A Shot Across The Bow | Exodus 7:1-13

Intro

Bertrand Russell, a famous mathematician and atheist, was once asked what he would say to God if he died and found himself … standing before God. How would he account for his unbelief? What would he say to the God he had rejected and denied?

Russell said he would ask God, “Sir, why did you take such pains to hide yourself?”

The so-called “hiddenness of God” is one of the top reasons atheists and agnostics give for their unbelief. Their unbelief is not their fault. It’s not due to their sin and rebellion against God. Their unbelief is God’s fault. God has hidden himself. God has not spoken clearly. He has not acted discernibly.

This objection is not new or unique to the modern era. When Moses first confronted Pharaoh in Exodus 5, Pharaoh’s response was defiant: “But Pharaoh said, ‘Who is the LORD, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the LORD, and moreover, I will not let Israel go’” (Exodus 5:2). Pharaoh was arrogant and uninterested in knowing or obeying God.

How was Moses supposed to carry out his assignment from God in the face of such hostility? Personally, how can you persevere in faith when the world around you actively challenges and denies God? In a world that questions, undermines, and outright rejects God’s Word and God’s authority, how can you keep your confidence in God?

Exodus 7:1–13

And the Lord said to Moses, “See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron shall be your prophet. You shall speak all that I command you, and your brother Aaron shall tell Pharaoh to let the people of Israel go out of his land. But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and though I multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, Pharaoh will not listen to you. Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and bring my hosts, my people the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great acts of judgment. The Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring out the people of Israel from among them.” Moses and Aaron did so; they did just as the Lord commanded them. Now Moses was eighty years old, and Aaron eighty-three years old, when they spoke to Pharaoh. Then the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “When Pharaoh says to you, ‘Prove yourselves by working a miracle,’ then you shall say to Aaron, ‘Take your staff and cast it down before Pharaoh, that it may become a serpent.’ ” So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did just as the Lord commanded. Aaron cast down his staff before Pharaoh and his servants, and it became a serpent. Then Pharaoh summoned the wise men and the sorcerers, and they, the magicians of Egypt, also did the same by their secret arts. For each man cast down his staff, and they became serpents. But Aaron’s staff swallowed up their staffs. Still Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he would not listen to them, as the Lord had said.

The Elephant in the Room

Perhaps we should first address the elephant in the room—or the serpent, if you like.

Do we really believe this happened? Do we believe that Aaron’s staff turned into a serpent and swallowed the staffs of the Egyptian magicians, which had also turned into serpents?

Yes, we do. 

People are often surprised to learn that Christians believe the Bible, but we do. We believe the Bible is the Word of God and that it is true and without error.

The modern reader rejects stories like this as myths or fairy tales because they are unscientific. But if the skeptic wants to object that no one can turn a staff into a serpent, I find that rather arrogant. Just because you don’t know how to turn a staff into a serpent doesn’t mean no one does. The text does say that these Egyptians sorcerers did this “by their secret arts” (v. 11). I’m not surprised the skeptic doesn’t know such arts.

And if the skeptic says, “Don’t be ridiculous! Snakes can’t come from wooden sticks,” I would say, “You first, don’t be ridiculous.” The atheistic materialist shouldn’t find anything here more difficult to believe than what he already believes. He already believes snakes exist. And he believes those snakes evolved from inorganic matter over billions of years. The only difference here is the speed of the change. Why is that so hard to believe?

And for Christians who believe that this world exists by God’s Word—that everything exists by God’s command and not by random chance—there is nothing difficult here. God did start this section by saying, “I [will] multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt” (v. 3). Signs and wonders are … wonderful and, humanly speaking, inexplicable.

They are also signs. That is, they signify or point to something. The modern audience reads stories like this and fixates on finding the “scientific explanation” while completely missing what the sign points to. And what the sign points to is what we’re interested in.

Exodus Recap

Perhaps we should also briefly recap Exodus thus far, since we’ve been away for a while. In Exodus 1 we saw Israel suffering horrendous affliction in Egypt. In Exodus 2, a deliverer was born and providentially protected, only to be rejected and exiled when he had grown up. In Exodus 3 and 4, God revealed himself to Moses at the burning bush and promised to deliver his people from slavery in Egypt.

