Exo 9:18-25 | KingComments | STEP | The seventh plague is announced as the first of the last series of three plagues. Judgments increase in severity and intensity. Three times Moses has to stretch out his staff and thus let judgments come directly from heaven ( ; ). Moses has to go back to Pharaoh early in the morning to call him to let God’s people go. If Pharaoh does not listen, God will, He says, “send all My plagues on you”. He will do this by bringing down a very heavy hail. God reserves the hail for the day of wrath ( ). Instead of an invigorating, mild, blessing rain from heaven, as the land of Canaan knows it ( ), there is a falling down of hard, all-destroying hailstones. The same plague will strike the world in the end time ( ). God could have already wiped out Pharaoh because of his stubborn opposition. He does not do that, but let Pharaoh serve as a means by which the power of God becomes visible and His Name is proclaimed throughout the earth. Paul refers to what the LORD says here of Pharaoh to establish the sovereignty of God: “For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I raised you up, to demonstrate My power in you, and that My name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth” ( ). He even says there that God “raised … up” Pharaoh for that purpose. Does that mean that God made him to be born for that purpose? No at all. ‘Raising up’ means that God has governed the history of Pharaoh’s life in such a way that Pharaoh shows what is in his heart toward God. It clearly is the history of rebellion against Him. It also appears that there is no inclination whatsoever to listen to the warnings He sends in the various plagues that affect the land.

‏ Exodus 9:18-25

Announcement of the Seventh Plague

The seventh plague is announced as the first of the last series of three plagues. Judgments increase in severity and intensity. Three times Moses has to stretch out his staff and thus let judgments come directly from heaven (Exo 9:22; Exo 10:12 ; 21).

Moses has to go back to Pharaoh early in the morning to call him to let God’s people go. If Pharaoh does not listen, God will, He says, “send all My plagues on you”. He will do this by bringing down a very heavy hail. God reserves the hail for the day of wrath (Job 38:22-23). Instead of an invigorating, mild, blessing rain from heaven, as the land of Canaan knows it (Deu 11:10-12), there is a falling down of hard, all-destroying hailstones. The same plague will strike the world in the end time (Rev 16:21).

God could have already wiped out Pharaoh because of his stubborn opposition. He does not do that, but let Pharaoh serve as a means by which the power of God becomes visible and His Name is proclaimed throughout the earth.

Paul refers to what the LORD says here of Pharaoh to establish the sovereignty of God: “For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I raised you up, to demonstrate My power in you, and that My name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth” (Rom 9:17). He even says there that God “raised … up” Pharaoh for that purpose. Does that mean that God made him to be born for that purpose? No at all. ‘Raising up’ means that God has governed the history of Pharaoh’s life in such a way that Pharaoh shows what is in his heart toward God. It clearly is the history of rebellion against Him. It also appears that there is no inclination whatsoever to listen to the warnings He sends in the various plagues that affect the land.

How to Escape the Plague

In His grace God, because of the severity of the plague, gives an indication of how to protect oneself against the coming disaster. The shelter is experienced by anyone who “feared the word of the LORD”. For the first time we read about a fear of the LORD among the Egyptians.

The fear or reverence of what the Lord has said, the recognition of His rights, is the means by which people can be saved, as we also see in the proclamation of the eternal gospel in view of the judgments: “And I saw another angel flying in midheaven, having an eternal gospel to preach to those who live on the earth, and to every nation and tribe and tongue and people; and he said with a loud voice, “Fear God, and give Him glory, because the hour of His judgment has come; worship Him who made the heaven and the earth and sea and springs of waters” (Rev 14:6-7).

The Seventh Plague: Hail

The judgments affect the whole land of Egypt in all their intensity. God sends down from “the storehouses of hail” the hail which He has reserved in it “for the day of war and battle” (Job 38:22-23), the day which has dawned for Egypt. Only in Goshen it doesn’t hail.

The world will be smitten by many judgments, including those of a great hail (Rev 16:21). However, the believer is kept “from the hour of testing, that [hour] which is about to come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth” (Rev 3:10). This keeping is done by the Lord Jesus who takes up the church before the judgments erupt over the world.