What was the meaning and purpose of the ten plagues of Egypt?

The plagues were signs as well as judgments — they were sent to prove who Jehovah was, in a land which once knew sufficient of God to restrain it from idolatry, but which "did not like to retain God in" its "knowledge," and which consequently had sunk into the grossest idolatry; and very particularly were they sent to teach Israel that Jehovah alone is God.

The process of the hardening of Pharaoh's heart progresses with these judgments till God hardened him completely. After the first plague his heart was hardened (or firm) and deliberately he set himself to do this. Note this process in chapters 8:15; 8:19; 8:31; and 9:7. When this present age closes with the great tribulation and the vials of God's wrath are poured out upon an unbelieving world, the hearts of the earthdwellers and Christ rejectors will be hardened and thus ripe for the day of wrath. The book of Revelation acquaints us with this solemn fact.

"The plagues of Egypt are founded on the natural features which Egypt presents, so that they are unprecedented and extraordinary, not so much in themselves, as on account of their power and extent, and their rapid succession when Moses simply gives the command. As they are, consequently, both natural and supernatural, they afford both to faith and to unbelief the freedom to choose (in Pharaoh, unbelief prevailed); they are, besides, adapted to convince the Egyptians that Jehovah is not merely the national God of the Israelites, but a God above all gods, who holds in his hand all the powers of nature likewise, which Egypt was accustomed to deify" (J.H. Kurtz).

The character of the plagues displays the wisdom of God, as specially suited to bring about the humiliation of Egypt and its king. It was not merely an infliction on the land, with its consequent pain and anguish to the people, but it was a solemn contest between Jehovah, the true God, and the false gods of Egypt. It was upon these false gods which the Egyptians worshipped that the judgment of God was directed, staining their vaunted glory, and making them an object of loathing and detestation.

The ten plagues follow (Ex. 7-11), on which one or two general remarks may be made. They were particularly suited in the wisdom of God to humble Egypt. It was not only an infliction on the land; it was not only a deep pain and anguish to the natives, and this with increasing intensity; but it was a solemn contest between Jehovah and the gods of Egypt. The plagues were calculated to smite them most acutely in what constituted their religion. For instance, take the Nile: we know the boastfulness of Egypt in that river which they supposed to be the great earthly emblem of God. On the other hand it is well known what all these ancient nations thought of the light of the sun, and how preternatural darkness (with light for Israel in Goshen) must have struck them. Again, bodily cleanliness was no small part of heathenism which could do nothing for the soul: more particularly was it so with Egyptian heathenism. It is plain that the infliction of lice or gnats, if either be the meaning of the term — at any rate a loathsome insect which made life almost intolerable to man and beast — was particularly humiliating to Egypt. Thus a few of those points are merely touched without entering into details; for it is evident that this would keep us longer than is suitable in what I propose for the present. In these repeated strokes we find then God dealing with the gods as well as with the men and habits of Egypt. The controversy was with their opposition to the true God, as well as with their oppression of His people.

How solemn therefore the testimony of the Word of God that these plagues which swept through the land of Egypt in all their devastating power were demonstrative of the judicial action of God, revealing Himself as the God who "doeth according to His will in the army of the heavens, and among the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay His hand, or say unto Him, What doest Thou?" And to the proud Pharaoh who in the haughtiness of his spirit had said, "Who is Jehovah, to whose voice I am to hearken to let Israel go? I know not Jehovah neither will I let Israel go" (Ex. 5:2). God revealed to him his own nothingness as one of the inhabitants of the earth who are reputed as nothing before Him. The Psalmist in recounting the history of God's dealing with His earthly people mentions that "In the sight of their fathers had He done wonders in the land of Egypt, the field of Zoan" (Ps. 78:12); and again in Ps. 105:26-27, "He sent Moses His servant, and Aaron whom He had chosen; They set His signs among them, and miracles in the land of Ham." God said to Pharaoh, "I will at this time send all My plagues to thy heart," but to Moses He says, "I will … multiply My signs and My wonders in the land of Egypt."

