#ScriptureReflection - Exodus 7:1-13 (7.27.19)

¹ The Lord answered Moses: See! I have made you a god to Pharaoh, and Aaron your brother will be your prophet. ² You will speak all that I command you. In turn, your brother Aaron will tell Pharaoh to let the Israelites go out of his land. ³ Yet I will make Pharaoh so headstrong that, despite the many signs and wonders that I work in the land of Egypt, ⁴ Pharaoh will not listen to you. Therefore I will lay my hand on Egypt and with mighty acts of judgment I will bring my armies, my people the Israelites, out of the land of Egypt. ⁵ All Egyptians will know that I am the Lord, when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring the Israelites out of their midst.

⁶ This, then, is what Moses and Aaron did. They did exactly as the Lord had commanded them. ⁷ Moses was eighty years old, and Aaron eighty-three, when they spoke to Pharaoh.

III. The Contest with Pharaoh

The Staff Turned into a Serpent. ⁸ The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron: ⁹ When Pharaoh demands of you, “Produce a sign or wonder,” you will say to Aaron: “Take your staff and throw it down before Pharaoh, and it will turn into a serpent.” ¹⁰ Then Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did just as the Lord had commanded. Aaron threw his staff down before Pharaoh and his servants, and it turned into a serpent. ¹¹ Pharaoh, in turn, summoned the wise men and the sorcerers, and they also, the magicians of Egypt, did the same thing by their magic arts. ¹² Each one threw down his staff, and they turned into serpents. But Aaron’s staff swallowed their staffs. ¹³ Pharaoh, however, hardened his heart and would not listen to them, just as the Lord had foretold.