Today’s Passage: Exodus 10
We have come now to the eighth and ninth blows against Egypt, the locusts and the darkness, and I want you to read them with an ear tuned to one sentence the LORD speaks at the very start, because it changes how you see everything that follows. Before a single locust rises on the wind, God tells Moses why He is doing all of this, and the reason is tender and far-reaching: so that a father might tell his children and his grandchildren how mightily the LORD dealt with Egypt, and so that generation after generation would know that He is the LORD. These are not merely plagues to break a stubborn king. They are a story being written to be told at the table for a thousand years. Then watch what happens as the signs fall. Egypt’s own officials, men who serve Pharaoh and stand to lose by Israel’s freedom, finally turn to their king and beg him to let the people go, asking whether he does not yet see that Egypt lies in ruins. The locusts come on an east wind and eat every green thing the hail had spared, until nothing living and growing is left in all the land. Then a darkness so thick it can be felt settles over Egypt for three days, while in the homes of Israel there is light. And through it all Pharaoh keeps bargaining, offering first to let only the men go, then to let the families go but keep the flocks, until at last he drives Moses from his presence with a threat of death. Hold the LORD’s own reason near you as you read, for it is the heart of the chapter: all of this was so it could be told, so that the children would know.
As you read, hold this: The LORD sent His mighty signs so they would be told from parent to child, that every generation would know He is the LORD.
Context The world of Exodus 10
The first thing to grasp about this chapter is the reason God gives for it, because He states it plainly and it is easy to hurry past. The LORD tells Moses that He has hardened Pharaoh’s heart precisely so that He might work these signs among them, and that Israel might tell their children and grandchildren how harshly He dealt with Egypt, that they may know He is the LORD. The whole terrible display has a purpose that reaches far beyond Pharaoh’s court. It is meant to become memory, and then teaching, and then the settled faith of children not yet born. God was not only setting a people free; He was giving them a story to carry down the generations.
By the time these two plagues fall, Egypt is already a broken land. Seven blows have come and gone, the water and the frogs and the gnats and the flies, the death of the livestock, the boils, and the ruinous hail, and the country is reeling. So it is no small thing when Pharaoh’s own officials come to him and plead, how long will this man be a snare to us, let the people go, do you not yet realize that Egypt lies in ruins? The very servants of the king can see what their master will not. The men around the throne have surrendered in their hearts long before the man on the throne will bend.
Then come the two signs themselves, and each is aimed at the pride of Egypt. The locusts sweep in on an east wind and devour whatever the hail had left, every plant and every fruit, until nothing green remains on tree or field in all the land. And after them comes a darkness that is not the ordinary fall of night but a thick, oppressive darkness that can be felt, lying over Egypt for three days so that no one can see his neighbor or rise from his place. It was a blow struck at the very sun that Egypt worshiped, for their greatest god was the sun, and here the LORD simply puts it out over the whole land while, in the homes of Israel, there is light.
And running through it all is Pharaoh’s bargaining, his heart hardening by degrees as he tries to give God a little in order to keep back a lot. First he will let only the men go and keep the women and children as hostages. Then, under the darkness, he will let the families go but demand that the flocks and herds stay behind. Each offer looks like a step toward obedience and is really a way of holding on to control. And when Moses will not yield a hoof of it, the king drives him out with a threat: leave, and never see my face again, for on the day you see it you will die.
Exodus 10:1-2 (BSB)
¹ Then the LORD said to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his officials, that I may perform these miraculous signs of Mine among them, ² and that you may tell your children and grandchildren how severely I dealt with the Egyptians when I performed miraculous signs among them, so that all of you may know that I am the LORD.”
