blew them over Egypt. And a wind from the west blew them away again (verse 19). God created the wind and he controls it. So he used these winds to do what he desired. He wanted to teach *Pharaoh a lesson. *Pharaoh was opposing the *LORD who rules the wind and the sea (Psalms 107:29). The *Egyptians *worshipped a false god called Senehem. They thought that false god could protect them from damage. That false god should protect them from insects and animals that were a nuisance. The *plague of *locusts showed that the *LORD’s power was greater than Senehem’s power. Neither *Pharaoh nor any *Egyptian false god could overcome the *LORD.

Verses 16-20 *Pharaoh asked Moses and Aaron to forgive him. He wanted the *LORD to take the *locusts away from Egypt. But his attitude had not changed.

Verse 19 The ‘Red Sea’ is ‘Yam Suph’ in the *Hebrew language. It means the ‘Reed Sea’. Reeds are tall plants that grow in water. But perhaps the ‘Red’ Sea got its name from very tiny red plants. Those plants sometimes grow in the sea.

*Plague number 9: Darkness – verses 21-29

Complete darkness – verses 21-29

v21 Then the *LORD spoke to Moses again. ‘Reach with your hand towards the sky. Then darkness will spread over Egypt. It will be so dark that people can feel it.’ v22 So Moses reached with his hand towards the sky. Then complete darkness covered all of Egypt for three days. v23 Nobody saw anyone else. And nobody went anywhere for three days. But all the *Israelites had light in the place where they lived.

v24 Then *Pharaoh sent for Moses again. ‘Go and *worship the *LORD’, he said. ‘Even your women and your children can go with you. But you must leave your sheep, your goats and your cows here.’

v25 And Moses answered him. ‘You must allow us to take the animals. We need gifts to give to the *LORD our God. v26 Not one animal can remain here. We have to use some of the animals when we *worship the *LORD our God. And we will not know which animals to use until we arrive.’

v27 But the *LORD caused *Pharaoh to become proud again. So he would not let them go.

v28 *Pharaoh said to Moses, ‘Get out of my sight! Make sure that you do not appear in front of me again. If you see my face again, you will die.’

v29 ‘Just as you say’, Moses replied. ‘I will never appear in front of you again.’

Verses 21-23 Moses did not warn *Pharaoh about that *plague. And he had not warned *Pharaoh about the *gnats and the *boils. The chief *Egyptian false god, called Ra, *represented the sun. So darkness was an insult to the false god Ra. In the early Spring, a wind called ‘khamsin’ blows sometimes in Egypt. That wind blows from the south-west. It blows millions of tiny grains of sand from the *desert. And these storms of sand last for two or three days. They make the air so full of sand that it is like the night. The people cannot see and they cannot do anything. It is so hot and so dark. People say that they can ‘feel’ the darkness. Perhaps this is how God caused the darkness in Egypt. But the *Israelites had light in Goshen, the part of Egypt where they lived.

Verses 24-26 *Pharaoh had seen storms of sand before that time. But he realised that the darkness was different. It must be the *Hebrews’ God who had caused it. So he sent for Moses again. He said that the *Israelites could go. Their women and children could go too. But they must leave their animals in Goshen. Many animals had died in Egypt with the diseases and the *hail. So perhaps *Pharaoh intended to take the *Israelites’ animals. Or perhaps he wanted to emphasise that he controlled the situation still. Moses reminded *Pharaoh why they wanted to go to the *desert. They wanted to give gifts to the *LORD. That would be impossible without the animals to give as gifts. And they did not know which animals they would need. They would not know that until they arrived at the place in the *desert. So Moses told *Pharaoh that they must not leave even one animal. Moses had given *Pharaoh no opportunity to bargain about the animals.

Verses 27-29 *Pharaoh was very angry that Moses had won. He told Moses to ‘get out’. *Pharaoh said that Moses should never return. And Moses agreed that he would not appear in front of *Pharaoh again. *Pharaoh would have no more opportunity for to argue with Moses. *Pharaoh could not continue to oppose the *LORD.

(Exodus 12:31 says that *Pharaoh sent for Moses and Aaron at night. He ordered them to leave. And they could take their animals with them. *Pharaoh probably sent someone to them with that order. Sometimes people say what they do not mean. That happens especially when they are very angry. The death of *Pharaoh’s oldest son changed him and he was very sad. So perhaps he forgot that he wanted to kill Moses.)