God vs. Errbody: Counterfeit Power in Egypt, Part One | S2E13

In this episode of the Dear God Lettuce Pray podcast, hosted by Santana, we walk into ancient Egypt during the confrontation between Moses, Aaron, Pharaoh, and Pharaoh's magicians. This was a world where government, religion, magic, agriculture, medicine, priestly purity, sacred animals, the Nile, the sun and Pharaoh's throne were all connected. So when God dropped the diss track (aka when God began sending the plagues), He was confronting more than one stubborn ruler. He was exposing an entire system of false power.

Exodus says Pharaoh's magicians could imitate some of the early signs. They copies the staff-serpent sign, the Nile turning to blood, and the frogs. Then Aaron struck the dust, the dust became gnats/lice, and Egypt's spiritual experts reached for their secret arts one more time. Exodus says, "but they could not".

This episode unpacks Counterfeit Power in Egypt through biblical, historical, and cultural context of the Exodus plagues, and why Exodus 12:12 says God executed judgment on the gods of Egypt.

Scriptures Referenced

Exodus 5:2-12:12, Genesis 2:7, and 2 Timothy 3:8-9

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Transcript

Santana 0:14

Egypt had gods for everything. A god tied to the Nile, a god tied to fertility, gods connected to the sun, sacred animals, priests, magicians, secret arts, you name it. And a Pharaoh sitting on a throne with the kind of power that made people believe nobody could touch him. Then the god of Israel stepped into Egypt's world and the confrontation moved through everything Egypt trusted. The now turned into blood. The symbols of fertility became unbearable. The dust rose up with tiny living judgment. Bodies broke out in bowls while livestock died. Craps were crushed and locusts stripped the land. Darkness covered a nation that worshipped the sun. Pharaoh's own house could not escape. Exodus tells us exactly what was happening. On all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments. I am the Lord. Exodus 12.12. You see, that's the frame for the whole story. God came for Egypt's false gods like a diss track and every line landed in creation. The Nile heard it, the dust heard it, the animals in the sky heard it, the sun heard it, Pharaoh's house heard it. And in the middle of all this, Pharaoh's magicians tried to keep up. At first, they copied enough to look powerful. Then Aaron struck the dust, and dust became nets or lice, and Egypt's magicians reached for their secret arts one more time. Exodus gives us the sentence that ends the performance. But they could not. Pharaoh's gods got exposed, and the God of Israel made his name known in the land of Egypt. Hello and welcome everyone to another episode of the Dear God Let Us Pray podcast. I am your host, Santana, and I am so glad to be here with you on today. Okay, so I want to talk about a part of Exodus that I feel like we mention sometimes, but we really do not sit inside long enough to feel the weight of what is happening. Like most of us know the big picture of Moses and Pharaoh. Even people who do not grow up in the church usually know some version of the story. Moses goes to Pharaoh, Pharaoh refuses to let the Israelites go, the plagues begin hitting Egypt one by one. The water turns to blood, frogs show up everywhere. Darkness falls over the land, and then the final plague comes, and eventually Israel leaves Egypt. But there's this detail in the early part of the century that is so easy to just read past. Pharaoh has magicians, and at first they can actually copy some of what Moses and Aaron are doing. Aaron throws down his staff and it becomes a serpent. Pharaoh's magicians do something similar. The Nile turns to blood. Pharaoh's magicians do something similar. Frogs come up over the land. Again, Pharaoh's magicians do something similar. But then Aaron strikes the dust of the ground, and the dust becomes these tiny insects all over people and animals. Depending on your Bible translation, it may say nets, lice, or something close to that. This time, Pharaoh's magicians cannot copy it. Exodus 8 18 says, The magicians tried by their secret arts to produce nets, but they could not. That line is small, but it carries so much weight because it is the first place where Egypt's spiritual experts hit a wall in front of Pharaoh. Then the magicians say to Pharaoh, This is the finger of God. That is Exodus 819. I want us to slow down there because once you understand what is happening in that room and what Egypt believed about power, God's magic, purity, the land, the Nile, and Pharaoh's throne, this story gets so much deeper than a list of dramatic plagues. This is God stepping into Egypt's world and exposing the limits of everything Egypt trusted. The Nile, Pharaoh, the priests, magicians, the animals, the crops, the sun, the gods, the whole system. Today we are going to sit inside the story with more context. We're going to look at the biblical text, the historical world, and the cultural weight of the plagues and why these judgments were so targeted. Pharaoh asked a question back in Exodus 5 2 when he said, Who is the Lord that I should obey his voice? That question hangs over the whole plague story. Who is the Lord? By the time the plagues are done, oh Egypt has an answer. Because period. Now before we get to the plague that Pharaoh's magicians could not copy, we have to step into Egypt the way the world would have understood itself. When modern people hear the words like government, religion, medicine, agriculture, law and science, we usually separate those into different categories. We