When you hear about the plagues in sermons, classes, or devotionals, they seem very linear. One plague moves to the next, Pharaoh resists, and there’s very little variation from point to point.
When you read the story of the plagues though, you notice just how dynamic the situation is. Pharaoh is stubborn, the plagues do happen, but there is a ton of shifting sands underneath Egypt.
Exodus 10:7 pulls the curtain on Pharaoh’s royal court. After Moses delivers his message from God about the plague of locusts, he leaves and the royal officials turn on Pharaoh. “How long will you let this man be a snare to us?” they ask, insisting that Pharaoh just let the people go and worship however long they please.
The officials also give us another crucial piece of info, which is that Egypt is “destroyed” as a result of the plagues. That’s not too surprising, considering what the previous seven plagues consisted of, but it gives us a glimpse of the conditions in ancient Egypt.
Apparently, this message gets through to Pharaoh. He calls Moses back in and tells them to leave, but on the condition that the men are the only ones who leave. Moses refuses, insisting, once again, that they must follow God’s command. They either all go, or none of them go.
Pharaoh rejects this idea outright and accuses them of having “evil in their mind.” What evil exactly? Most likely a full-scale desertion of Egypt’s labor force into the wilderness.
This plague explains so much about what’s happening to Pharaoh, both in his court and in his mind. The pressure from his entourage is mounting to let the people go, but he can’t, because to do so is to remove the driving force of his economy.
Pharaoh’s refusal to let the people go is also based in his paranoia that they’ll leave him (which is typical behavior of bullies, both then and now). It’s a marked departure from the Pharaoh of Joseph’s time, who not only let Joseph and his family return to Canaan to bury Jacob, but even sent an entourage with him.
In the end, Pharaoh will technically be right about Israel. They will leave for good, but the conditions of that release are fully dictated by Pharaoh’s behavior. Either he can let them go and Egypt can stay intact, or he can refuse, and Egypt can burn down from the plagues.
Based on the intercession of his royal court, it’s clear that Pharaoh has chosen the latter.