Before the plague is named, the purpose is named, and I would not have you rush by it, for it is the key that unlocks the whole chapter. The LORD tells Moses why He is doing this, and the reason is not what we might expect. It is not first of all to punish Pharaoh, though judgment is surely falling. It is so that you may tell your children and grandchildren, so that the story of what God did in Egypt would be spoken from a father’s lips into a child’s ears, and from that child to the child after him, down through all the years to come. God is thinking past this generation to the ones not yet born.
saphar, pronounced sah-FAR. Strong's H5608, to recount, tell out, declare in full. The verb saphar means to recount, to rehearse, to tell out in order, to declare a thing so fully that the hearer can see it. It is not the word for a passing mention but for a careful retelling, the kind of telling that lingers over each part until the whole account stands living before the listener. And here is the wonder of it: the LORD chooses this word to describe what parents are to do with His mighty acts, tell them out, rehearse them, lay them before the children in full. The same root gives us the word for a scribe, one whose whole calling is to write things down and preserve them, and it lies behind the psalmist’s repeated cry to declare the works of the LORD and to recount His wonders. The plagues of Egypt were meant to be told and told again, until a boy who had never seen the Nile could speak of the night the locusts came and the day the darkness fell as though he had stood there himself. This is how the knowledge of God travels through time, not chiefly by monuments of stone but by the living voice of one generation recounting to the next what the LORD has done.See how the two ends of it are tied together in the last line: that you may tell your children, so that all of you may know that I am the LORD. The telling is not idle storytelling; it has an aim, and the aim is knowledge of God. A whole nation, and every generation of it, would come to know who the LORD is because parents kept telling the children what He had done. This is one of the deepest patterns in all of Scripture, that faith is passed down by the telling, that the mighty acts of God are meant to be recounted at the table and on the road and at bedtime, until the youngest child knows in his bones that the LORD is God. What God did in Egypt, He did partly for the sake of a conversation He meant to happen in ten thousand homes across the centuries. Never think the labor of teaching the young the works of God is a small thing. The LORD Himself built these plagues with that very telling in mind.
Exodus 10:3-6 (BSB)
³ So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and told him, “This is what the LORD, the God of the Hebrews, says: ‘How long will you refuse to humble yourself before Me? Let My people go, so that they may worship Me. ⁴ But if you refuse to let My people go, I will bring locusts into your territory tomorrow. ⁵ They will cover the face of the land so that no one can see it. They will devour whatever is left after the hail and eat every tree that grows in your fields. ⁶ They will fill your houses and the houses of all your officials and every Egyptian—something neither your fathers nor your grandfathers have seen since the day they came into this land.’” Then Moses turned and left Pharaoh’s presence.
Hear the question the LORD sets at the front of this warning, for it goes to the root of Pharaoh’s whole trouble: how long will you refuse to humble yourself before Me? God does not first ask him to obey; He asks him to bow. Underneath every plague, this is what the LORD has been after, not merely the release of Israel but the humbling of a proud heart that will not stoop before its Maker. And still the old demand rings out unchanged, let My people go so that they may worship Me, the one word that has never softened since the contest began.
Then comes the threat, and notice how sweeping it is. The locusts will cover the very face of the land until it cannot be seen, and they will finish what the hail began, eating every remaining plant and every tree, filling not just the fields but the houses of Pharaoh and his officials and every Egyptian. And God says this will be a thing such as their fathers and their grandfathers had never seen. There is that reach across the generations again, the same span the LORD spoke of in the second verse. Pharaoh’s fathers and grandfathers never saw such a plague; Israel’s children and grandchildren would never stop hearing of it. The one house would forget, and the other would remember, and the difference between them would be whether the mighty acts of God were told or buried. Moses delivers the warning and turns and walks out, leaving the weight of it hanging over the court.
Exodus 10:7-11 (BSB)
⁷ Pharaoh’s officials asked him, “How long will this man be a snare to us? Let the people go, so that they may worship the LORD their God. Do you not yet realize that Egypt lies in ruins?” ⁸ So Moses and Aaron were brought back to Pharaoh. “Go, worship the LORD your God,” he said. “But who exactly will be going?” ⁹ “We will go with our young and old,” Moses replied. “We will go with our sons and daughters, and with our flocks and herds, for we must hold a feast to the LORD.” ¹⁰ Then Pharaoh told them, “May the LORD be with you if I ever let you go with your little ones. Clearly you are bent on evil. ¹¹ No, only the men may go and worship the LORD, since that is what you have been requesting.” And Moses and Aaron were driven from Pharaoh’s presence.
