Exodus 10:21-29 recounts the ninth plague, the plague of darkness. Frankly, after water turned to blood, heaps of dead frogs, festering boils, dead livestock, hail strong enough to kill even people, and apocalyptic clouds of locusts to strip all the hail did not, simple darkness sounds a little anticlimactic.
Until we recall that the chief god of the Egyptian pantheon was Ra, the sun god. And the Egyptian Pharaoh was considered the embodiment of Ra, thus achieving divine status. Egyptian legend believed that each night after the sun had set, Ra wrestled with the serpent of darkness all night long. The Egyptians knew Ra had defeated the serpent when the sun rose again the next morning.
But the sun didn’t rise on this morning, or for two more mornings that followed. All of Egypt—except for Goshen where the Hebrews lived—was plunged into a three day darkness so weighty and oppressive that it could be felt. When the sun does not dawn for three days, what is Egypt to conclude about the power of Ra and of the Pharaoh said to be his embodiment?
But God made a distinction between Israel and her enslavers. We read in verse 23, “Yet all the Israelites had light where they lived.”
The people of God today still live adjacent to a darkness that can be felt, yet still have light right where we live. Centuries later, the apostle Paul wrote to the church at Corinth:
But if our gospel is veiled [darkened], it is veiled to those who are perishing. In this case, the god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we are not proclaiming ourselves but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of God’s glory in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 4:3-6).
Sunday School for all ages begins weekly at 9:45 AM. All are warmly welcome.
[Thanks to God of Deliverance: A Study of Exodus 1-18 by Jen Wilkin for the back story of the nightly battle between Ra and the serpent of darkness.]