put government over here, religion over there, medicine somewhere else, and farming in another lane completely. Ancient Egypt did not move that way. In Egypt, religion and daily life were deeply woven together. Egyptian religion was tied to agriculture, medicine, law, astronomy, geography, art, and the way people understood order in the world. The gods were part of how Egypt explained nature, power, fertility, kingship, sickness, protection, death, and even survival. So when Moses and Aaron stand before Pharaoh, they are standing in the center of an entire worldview. Pharaoh's throne had religious meaning. The Nile carried religious meaning. The sun carried religious meaning. Certain animals carried sacred symbolism while priests guarded ritual life. Magicians represented secret knowledge and spiritual power. The land, the crops, the sky, the water, and the animals all had meaning inside Egypt's religious imagination. So when God confronts Pharaoh, he is confronting a man who sits at the top of a whole system that believes it has power, order, and control. And Israel is enslaved inside that system. So again, the Israelites were slaves inside of Egypt. They are living under oppression that has been normalized. Their labor has been used to strengthen the empire that is crushing them. Like their pain has become part of Egypt's structure. Their bondage is being protected by a throne that sees no reason to let them go. So when God sends Moses and Aaron, this is deliverance, but in that same breath, it is also exposure. Like God is going to expose Pharaoh and the Egypt's gods and the magicians. Like God is going to expose the limits of the land, the river, the animals, the sun, the crops, the priesthood, and the throne. Now I want to sit with Pharaoh's question for a second. In Exodus 5 2, Pharaoh says, Who is the Lord that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? Depending on how we read it, that can sound like Pharaoh is simply being dismissive. And yes, there is arrogance all through that question. Culturally, though, there is more happening. Pharaoh is basically asking why the throne of Egypt should obey the god of enslaved people. That is tension sitting underneath the whole story. In Pharaoh's eyes, Egypt looks powerful. Egypt has land, labor, wealth, temples, priests, gods, the Nile, all the things. Literally a court full of people who can perform signs through secret arts. Israel has been crushed under slavery, and Moses show up, speaking on behalf of a god Pharaoh does not honor. So Pharaoh looks at Moses and Aaron and says, Who is the Lord? The plagues answer him though, through literally through their created world. The Nile answers, the dust, the animals answer, the sky and the crops answer, the sun answers. Pharaoh's own house answers. The plagues become God's response to Pharaoh's arrogance. So when Aaron first throws down his staff and it becomes a serpent, Pharaoh does not immediately panic. He calls his people. Exodus 711 says, Pharaoh summoned the wise men, the sorcerers, and the magicians of Egypt, and they did the same by their secret arts. When we hear magicians, we may, you know, picture somebody doing tricks on a stage, which makes it easy to understand the well, I guess, well, I won't say easy. It makes it easy to misunderstand the seriousness of the scene. And that's because we think of magicians from, you know, a modern lens. That's why when we are reading the Bible and reading historical context, we have to put our mindset at the time of their lives, not, you know, the lives we're living now. So the Hebrew word for magicians, pronounced. I don't want to mess it up. I don't want to mess it up. Uh, but they were connected to Pharaoh's court, so ritual knowledge, sacred learning, and Egypt's religious power. They show up in other court settings where kings need spiritual insight or symbolic interpretation, including Pharaoh's dreams in Genesis and royal court scenes in Daniel. So the phrase secret arts is connected to hidden practices, enchantments, or magical arts. You know, uh, the Hebrew term often discussed here is pronounced, you know, Latin. The Bible tells us that they did some signs by secret arts while leaving the exact method unexplained. Exodus does not give us a full backstage explanation of whether they used occult power, illusion, ritual technique, trained manipulation, or some combination of those things. The story is more concerned with showing uh that they could imitate some signs for a little while, and then their limit became public. That is the moment in the passage. They begin the story standing confidently in Pharaoh's court, but later when the balls come, they can't even stand before. Now, here's the part that gets me. The magicians could copy some of the signs, yet their imitation did not help Egypt. When the Nile turns to blood, they do the same thing. Think about that for a second. Egypt already has a water crisis, the fish are dead, the river stinks, people cannot drink from it. The Nile, which was, you know, supposed to give life, has become a place of death. Pharaoh's magicians respond by showing they can also turn water into blood. That does not give anybody clean water, nor does it restore the river. And it most definitely does not undo the suffering, like it literally only adds another version of the problem. Then the frogs came, and I know frogs can sound almost funny when we say it, like you know, pretty quickly, but Exodus describes something disgusting and invasive. Like frogs are in houses and in bedrooms, frogs are on beds, in ovens. Y'all, frogs are in the kneading bowls. And let me just say