In Exodus 5, Moses first appeared before Pharaoh with God’s demand: “Let my people go” (5:1). Pharaoh’s response in 5:2 is crucial to remember.

“But Pharaoh said, ‘Who is the LORD, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the LORD, and moreover, I will not let Israel go.’” —Exodus 5:2

Pharaoh made life miserable for the Hebrew slaves by requiring bricks without straw. This led to a crisis of faith, and Exodus 5 ends with Moses and the Hebrews questioning God.

In Exodus 6, God strengthened Moses’ faith by simply repeating his name and his promises.

“I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the LORD your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.” —Exodus 6:7

But Exodus 6 ended with the people refusing to listen and with Moses repeating the same question and objection he had used before:

“But Moses said to the LORD, ‘Behold, I am of uncircumcised lips. How will Pharaoh listen to me?’” —Exodus 6:30

And that brings us to Exodus 7:1–13. This passage is the transition between Moses’ final objection at the end of chapter 6 and the beginning of what we traditionally call the Ten Plagues (Exodus 7–12). This episode is a sort of prelude, a precursor to the ten plagues. Unlike the other plagues, this is the only one where there is no harm or destruction to people or animals or property.It’s also the only time Pharaoh requests a sign; later he will beg Moses to remove signs.

Think of this scene as “a shot across the bow.” It’s a warning shot. And a warning shot may be harmless, but it’s not pointless. It is a display of real force that indicates both the ability and the intent to use that force to achieve compliance.

That’s what God signals to Pharaoh through Moses here. In the face of Israel’s unbelief, Moses’ uncertainty, and Pharaoh’s defiance, God speaks and God acts. God is the main character in Exodus, and he reveals himself to the world by his words and deeds. In vv. 1–6, God makes clear to Moses who will be doing the work:

• I have made you like God to Pharaoh

• You shall speak all that I command you

• I will harden Pharaoh’s heart

• I [will] multiply my signs and wonders

• I will lay my hand on Egypt

• I will bring my hosts, my people … out of the land of Egypt

• The Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD, when I stretch out my hand.

Contrary to what skeptics like Bertrand Russell claim about the hiddenness of God, God has in fact acted openly in the world. And God has acted in history in order to secure your unyielding confidence in God despite the unyielding hostility of those who reject God.

“God has acted in history in order to secure your unyielding confidence in God despite the unyielding hostility of those who reject God.”

God acts—God asserts himself in this world. Specifically we see in Exodus 7:1–13 that 1) God acts to reveal himself to the world, 2) God acts to uphold his Word, 3) God acts to judge the wicked, and 4) God acts to deliver his people.

God Acts to Reveal Himself to the World

That is the theme of Exodus and God’s stated purpose in his own words: “The Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring out the people of Israel from among them” (Exodus 7:5).

Everything God says and does is intended to make known his name, his glory, his character and reputation, his nature and ways. Elsewhere God says Israel will know he is the LORD. Here God says Egypt will know he is the LORD.

In Exodus 5:2, Pharaoh says he does not know the LORD, so he will not act. Here, God says he will act so that Pharaoh and all of Egypt will know that he is the LORD.

By these specific works in Exodus, God made a name for himself for ages and generations. Nearly one thousand years later, the exiles returning from Babylon prayed, “You saw the affliction of our fathers in Egypt and heard their cry at the Red Sea, and performed signs and wonders against Pharaoh …. And you made a name for yourself, as it is to this day” (Nehemiah 9:9–10). Here we are 3,500 years later, still recounting these glorious deeds. God will be known and worshiped by people from every tribe and tongue, and he has spoken and acted in history to make his name glorious.

And when God reveals himself, he exercises his authority over the world he made. God doesn’t merely reveal random factoids. He asserts himself and lays authoritative claims on people. He says to Moses in v. 2, “You shall speak all that I command you.” His message implicates Pharaoh: “Tell Pharaoh to let the people of Israel go” (v. 2). That is not a suggestion.

God’s Word gets things done in the world: “So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did just as the Lord commanded” (v. 10). They went and did—events transpired, work happened in the world because God spoke.