Now something new happens, and it is worth pausing over. Pharaoh’s own officials turn on their king’s stubbornness and speak the plain truth to his face: how long will this man be a snare to us, let the people go, do you not yet realize that Egypt lies in ruins? These are the men who serve the throne and profit by Israel’s slavery, and even they can see that the fight is lost and the land is destroyed. When a king’s own counselors beg him to yield, and he will not, you are watching a hardness that has passed beyond reason. The servants surrendered long ago; the master will not.
So Moses is called back, and Pharaoh pretends to give in, but listen to how he does it. Go, worship the LORD, he says, and then, but who exactly will be going? He is not agreeing; he is negotiating. And when Moses answers that they will go with everyone, the young and the old, the sons and the daughters, the flocks and the herds, all of them, for a feast to the LORD, Pharaoh shows his hand. Only the men may go, he says, and keep the little ones here. Do you see the cruelty and the cunning of it? He would let the men make their three-day journey while their wives and children stayed behind as hostages, sure that no father would abandon his family and never return. He offers the shape of obedience while keeping the heart of the people chained. And notice what he tries to take: he tries to keep the children. But the LORD had just declared that all of this was for the children, that they might be told and might know. Pharaoh would hold back the very ones God meant to teach. So Moses and Aaron are driven out again, the false offer refused.
Exodus 10:12-15 (BSB)
¹² Then the LORD said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the land of Egypt, so that the locusts may swarm over it and devour every plant in the land—everything that the hail has left behind.” ¹³ So Moses stretched out his staff over the land of Egypt, and throughout that day and night the LORD sent an east wind across the land. By morning the east wind had brought the locusts. ¹⁴ The locusts swarmed across the land and settled over the entire territory of Egypt. Never before had there been so many locusts, and never again will there be. ¹⁵ They covered the face of all the land until it was black, and they consumed all the plants on the ground and all the fruit on the trees that the hail had left behind. Nothing green was left on any tree or plant in all the land of Egypt.
At the word of the LORD, Moses stretches out his staff, and God sends an east wind that blows through the day and the night, and by morning it has carried in the locusts. I want you to see the LORD’s hand in that wind, because it is easy to think of a locust swarm as a mere accident of nature. Egypt would have known locusts before; they were a dread of every farming land. But the LORD governs the wind that brings them, times their arrival to the hour, and directs them to settle over the whole territory of Egypt as no swarm ever had. What men might call a natural disaster, the Bible calls the deliberate act of God, ruling even the wind and the insects to accomplish His purpose.
And the ruin is total. The locusts cover the face of the land until the ground itself looks black, and they eat every plant and every piece of fruit that the hail had spared, until nothing green is left on any tree or plant in all of Egypt. Remember that the hail had already flattened much of the harvest; now the locusts strip whatever survived, down to the last leaf. A land that had been the granary of the ancient world, so rich it fed the nations in years of famine, is stripped bare. The gods of Egypt, the great powers she trusted for her bread, cannot keep a single green shoot on a single branch when the LORD sends His locusts. This is God unmaking the pride of a nation blade by blade, and it is exactly the kind of thing He meant for the children to hear.
Exodus 10:16-20 (BSB)
¹⁶ Pharaoh quickly summoned Moses and Aaron and said, “I have sinned against the LORD your God and against you. ¹⁷ Now please forgive my sin once more and appeal to the LORD your God, that He may remove this death from me.” ¹⁸ So Moses left Pharaoh’s presence and appealed to the LORD. ¹⁹ And the LORD changed the wind to a very strong west wind that carried off the locusts and blew them into the Red Sea. Not a single locust remained anywhere in Egypt. ²⁰ But the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he would not let the Israelites go.
Under the weight of this plague Pharaoh calls quickly for Moses, and his words sound almost like true repentance: I have sinned against the LORD your God and against you, forgive my sin once more, take away this death from me. If you did not know the man, you might think his heart had broken at last. But look carefully at what he asks. He does not ask to know the LORD or to be changed by Him; he asks only that the plague be lifted, that this death be removed from him. His sorrow is not sorrow for the sin but sorrow for the suffering, and there is a great difference between the two. Many a person has said the words I have sinned who wanted nothing but relief, and Pharaoh is the sad pattern of them all.