In relation to Egypt, God's dealings were plagues and each was the manifestation of the wrath and power of God by which His Name was made known throughout all the earth and by which Pharaoh, despite his persistent and stubborn though futile resistance, was overthrown. His spirit, however, still remaining unchanged. But to the people of God these "great judgments" were signs and wonders, for it was by these that God would bring His people from out of the adversary's power; out of the house of bondmen. And in that wonderful song of victory, when the children of Israel saw their enemies dead upon the sea shore, "And saw the great work which Jehovah did upon the Egyptians," Moses and the children of Israel celebrated the glorious achievements of their God with joy and great exultation saying, "Sing unto Jehovah for He hath triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider hath He thrown into the Sea; My strength and song is Jah, and He is become my salvation, This is my God, and I will glorify Him …: Thy right hand Jehovah is become glorious in power; Thy right hand Jehovah hath dashed in pieces the enemy."

The other miracles, wrought by him in Egypt, were to show to Pharaoh the mighty power of God, who said, I will "multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt . . . . and the Egyptians shall know that I am Jehovah, when I stretch forth mine hand upon Egypt." Ex. 7:3-5. The ten plagues followed, which were miracles or signs of the power of God — signs not only to the Egyptians, but also to the Israelites, as is shown by the reference to them afterwards. Num. 14:22; Judges 6:13.

These were wrought by God to show to Pharaoh and to the Egyptians His great power, and that all the elements of creation were at His disposal. Ex. 7 — Ex. 12.

Once again the Lord commanded Moses to repeat the same message to Pharaoh (v. 13), adding that He will continue to send plagues on Pharaoh, on his servants and on his people, until at last Pharaoh would be cut off from the earth (vv. 13-15). More than this, Pharaoh is told that God Himself had raised Pharaoh up for the purpose of displaying in Pharaoh the superior power of God, and that through all this history God's name would be declared through the entire earth (v. 16). For matters like this would certainly be reported worldwide.

The manner in which Moses and Aaron, as sent of God, comport themselves in the presence of Pharaoh, and the form in which the request for the release of God's people from bondage is presented to him, is yet another instance of the perfection of God's ways which are ever sovereign in expression and ever superior to all the circumstances in which they operate. Here we find, as in all things, God acting in perfect consistency with all that He is in Himself, every divine attribute in their individual identities displayed in harmonious completeness as expressive of the nature and character of God. How truly remarkable therefore, the spirit of grace and long-suffering with which He requests the liberation of His people. At once, the heart of the proud Pharaoh is exposed in its inveterate hatred and opposition to God and His people, in those defiant and insolent words, "Who is Jehovah to whose voice I am to hearken to let Israel go? I do not know Jehovah, neither will I let Israel go." We have now come to the solemn moment where we see the inexorable enforcement of the divine assertion in Rom. 9:17, "For this very thing I have raised thee up from amongst men, that I might thus show in thee My power, and so that My name should be declared in all the earth." And so God displays His all-mighty power in those successive judgments which fall with increasing severity upon the land and people of Egypt. His grace and forbearance having been spurned, those inflexible judgments will assuredly bring the knowledge of who He is to Pharaoh, according as He says in Ex. 9:13-14, "Thus saith Jehovah the God of the Hebrews, Let my people go that they may serve me. For I will at this time send all my plagues to thy heart, and on thy bondmen and on thy people, that thou mayest know that there is none like me in all the earth."

In Egyptian mythology different powers of nature were personified as deities. Hence they had "gods many." Now it was to be clearly demonstrated that there was one true God who had power over water, earth, men's persons, and the air. One God, not many gods, one Almighty Being, who could act as He would, declaring too beforehand what He would do, though not always warning Pharaoh of the stroke next to be dealt him. So with the third plague as with the sixth and with the ninth: Moses, told by God what it was that would take place, had no commission to communicate the knowledge of it to the obdurate king. Aaron, whose rod had been turned into a serpent, was again to act. He had stretched it forth, and the waters had become blood. He had a second time done the same, and the frogs appeared. He now smote the ground with that same rod, and the dust of the ground throughout all the land became teeming with lice. Inert matter was alive; a living, moving mass appeared where dust had been before. Lice, or, as some would translate it, fleas (see R. Version, margin) innumerable suddenly appeared. Lice were upon man and beast (8:17). None save Moses and Aaron were exempt. The august person of the monarch was as liable to this infliction as that of the meanest, the poorest of his subjects. The frogs had respected no one. The lice, we may suppose, were equally indifferent. Would any one attempt to crush under his feet the living mass around him? These little creatures in numbers would crawl up over his person. What an infliction! And whether we think it was lice or fleas that were produced, the plague was a plague indeed. To be covered with lice must have been humiliating for a noble or for the monarch. To have myriads of fleas crawling about and over the person must have been maddening in the extreme. Man and beast suffered alike.