The God of Moses and Israel and the Exodus is the same God who still speaks today. He speaks through Scripture, which reveals Jesus, his Son. His Word is living and active; it is true and authoritative. That means that whatever you do to the Bible you do to God. Do you ignore it? Reject it? Stand in judgment and criticism over it? Or do you receive it, believe it, accept it, apply it?

God has revealed himself so that you may know him as the LORD.

God Acts to Uphold His Word

God informed Moses in verse 3 that he intended to harden Pharaoh’s heart. In verse 4, he prepared Moses: “Pharaoh will not listen to you.” He even predicted that Pharaoh would demand a sign (v. 9): “When Pharaoh says to you, ‘Prove yourselves by working a miracle ….’”

In other words, God calls his own shots.

One of the greatest legends in sports is the story of Babe Ruth’s called shot. It was Game 3 of the 1932 World Series between the New York Yankees and the Chicago Cubs. The score was tied 4-4 in the fifth inning and Babe Ruth came to plate. After taking two strikes from pitcher Charlie Root, Ruth pointed. Some say he was pointing at the Cubs dugout. Some say he was pointing at the hostile fans at Wrigley Field. But legend says he pointed at the flagpole in center field and called his shot. The very next pitch was a curveball that the Sultan of Swat sent to the deepest part of center field, right by the flagpole.

Whether or not Ruth actually called his shot is debated to this day. But that’s exactly what God does in Exodus 7 and throughout Scripture. God says what he’s going to do, and then he does it. Exactly.

And every word from God proves true. God backed up Moses, his messenger, by giving him a sign for Pharaoh. Verse 13 says, “Still Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he would not listen to them, as the Lord had said” (emphasis added).

By revealing the future before it happened, God prepared Moses to persevere through adversity. Without that last phrase, Pharaoh’s unrelenting rebellion could provoke despair. It could’ve been tempting to think God’s plan wasn’t working. But those words change everything: “As the Lord had said.” Fear not! History is unfolding according to God’s sovereign plan, including Pharaoh’s stubborn unbelief and persistent cruelty.

Doesn’t that comfort your soul to know that the greatest rebellion against God carried out by the most powerful people on earth can never thwart God’s plans but only accomplish them?

God Acts to Judge the Wicked

In verses 4 and 5, God says, “Pharaoh will not listen to you. Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and bring my hosts, my people the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great acts of judgment. The Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD, when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring out the people of Israel from among them.”

God describes the impending events as “great acts of judgment.” Recounting Israel’s exodus from Egypt, Numbers 33:4 also highlights the events as divine judgment: “On their gods also the LORD executed judgments.”

God says he is going to lay his hand on Egypt (v. 4) and stretch out his hand against Egypt (v. 5). One commentator remarks, “One does not want to be on the receiving end whenever God stretches out his hand, especially when the phrase is followed by a preposition like … ‘against [or] toward’!”

Even the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart is an act of judgment. Pharaoh is not an innocent bystander or a neutral observer. He doesn’t ask, “Who is the LORD?” humbly or inquisitively, but defiantly. When he says, “Prove yourselves,” he is not open-minded and willing to be convinced.

Remember, this precursor to the plagues is a warning shot. It’s brief (and relatively tame), but it foreshadows the catastrophic finale at the Red Sea. Aaron’s staff swallowing up the staffs of the Egyptians is just the warning shot. When all is said and done, Pharaoh and his army will be swallowed by the Red Sea: “You stretched out your right hand; the earth swallowed them” (Exodus 15:12).

As the righteous judge of all the earth, God executes judgment against the wicked. That is, God holds the world accountable to his moral law. As “modern” people, we tend to think that whatever happens on earth is simply the result of the laws of biology or the laws of physics or man’s free will. We tend not to see any connection between history and the moral law of God. Even among those who believe in God’s judgment, many think of judgment as something that happens only on the Last Day, after history. But that’s not how the Bible talks about human history.

The Bible reveals God as the righteous judge who presides in history over the peoples of this world. “But the LORD sits enthroned forever; he has established his throne for justice, and he judges the world with righteousness; he judges the peoples with uprightness” (Psalm 9:7–8). And Isaiah prays, “When your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness” (Isaiah 26:9).