Yet see the mercy of God even here. Moses goes out and appeals to the LORD, and the LORD sends a strong west wind that lifts every locust and drives it into the Red Sea, until not one remains anywhere in Egypt. The same God who governed the east wind that brought them governs the west wind that takes them away, and He does it thoroughly, down to the last insect, in answer to His servant’s prayer. But then comes the line we have learned to dread through this whole account: the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he would not let the Israelites go. Relief came, and with relief the hardening returned, deeper than before. A man who repents only to escape the pain, and hardens again the moment the pain is gone, has not repented at all. He has only shown, one more time, that his trouble was never the plague but the pride that would not bow.
Exodus 10:21-23 (BSB)
²¹ Then the LORD said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand toward heaven, so that darkness may spread over the land of Egypt—a palpable darkness.” ²² So Moses stretched out his hand toward heaven, and total darkness covered all the land of Egypt for three days. ²³ No one could see anyone else, and for three days no one left his place. Yet all the Israelites had light in their dwellings.
Now the ninth plague falls, and it is unlike any before it. At the word of the LORD, Moses stretches his hand toward heaven, and a darkness spreads over Egypt that the Bible calls a darkness that can be felt, a thick and heavy blackness that is more than the mere absence of light. For three days it lies over the whole land, so deep that no one can see his neighbor, so oppressive that no one can even rise and leave his place. Picture a great and busy nation brought to a dead standstill, every fire quenched by the gloom, every household frozen in a blindness they cannot escape. And understand that this was a sign aimed at the highest god Egypt had, for above all their idols they worshiped the sun, and the LORD simply reaches up and puts out the sun over the whole country for three days, as easily as a man snuffs a candle. The greatest god of Egypt is shown to be no god at all.
choshek, pronounced KHOH-shek. Strong's H2822, darkness. Choshek carries you all the way back to the beginning of the Bible, where darkness lay upon the face of the deep before God said, let there be light. That is the very first thing the word makes you remember: that light is God’s to give and darkness is what remains where He withholds it. Here in Egypt the LORD sends this darkness as a weapon, a darkness so dense the text says it could be felt, and He lays it over the land that worshiped the sun, showing that the very light of day is His to command. Yet in the same breath the story tells us that Israel had light in their dwellings, so that the one word marks the great divide of the whole chapter, darkness for those who set themselves against God, light for those who are His. This is why it means so much when the Lord Jesus stands up centuries later and says, I am the light of the world, and whoever follows Me will never walk in the darkness. The God who put out the sun over Egypt and kept the lamps burning in the homes of His people is the same God who came into the world as its light, and He gives that light still to everyone who follows Him.But do not miss the little sentence at the end, for it is the brightest line in the chapter: yet all the Israelites had light in their dwellings. While Egypt sat blind and paralyzed in a darkness they could touch, the homes of God’s people were full of light. The same three days that were terror in one house were ordinary daylight in another, and the difference was not geography but grace, the LORD once more drawing a plain line between His people and the world. This is the same tender truth we saw when He set apart the land of Goshen from the flies, and it shines even brighter here against the black backdrop of Egypt. Where the LORD is, there is light, and He gives that light to His own even when the whole world around them is swallowed in darkness.
Exodus 10:24-26 (BSB)
²⁴ Then Pharaoh summoned Moses and said, “Go, worship the LORD. Even your little ones may go with you; only your flocks and herds must stay behind.” ²⁵ But Moses replied, “You must also provide us with sacrifices and burnt offerings to present to the LORD our God. ²⁶ Even our livestock must go with us; not a hoof will be left behind, for we will need some of them to worship the LORD our God, and we will not know how we are to worship the LORD until we arrive.”
