Pride Is a Harsh Taskmaster

I was an okay student in high school. Mostly B's, a few A's, the occasional C. I'd coasted through elementary and middle school with quick enough intuition that had taught me (faultily) that I didn't need to study; I'd get by on basic know-how.

When high school (and harder classes) hit, that mindset was deeply ingrained, and there were a few things that had to happen to shake me awake.

The first was when I carried home a D on my report card in geometry. I hated geometry; I still hate geometry -- and proofs are murder, for the record. I remember my poor teacher calling me aside after class and sitting wordless at his desk for a while as he shook his head and told me he wasn't sure what to do to help me. 

And I wasn't sure what to do to learn the material. It just didn't connect.

Sailing through the course unbothered by effort was no longer an option. I was going to have to work and work hard. 

The second thing that shook me awake was my history class. I've got a decent memory, so looking at long lists of names and dates and plugging them into matching descriptions on exams wasn't too hard, and that's how I was getting through my classes -- until my junior year when one of the requirements for my history class was a research paper.

I was very busy that year, involved in quite a few extra-curriculars, and while history was okay, I liked English and Spanish better and spent way more time on those classes. The research paper due date was approaching, and I kept pushing it off, procrastinating as I told myself I'd get to it.

At some point, I gave up. I realized I wasn't going to get it done in time, and I gave a mental shrug of my shoulders. Eh well. I'll take a lower grade. The due date for the paper came... and went, and I had nothing to hand in. I didn't think much about it...

Until my history teacher called me into his office and thrust the course syllabus in front of me. "Tamara, this paper was worth a third of your grade for my course," he said. "You've just gotten a zero on it. You're failing my class."

It hit me then. Summer school. Academic probation. Repetition of 11th grade (I don't know if I would have had to repeat the grade, but the gravity of the situation finally struck home). I swallowed hard as I fidgeted uncomfortably beneath my teacher's stern gaze. "Can I do extra credit?" I meekly asked.

Laugh now, but he allowed it. It wasn't easy extra credit. He gave me a long list of responsibilities I had to do to make up the grade: book reviews of Gone With the Wind and Killer Angels, write-ups and models of specific Civil War battles, other time-eating projects that -- put together, likely equaled twice the amount of time and effort I would have spent on the original research paper. 

And I got half the credit. 

It was enough to pass the class. Barely. My learning curve that year was pretty steep and nearly broke me. I got through it, but most of the curve was my own fault.

In Exodus 9, we get an interesting glimpse past Pharaoh to the points of view of a few of the Egyptian people. And we get to see the learning curve they're on.

We're introduced to plagues 5, 6, and 7 in chapter 9. During the first four plagues, we've had very little sign of education on the part of Pharaoh or his officials. At the end of plague #3 (gnats, for anyone who's keeping track), "the magicians said to Pharaoh, 'This is the finger of God'" (Exodus 8:19). 

They've gotten their first C. They've realized they can't sail through this on pure talent.

The next set of three plagues involves dying livestock (#5), boils (#6), and hail (#7). 

It's interesting how science combines with Scripture here, and why shouldn't it? God is the God of science; He created it. It works perfectly, because He made it. It boggles my mind when people set up God against science. Science exists in submission to God. He's allowed to break it if and when He wants to -- a.k.a. miraculous occurrences -- and He's allowed to make it work perfectly together when He wants to. I love watching how it all works together. 

Here, it works perfectly. Now... the Nile may have become blood, true blood. I don't doubt it. Or, it could have been a result of the flooding of the Nile that happens in late summer where large quantities of red sediment from Ethiopia get washed down-river and make the water as red as blood.

Then, because the sediment affects the aquatic life of the river, the fish in the river may have become bacteria-laden and died, polluting the Nile... resulting in the frogs abandoning the river and taking to the land. When the frogs died, it could easily have been because of an anthrax bacteria that was a direct result of the Nile river-algae.

By now, it's late autumn, and the overladen Nile that has washed down from Ethiopia has flooded the fields of Egypt, creating the perfect breeding ground for huge swarms of gnats.

As the water begins to recede, it leaves exactly right conditions for flies to breed, grow, and infest houses, stables, and the palace.

The flies quite possibly also carry the anthrax bacteria that kills the frogs, and as the flies cover the livestock brought out into the fields when the flood waters recede, the animals are infected and begin to die, too.

The anthrax may have affected humans differently, resulting in boils -- black pustules that burn in abscesses on the skin (yuck, sorry).

