Exodus 7:8-13: Cane Snake Part 1 of 3: If we can all do it, was it God then?

Exodus 7:8-13:

The Lord said to Moses and Aaron,  “When Pharaoh says to you, ‘Perform a miracle,’ then say to Aaron, ‘Take your staff and throw it down before Pharaoh,’ and it will become a snake.”

So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did just as the Lord commanded. Aaron threw his staff down in front of Pharaoh and his officials, and it became a snake. Pharaoh then summoned wise men and sorcerers, and the Egyptian magicians also did the same things by their secret arts: each one threw down his staff and it became a snake. But Aaron’s staff swallowed up their staffs. Yet Pharaoh’s heart became hard and he would not listen to them, just as the Lord had said.

There are a number of items and ideas that jump out at one as we read through this sign that God performs for Pharaoh through Moses and Aaron.

1)      We notice that not only can God do this sign but so can wise men, sorcerers and even Egyptian magicians. They can all turn their staffs into snakes.

2)      Aaron’s staff snake eats and swallows the others

3)      Pharaoh’s heart became hard and he won’t let them go.

First let us get a bit of an image in our mind of the scene painted before us in Exodus 7:8-13. Aaron and Moses are coming into Pharaoh’s palace.[3] This must be like an old homecoming of sorts for Moses. This past week, the Comp Grade 12 students and their parents just celebrated Grad. Now I think that I may have gone to my 10^th Grade 12 Grad reunion but I know I didn’t go to my 20^th, 25^th, or any others. I do know that many people tell stories about what happens when they do go to reunions. They notice who has lost hair and they notice who has gained weight; they notice who has children and who has even grandchildren; they notice who has become rich or famous; they notice who is divorced or never married. They also notice how much the school has changed or remained the same. Anyone here every gone to a school reunion? Think of your old school and your old friends; when you see them the old stories and feelings come flooding back.

Moses in our story today is returning to a palace that he would have spent some time in and around – at least as a teenager or young adult (Exodus 2:5-10) - and a pharaoh who is probably in some way related to him: a step or foster brother or cousin, someone he may have even known with as a teenager or a young man, or this pharaoh may even be the child or grandchild of someone he may have grown up with. Moses in our story today is eighty years old and his brother Aaron is eighty-three (Exodus 7:7). It has been a long time since he left the Egyptian Composite School (had their been one, of course!). Picture yourself as an 80 year-old returning to your high school for the first time or visiting the old family homestead that you haven’t seen since before you got married. This is what it may have been like for Moses as he stands before Pharaoh - who is probably a relative of his foster mom or a step-relative of some kind who he hasn’t seen since he was a young man. Now Moses is eighty, standing in the halls of this building he once knew so well, talking to types people he used to know so well and challenging these people like maybe he used to do sixty or seventy years ago in this very building. This is the scene before us today: an 80 year-old at a school and/or a family reunion.

Now this 80 year-old Moses and his 83 year-old brother throw his cane –that’s what a staff is – this octogenarian throws his cane to the ground, it turns into a snake and then – I guess – while this snake is moving along the ground, Pharaoh sends messengers out to find wise men, sorcerers, and even some magicians. I doubt they were all in the palace. They probably weren’t even all in the city. Pharaoh’s men would have had to go find them. I don’t know what they did in the interim whether Moses and Aaron picked up the snake staff and waited outside or whether they all just stood there and looked at this snake. At any rate these wise men, sorcerers and even magicians finally arrive and this brings us to our first observation for today:

1)      Not only can God, Moses and Aaron do this sign but also all these wise men, sorcerers and even the Egyptian magicians. They all turn their staffs into snakes.

Does anybody else find this interesting? I can’t turn a staff into a snake. Now some people have suggested that all of these wise men, sorcerers, and magicians somehow hypnotised some snakes so that they would stand rigid for a long time and disguised them as canes and then as soon as they throw them to the ground they snap out of it and wriggle along the floor.[4] That would be a neat trick – unlikely – but a neat trick nonetheless. Now some other people have suggested that all of these wise men, sorcerers, and magicians had somehow simply done a slight of hand merely creating the illusion of making the staff a snake but there is a problem or two with that idea as well: the main one being that the Bible doesn’t pretend that they were tricking.[5] It simply says that they could do this just like Moses and Aaron could do this. And as you read through the other sign that Moses and Aaron perform for Pharaoh at the commencement of the plagues – turning the Nile to blood – the magicians can do that too and even the subsequent plague; the Bible records that the magicians – on command - conjured up frogs to further devastate their own lands. This seems to be more than a slight of hand. At any rate,

Observation 1: this turning of a senior gentleman’s cane into a snake doesn’t seem to impress everyone and it appears that anyone in this field of work was able to do this same thing. [6]

In the end, this miracle, this sign, seems to be something that the magicians, the politicians (the officials) and Pharaoh himself can simply write off as an insignificant trick that many people can do. 

Are there times when we simply write off the miracles of God ignoring what He is showing us? 

Read more about this tomorrow here,,,,

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