Exodus 10-11

God is certainly in control. After each plague God tells Moses how pharaoh will react to the next one. Moses may have told the people what God said. I'm not sure we are told one way on another.

How long does it take? All this time the people are still in bondage. They still have their quota of bricks. How is their attitude different? They are still have to work hard. They are still bondage. Do Moses and Aaron make bricks too? Or is this for young people only? They have a group quota, not an individual quota. But I can imagine Moses pitching in and helping.

How many plagues? I remember being told ten. Yet I have trouble counting. Blood, frogs, gnats, pestilence on the cattle, boils, hail, locusts, darkness, first born. That's nine. What have I missed?

God is open with knowledge. In verses 9:14-16 he explains to pharaoh that he does not kill him quickly so he can see his might. We too can see God's might.

God is in control, not pharaoh. God makes that perfectly clear. In this whole narrative, pharaoh, the most powerful man on earth, thinks he is in control. But it is not so. God is in control.

This is still true today. Whether it is the president of the U.S.A. or the premier of China, however powerful they are, however much they think they are in control, God is one truly in control.

We must be before God beseeching his help, as the Israelites did. God may not respond as quickly as we would like. No doubt the Israelites thought he was very slow in responding. But God is our only hope for rain or for economic miracle. Only God can save us.