NET Exodus 15:26 He said, “If you will diligently obey the LORD your God, and do what is right in his sight, and pay attention to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, then all the diseases that I brought on the Egyptians I will not bring on you, for I, the LORD, am your healer.”
At Bible study last evening, a young Christian asked the sincere question in the title of this blog. I, for my part, before I became a Christian, for many years nurtured anger against God because he killed the Egyptian babies.*
NET Exodus 12:29 It happened at midnight– the LORD attacked all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the prison, and all the firstborn of the cattle. 30 Pharaoh got up in the night, along with all his servants and all Egypt, and there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was no house in which there was not someone dead.
After I became a Christian, a better knowledge of God and his loving ways, especially as revealed in the Old Testament, brought me to peace with this difficult portion of Scripture. The key was to see the story of Israel’s deliverance from Egypt through God’s eyes, not through my own.
In beginning a small study to help my friend untangle her knot about God’s love and the Egyptian plagues of disease, I came across the following Bible study done by Robert L. (Bob)Deffinbaugh and published at Bible.org on May 13, 2004. I think it does a good and complete job of laying out the facts as presented in Scripture. The Holy Spirit needs to work it into a believer’s heart, as He did in mine, by resolving the underlying issues there. For me, it was a matter of accepting the fact and gravity of sin, especially my own. Indeed, before I became a Christian, I was one of these biblical “Egyptians.” Here is the link:
The Passover and the Plague of the Firstborn (Exodus 11:1-13:16)
* I was not a careful listener in those years. God actually killed all the firstborn; many of whom were undoubtedly adults at the time.
Thank-you, Rae, for liking this post. You are an encouragement to me.