So the first six plagues quite possibly result from the flooding of the Nile. Now it's January or February, and the flax and barley are starting to flower in the fields: the winter weather of northern Africa sets up the perfect conditions for a hailstorm as cold air meets warm air in a powerful clash.

We'll get into the rest of the plagues soon, but to finish out this thought: Plague #8 is locusts. In March or April, east winds arrive seasonally, and bring in young locusts in their voracious growing stage. They cover the land and devour everything that hasn't already been destroyed.

Plague #9 is the plague of darkness. Each year, a blinding sandstorm blows in from the desert -- in this case, possibly so severe that the Egyptians can see nothing at all.

The final Plague, Plague #10 -- the death of the firstborn of every household not covered in the blood of an innocent lamb -- is the first departure from natural consequences and scientific explanation. It is miraculous, redemptive, and highly symbolic -- the lifeblood of an innocent placed as a seal of protection over an accepting person to keep them from death. I'll get into that more later.

Interestingly, the ten plagues serve to undeify the Egyptian deities. It's as though when God sends the plagues, He sends them as a direct snub, as a way to say: "You shall have no other gods before Me." Hmm.

Hopi, the god of the Nile's life-giving waters, can't keep the waters from causing the first six plagues. Heqt, the frog goddess, is reduced to piles of reeking frogs throughout the entire country, a pestilence. The animal-headed deities like Apis and Mnevis (bull-gods) and Hathor (cow-god) and Khnum (ram-god) are obliterated as livestock keel over and die. Ra (or Re) the sun-god is tossed aside as the plague of darkness overcomes the land of Egypt.

Yet Goshen, where the Israelites live, is spared most (possibly all) the plagues. 

God uses the forces of nature, weather, natural consequences, but He also has rule and authority over nature, weather, and natural consequences and can use them as He pleases.

The Egyptians are learning this. There's a neat little paragraph nearly hidden in Exodus 9:20-21: "Those officials of Pharaoh who feared the word of the Lord hurried to bring their slaves and their livestock inside. But those who ignored the word of the Lord left their slaves and livestock in the field."

Just before this, in Exodus 9:5, "The Lord set a time and said, 'Tomorrow the Lord will do this in the land" (referring to the plague on the livestock).

He gives fair warning, and it happens just as Moses tells them.

I don't know about you, but if I were an Egyptian official standing in the court of Pharaoh, and I see Moses and Aaron entering the palace...

I'd be triggered. I bet you would, too. Oh no. What's going to happen this time? 

And I'd like to think I'd have learned my lesson a little sooner than Pharaoh does. Maybe not, but I hope so.

The Lord says: "Tomorrow," and tomorrow the livestock die. I'd be wide-eyed and alert. Okay, this time, I'm listening. 

"Hail's coming, y'all." 

So the ones who have learned their lesson run out to their fields and they bring in their slaves and livestock (the ones who hadn't died in the earlier plague, which may have only affected those left out in the fields, not the ones kept in barns/stalls). They bring them inside.

The ones who haven't learned their lesson laugh it off, and they get slammed.

What keeps us from learning our lesson?

Pride. 

I can't think of any other factor that keeps Pharaoh and his officials from understanding what is so blatantly in front of them. Unbelief, sure, but unbelief results from pride. 

Pharaoh is steeped in so much pride: Who is the Lord, that I should obey Him and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord and I will not let Israel go.

God has a way of humbling the proud. "Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall" (Proverbs 16:18), and how great a fall for Pharaoh. Power, success, wealth, influence, good jobs, good grades... they infect people with pride, I suspect. Success begins to go to our heads; we start to think we have a grasp on what's up. 

Another king in the book of Daniel sure thought so. One day, Nebuchadnezzar is strolling around the roof of his palace in Babylon, and he looks out over his kingdom and has the gall to say: "Is not this the great Babylon I have built as the royal residence, by my mighty power and for the glory of my majesty?" (Daniel 4:30).

Can you almost see the lightning bolt hit? 

Neb gets to crawl around on the grass for 7 years... eating it. Pharaoh gets to watch the destruction of his country.

Both have set up pride as his master, and both are broken under it. Their learning curve is steep; they fail their lessons.

I was proud. I didn't realize it, but I thought I could skate through my high school classes on sheer talent. It was a humiliating experience to realize... I couldn't. 

My teachers might truly have taken that seed of pride and ground the consequences in. I may have failed, truly failed. I may have been held back. I may never have gotten into college. 

Instead, they pulled me aside, let me see the grave results of my own pride... and then offered me grace. Extra credit. Extra tutoring sessions. Extra everything.

I pulled through, but it was a harsh lesson to learn. A little humility goes a long way.