The Plagues of Egypt

Moses and Aaron were God's representatives to a bold, defiant king, and to impenitent priests, hardened in rebellion, who had allied themselves to evil angels. Pharaoh and the great men of Egypt were not ignorant in regard to the wise government of God. A bright light had been shining through the ages, pointing to God, to His righteous government, and to the claims of His law. Joseph and the children of Israel in Egypt had made known the knowledge of God. Even after the people of Israel had been brought into bondage to the Egyptians, not all were regarded as slaves. Many were placed in important positions, and these were witnesses for God.—The Youth's Instructor, April 8, 1897.TA 91.2

Satan ... well knew that Moses was chosen of God to break the yoke of bondage upon the children of Israel.... He consulted with his angels how to accomplish a work which should answer a twofold purpose: 1. To destroy the influence of the work wrought by God through His servant Moses, by working through his agents, and thus counterfeiting the true work of God; 2. To exert an influence by his work through the magicians which would reach down through all ages and destroy in the minds of many true faith in the mighty miracles and works to be performed by Christ when He should come to this world.—Testimonies for the Church 1:291.TA 92.1

Moses and Aaron entered the lordly halls of the king of Egypt. There, ... before the monarch of the most powerful kingdom then in existence, stood the two representatives of the enslaved race, to repeat the command from God for Israel's release. The king demanded a miracle, in evidence of their divine commission.... Aaron now took the rod, and cast it down before Pharaoh. It became a serpent. The monarch sent for his “wise men and the sorcerers,” who “cast down every man his rod, and they became serpents; but Aaron's rod swallowed up their rods.” ...TA 92.2

The magicians did not really cause their rods to become serpents; but by magic, aided by the great deceiver, they were able to produce this appearance. It was beyond the power of Satan to change the rods to living serpents. The prince of evil, though possessing all the wisdom and might of an angel fallen, has not power to create, or to give life; this is the prerogative of God alone. But all that was in Satan's power to do, he did; he produced a counterfeit. To human sight the rods were changed to serpents.... There was nothing in their appearance to distinguish them from the serpent produced by Moses. Though the Lord caused the real serpent to swallow up the spurious ones, yet even this was regarded by Pharaoh, not as a work of God's power, but as the result of a kind of magic superior to that of his servants.TA 92.3

Pharaoh desired to justify his stubbornness in resisting the divine command, and hence he was seeking some pretext for disregarding the miracles that God had wrought through Moses. Satan gave him just what he wanted. By the work that he wrought through the magicians, he made it appear to the Egyptians that Moses and Aaron were only magicians and sorcerers, and that the message they brought could not claim respect as coming from a superior being. Thus Satan's counterfeit accomplished its purpose, of emboldening the Egyptians in their rebellion, and causing Pharaoh to harden his heart against conviction. Satan hoped also to shake the faith of Moses and Aaron in the divine origin of their mission.—Patriarchs and Prophets, 263, 264.TA 93.1

When the miracles were wrought before the king, Satan was on the ground to counteract their influence and prevent Pharaoh from acknowledging the supremacy of God and obeying his mandate. Satan wrought to the utmost of his power to counterfeit the work of God and resist His will. The only result was to prepare the way for greater exhibitions of the divine power and glory, and to make more apparent, both to the Israelites and to all Egypt, the existence and sovereignty of the true and living God.—Patriarchs and Prophets, 334.TA 93.2

The storm [the seventh plague] came on the morrow as predicted—thunder and hail, and fire mingled with it, destroying every herb, shattering trees, and smiting man and beast. Hitherto none of the lives of the Egyptians had been taken, but now death and desolation followed in the track of the destroying angel. The land of Goshen alone was spared.—The Signs of the Times, March 18, 1880.TA 94.1

The Lord through Moses gave direction to the children of Israel concerning their departure from Egypt, and especially for their preservation from the coming judgment. Each family, alone or in connection with others, was to slay a lamb or a kid “without blemish,” and with a bunch of hyssop sprinkle its blood on “the two sideposts and on the upper doorpost” of the house, that the destroying angel, coming at midnight, might not enter that dwelling....TA 94.2

The Lord declared: “I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the first-born in the land.... And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you.”—Patriarchs and Prophets, 274.TA 94.3

The children of Israel had followed the directions given them of God; and while the angel of death was passing from house to house among the Egyptians, they were all ready for their journey.—The Spirit of Prophecy 1:204.TA 94.4

About midnight every Egyptian household was aroused from their sleep by the cry of pain. They feared they were all to die. They remembered when the cry of distress and mourning was heard from the Hebrews because of the inhuman decree of a cruel king to slay all their male infants as soon as they were born. The Egyptians could not see the avenging angel, who entered every house and dealt the death blow, but they knew that it was the Hebrews’ God who was causing them to suffer the same distress they had made the Israelites to suffer.—The Youth's Instructor, May 1, 1873.TA 94.5