Out of the darkness Pharaoh calls again, and he offers his third bargain, closer to yielding than ever but still holding something back. Go, worship the LORD, he says, and this time even take your little ones, only your flocks and herds must stay behind. He has given up the hostages he tried to keep before; now he reaches instead for the livestock, the wealth of the people, as if to say, go and worship, but leave me something to draw you home again. It is the last grip of a man who will loosen every finger but one, and by that one finger he still means to hold on.
But Moses will not yield even the flocks, and his reason cuts to the heart of what worship is. We need the animals for the sacrifices and burnt offerings, he says, and not a hoof will be left behind, for we do not even yet know what the LORD will require of us until we arrive. Hear the beauty of that answer. Moses will keep back nothing from God, not one hoof, because he does not know how much the worship of the LORD may cost, and he will not presume to decide in advance how little he can give. True worship holds nothing in reserve. It brings the whole to God and leaves the measure of the offering to God Himself. Pharaoh wanted to keep back a portion; Moses would surrender all, for a heart set on worshiping the LORD does not bargain over what it will bring.
Exodus 10:27-29 (BSB)
²⁷ But the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he was unwilling to let them go. ²⁸ “Depart from me!” Pharaoh said to Moses. “Make sure you never see my face again, for on the day you see my face, you will die.” ²⁹ “As you say,” Moses replied, “I will never see your face again.”
And so the chapter ends as it has ended before, with the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart, but this time it comes to a breaking point. The LORD hardened his heart and he would not let them go, and now the king’s resistance boils over into open threat. Depart from me, he says to Moses, never see my face again, for on the day you see my face you will die. The man who once summoned Moses in a panic to pray for him now drives him out with a promise of death. This is where the long refusal has led, from bargaining to fury, from I have sinned to I will kill you. A heart that keeps hardening does not stand still; it grows worse, until it turns and threatens the very messenger of God.
But look at Moses in that final moment, how calm and how certain he stands. As you say, he answers, I will never see your face again. There is not a tremor of fear in it. He does not plead or argue; he simply agrees, because he knows something Pharaoh does not. He knows that the next word belongs to God, that one plague remains, and that after it Pharaoh will beg Israel to leave rather than command them to stay. Moses can walk out under a death threat without flinching because he stands on the promise of the LORD, and the promise has never once failed him. Pharaoh thinks he is dismissing Moses; in truth the contest is nearly over, and it will end not with a king’s threat but with a Father’s people carried out into freedom, with a story to tell their children forever.
Study notes Going deeper
The great word of this chapter, spoken before the first locust ever came, is that the mighty acts of God were meant to be told, from parent to child and from child to child, so that every generation would know the LORD. That is not a command left behind in Egypt. It became the settled charge of God’s people, sung out plainly in the psalm of Asaph.
"We will not hide them from their children but will declare to the next generation the praises of the LORD and His might and the wonders He has performed." Psalm 78:4 (BSB)
And the psalm goes on to say why the telling matters so much, that the children yet to be born might set their hope in God and never forget His works.
"that the coming generation would know them—even children yet to be born—to arise and tell their own children that they should put their confidence in God, not forgetting His works, but keeping His commandments." Psalm 78:6-7 (BSB)
This is the very thing the LORD was after in Exodus 10. The plagues were not only judgments on a proud king; they were wonders performed so they could be recounted, generation after generation, until a child who had never seen Egypt would put his whole confidence in the God who brought his fathers out. And the darkness that fell on Egypt, with the light that shone in the homes of Israel, tells the children the deepest part of the story, that the LORD is Himself the light of His people, a light no darkness can put out.
"Once again, Jesus spoke to the people and said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows Me will never walk in the darkness, but will have the light of life.”" John 8:12 (BSB)
So gather it all into one truth and carry it home. The God who governed the wind and the locusts and the very light of day, who put out the sun over Egypt and kept the lamps burning in the houses of His people, did it all so that it might be told, that the children and the children’s children would know that He is the LORD. Do not let the telling die in your generation. Recount His mighty acts, from the locusts and the darkness of Egypt to the empty tomb of the Lord Jesus, so that those who come after you will know the God who is Himself the light, and will follow Him, and never walk in the dark.