How does God execute justice in the world? Ezekiel 14:21 mentions a few ways: “... I send upon Jerusalem my four disastrous acts of judgment, sword, famine, wild beasts, and pestilence, to cut off from it man and beast!”

The inability to recognize God’s righteous judgments in history and on earth is due to biblical illiteracy and ignorance and not to God’s lack of activity.

According to Exodus 7, God’s jurisdiction extends to all nations on earth. Sometimes people talk about God’s moral law as though it only applies to “his people,” to those who believe his Word and acknowledge him as Lord. According to that view, if you’re not a Christian, God’s Word has no authority over you. God’s moral law governing sexuality, for example, only applies to those who acknowledge God and believe the Bible is true. Everyone else is off the hook. It’s a lot like Pharaoh’s attitude really: “Who is the LORD? I don’t know him and I won’t do what he says” (cf. Ex. 5:2).

But here, God warns that he is about to call Pharaoh and the Egyptians to account. All people and nations on earth answer to him. Pharaoh is not free to ignore God’s demands or declare independence from God.

And if this was true in Exodus 7 when God delivered his word to ancient Egypt through Moses, how much more true is it today, when God has made himself known to the world through the gospel of his Son? The author of Hebrews helps us make the connection to our own lives: “Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?” (Hebrews 2:1–3).

The gospel of Jesus offers good news to the world, but rejecting that gospel brings wrath.

God Acts to Deliver His People

The events of Exodus are not only “great acts of judgment” against Egypt; they are simultaneously deeds of deliverance toward Israel.

“Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and bring my hosts [i.e., “armies” or “troops”], my people the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great acts of judgment. The Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD, when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring out the people of Israel from among them” (Exodus 7:4–5).

Deliverance was always the promise. At the burning bush God told Moses, “I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians” (Exodus 3:7–8). And when the Israelites grumbled against Moses because Pharaoh forced them to make bricks without straw, God comforted them with this promise: “I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment” (Exodus 6:6).

The good news for Israel was that deliverance was never dependent on Pharaoh’s compliance. God promised that he would personally act to bring out his people.

Even the fact that God used Moses and Aaron when they were octogenarians further underscores that deliverance was an act of God and not man.

And did you catch that God referred to powerless, oppressed, and enslaved people as “my armies”? That, too, points to God’s redemptive work. God does not merely save them out of slavery; he saves them into a new life. God took slaves and turned them into armies marching out of Egypt, enjoying the spoils of victory from a battle they did not fight. 

God’s acts of judgment and God’s acts of deliverance are not two separate or opposite actions. They are one and the same. When God acts in judgment against Egypt, he acts in deliverance for Israel.

Deuteronomy 4:34 describes these events this way: “Or has any god ever attempted to go and take a nation for himself from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders, and by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and by great deeds of terror, all of which the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?” (Deuteronomy 4:34). When God fought against Egypt, he fought for his people

Likewise, at the cross we see God’s greatest act of judgment and God’s greatest act of deliverance in one. At the cross God judged his sinless Son as guilty in order that he might deliver sinners from the penalty and power of sin forever. The cross is both judgment and deliverance at once. There God crushed his Son in righteous judgment against sin and death in order to deliver you forever from sin and death.

And it was at the cross where God acted to reveal himself most fully to the world, and at the cross where he acted to uphold and fulfill his great promises of redemption.

Conclusion

Has God hidden himself? Not at all. He has spoken and acted to make himself known. He has revealed himself in all his words and his works, and ultimately in his Son.

But God’s Word always cuts both ways. Some are softened by his Word and some are hardened by it. But no one can say, like Bertrand Russell, that God has failed to make himself known. Some see God as good and glorious and satisfying, while others hate him.

Today, if you know and love the LORD, rejoice in his grace toward you. It’s not that you are more deserving or more attentive or more moral than others. It’s that God has opened your eyes by his grace to behold his works as wonderful.

And if you have not yet heeded his warnings and turned from your rebellion, but you are convicted of your sin and guilt and you hear God’s offer of forgiveness and life in Jesus, then turn to him. Confess your sins and rely completely on Jesus Christ. Believe his promises. Set all your hope for satisfaction and security in him. He will deliver you from slavery to sin.  He will rescue you from God’s holy wrath against your sin.