#DailyDevotion The Finger Of God Judges & Saves

Exodus 8:16–24 ¹⁶ “Tell Aaron,” the LORD said to Moses: “Hold out your staff and strike the dust on the ground, and it will change to gnats all over Egypt.” ¹⁷They did that. Aaron held out the rod in his hand and struck the dust on the ground, and it changed to gnats on men and animals. All the dust on the ground everywhere in Egypt became gnats. ¹⁸The magicians with their secret powers tried likewise to produce gnats, and they couldn’t do it. But there were gnats on men and animals. ¹⁹“This is God’s finger!” the magicians told Pharaoh. But Pharaoh continued to be stubborn and refused to listen to Moses and Aaron, as the LORD had said.

Now first we need to understand the first few plagues the LORD struck Egypt with were replicated in some way by the magicians of Egypt. So Pharaoh did not think much of them. Well each successive plague becomes worse and now the magicians cannot replicate it. Here Moses and Aaron hold the staff over the dust of the ground and the dust changed to gnats on men and animals. There were gnats everywhere all over Egypt. The magicians tried to do that and they couldn’t. It always seemed to me this approach by the magicians was pretty stupid. Other than showing Moses and Aaron were no big deal by copying them, it didn’t make matters better for the Egyptians. If they really wanted to impress everyone and make their lives better they would have tried to reverse the plagues.

The magicians not being able to reproduce this plague cry out, “This is God’s finger!” Now God’s finger seems to be a sort of judgment instrument. We feel this when someone is pointing a finger at us. When Nebuchadnezzar’s son became king and he had a party with the utensils from the Temple of the LORD, God sent a hand and the finger wrote on the wall a message of judgment. When Jesus casts out demons he tells the Pharisees he does it by the finger of God. When the Pharisees and the Scribes bring a woman to him caught in adultery he starts writing in the ground with his finger. I think he was writing some sort of judgments against them. The LORD wrote the Ten Commandments on the tablets with his finger. This action of the gnats, and of course all the plagues of Egypt, were the finger of God, his power and his judgment against them.

To some extant this plague is represented by the third and fourth seals in Revelation. Pharaoh here hardens his heart and will not listen to the LORD and does not repent. The people of the world when experiencing the plagues the LORD sends in Revelation also do not repent and listen to the LORD and those he sends to call them to repentance and give them life through the forgiveness of sins.

Now these judgments, these plagues, wrought by the hand of God are indeed our deliverance and salvation. The plagues in Egypt eventually had them release Israel so they could go to the Promised Land. Jesus uses God’s finger to deliver us from slavery to sin, from the slavery to the fear of death and from the oppression of the devil. The plagues around us brought us to repentance and the good news of Jesus’ deliverance of us from these things by his life, death and resurrection give us faith so we may enter the New Heavens and New Earth.

Heavenly Father, may your divine finger which judges us call us to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ so we may be delivered from this world so we may enter the next, though Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit. Amen.