this right now. I am mortified of frogs. When I say mortified, I'm I'm like, you could rob me with a frog. Y'all don't even understand. Just literally seeing a frog, I would start crying immediately. So I cannot even begin to imagine standing in the midst of this plague, and out of the blue, just freaking my my home is filled with frogs. Like, literally, imagine trying to sleep, cook, eat, walk, or even breathe normally. Well, frogs are everywhere. Then the pharaoh's magicians copied that too. Like they literally bring up more frogs. Again, that does not help Egypt. Nobody needed more frogs. These folks needed relief. So before the magicians ever fail, Exodus is already showing us something about counterfeit power. It can imitate signs, impress people, create confusion, and give Pharaoh enough reason to keep hardening himself, keep hardening his heart while still having no authority to cleanse, heal, free, or restore. But not only does he not have any authority to do these things, again, his heart posture is hardened, so he doesn't even have the desire to do these things. It performs in front of the crisis while Egypt keeps suffering inside the crisis. So let's go back to that first plague for a second, because the Nile is a perfect place for the plagues to begin. Like Egypt heavily depended on the Nile. The river watered the land, supported agriculture, provided fish, helped with transportation, and made life possible in a des, you know, in a desert region. The Nile shaped Egypt's survival and its religious imagination. It was associated with life, abundance, flooding, fertility, and stability. So when God turns the Nile into blood, this is a strike against Egypt's lifeline. A river that feeds them now stinks. The water that sustains them cannot be drunk. The fish die, and the source of life becomes a witness of judgment. And if Pharaoh is asking, who is the Lord? God begins with the river Egypt depends on every single day. That, my dear friends, that's a target. That is like a real deal diss track in the making. Alright, so then comes the frogs. Frogs were connected with fertility, birth, water, and abundance in Egyptian symbolism. The goddess Hecate is commonly associated with frog imagery and childbirth, which adds a sharp layer to the scene. What can symbolize fertility in life becomes overwhelming. The frogs leave the marshes and invade the house. They enter the bedrooms, the beds, the ovens, kneading bowls. Like that means the plages rest, food, household space, and ordinary life. The symbol of abundance becomes unbearable. And Pharaoh's magicians can copy it, which only makes the situation worse because Egypt does not need more of the thing tormenting them. Like Egypt needs deliverance from it. But is Pharaoh able to deliver? No. Are the magicians able to deliver? Absolutely not. So then we reach the third plague. God tells Moses to tell Aaron to stretch out his staff and strike the dust of the earth so it becomes gnats throughout the land of Egypt. Now, the Hebrew word here is canim. Some translations may say gnat, some say lice. Some scholars think it could refer to like tiny biting insects, like parasitic insects, mosquitoes, fleas, or something similar. The exact insect is debated, so we do not need to pretend the text gives more certainty than it does. We do know that they came from the dust and that they were on uh they were on the people and animals. So that detail matters. Now, the dust in this scenery. In Genesis 2 7, God forms man from the dust of the ground. Dust is tied to creation, to human life and the creator's authority. So when Aaron strikes the dust and the dust becomes living creatures, Exodus is showing the God of Israel exercising authority over the ground itself. The magicians can copy certain things, but they cannot command the dust. They cannot create life from the ground. They cannot make the land obey them, and this is the first time that they fail openly. Exodus eight eighteen says they tried by their secret arts to produce nets and they could not. No long explanation follows. The synod sits there with all its weight. They could not. That is the collapse of Egypt's spiritual confidence in a few words. If these insects were lice or something lice like, the cultural humiliation becomes even stronger. Ancient Egyptian priests were known for being serious about ritual cleanliness. Herodotus, a Greek historian writing later, says Egyptian priests shaved their bodies every other day so that no lice or anything foul would be on them while serving their gods. He also describes them wearing linen. You know, using a certain type of sandal and in washing repeatedly day and night. We need to use Herodotus, Herodotus, I'm sorry, carefully because he is not scripture. And he is writing later than the Exodus setting, but still his description helps us understand how strongly priestly cleanliness was associated with Egyptian religious life. So if the plague was lice or a parasite like insect, this would have been humiliating in a way we may miss as modern readers. Like this goes beyond being grossed out by bugs. Like this touches priestly purity, religious confidence, bodily control, and public authority. Priests, magicians, religious specialists, and ordinary Egyptians are covered with something foul, intrusive, and impossible to control. The people who claimed purity before Egypt's gods cannot keep themselves clean. The people who claimed secret knowledge cannot reproduce the sign. The people Pharaoh called, the people that Pharaoh called in to stand against Moses have to admit that they have reached the end of their power. How amazing is that?