Spiritual Death & Enlightenment - Exodus 10:21-29

10:21-29 – The ninth plague and the last one in the last group of three shows up like the other “last of three” unannounced to Pharaoh after he hardened his heart once again. This time it’s a little bit different and I relied heavily on TB to get a different perspective on it. This time God tells Moses to “stretch out thine hand toward heaven, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, even darkness which may be felt,” and Moses obeyed and “there was a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt three days: they saw now one another, neither rose any from his place for three days: but all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings.”

TB brings up two instances in which he was in, not actual blackness, but where the weather was so thick that he couldn’t see hardly anything and that is heavy fog and a dust storm. I’ve also been in both and can confirm that the visibility is limited. But if we think about the escalation of the seriousness of these plagues, the last few are like wholesale animal death, destruction of crops, servants getting pelted to death by huge chunks of ice, lice, boils, all these things, and then the last one is darkness? That doesn’t make sense because as TB points out the Egyptians had known for centuries, just like everyone else, how to deal with night time, so if it had just been that there was some sort of crazy weather events that blocked the sunlight from Egypt for 3 days, the people could have dealt with that and it really wouldn’t have been that serious.

If it wasn’t a physical removal of all light then what could this plague possibly have meant? TB makes a very interesting suggestion, one that changes the perspective of what it means to just live this life on a daily basis in our world. TB notes that the light and darkness that both Israel and Egypt experienced were both “felt.” How do you “feel” light? How do you “feel” darkness? He suggests that it is beyond the mere temperature changes that accompany penetration of sunlight in the atmosphere. TB also notes that the Hebrew word to describe the “light” felt by Israel is “owr” which is the same word used in Genesis 1:3 “and in a nutshell it means ‘enlightenment.’ That is, good, as opposed to evil. The truth, as opposed to a lie. When you switch on a lamp, you get visual light, the type talked about in Genesis 1:14. When you hear from God, you get spiritual light… Enlightenment, the type of light talked about in Gen 1:3.” This makes me wish that I had found this resource back when I was in Genesis a few years ago.

He continues that when referencing the “darkness” felt by the Egyptians, the Hebrew word used here was also “the exact same Hebrew word used in Genesis to describe the opposite of ‘owr’, enlightenment. That word is ‘chosek.’ And, it means darkness not like ‘nighttime’, but a very negative darkness. A kind that blots out good. A kind that leads men into wrong. Evil.” But he also points out that there was a visual aspect to the light and darkness. So imagine having the ability to see even your own brother sitting next to you removed completely by a crazy natural phenomenon then also having all the light of Christ, all the spiritual goodness removed as well.

I just finished a Harry Potter marathon last week and this very much reminds me of the dementors, sucking all the positivity out of the world and replacing it with despair. Not just imagine being completely isolated because of the weather, but also having any positive spirituality removed from you as well, so you just sit there and dwell in misery and hate and dread and awfulness for three days. It would be like living with a horcrux the whole time. And if this is the case, ultimately experiencing the true removal of God from your life, this would be the worst plague of them all so far. This is why physical death was overcome through the resurrection, but spiritual death entailed the suffering of all hurt and pain and misery ever created throughout the whole universe. Physical death is one thing, spiritual death, the removal of God from our lives, is ultimately the worst fate. That’s why the sons of perdition experience eternal “darkness” for the unforgiveable sin, they reject the spiritual light they are entitled to and therefore must suffer through the worst punishment possible, removal from God’s influence in any way.

It's really an interesting concept, especially if we consider that the Egyptian people and Pharaoh didn’t accept Jehovah as their God so they wouldn’t have understood the concept spiritual light and/or darkness, they just knew that physically they were miserable because they couldn’t see or move too much, and then spiritually and emotionally they were miserable because the presence of God that they did have with them was removed as well and replaced by the absence of that, Satan’s influence.

TB notes that the weather abnormality was “so fierce was it that it frightened Pharaoh and the Egyptian people out of their wits. But, the real fright undoubtedly came in the ‘feeling’ of the ‘chosek’, the spiritual darkness, evil that covered them like a blanket. The type that aes the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end when you can’t see anything evil or dangerous, but you can sense it. This was a time of real horror for Egypt. But in the same land, the Israelites were celebrating with joy!” Over in Goshen, the Israelites are experiencing “enlightenment,” probably receiving spiritual preparation to get them ready to leave.

It's just such a profound commentary on how significant both the presence and absence of the Spirit is in our lives. Honestly, both the Hebrews and the Egyptians were not spiritual prepared to understand the importance of what they experienced both the light and the darkness, but what a powerful message it is to us, just how deeply penetrating God’s light can be and the intense emptiness that is created when it is absent from our lives.

Pharaoh panics and sends for M&A and ups the terms from “okay take just your men to worship your God in the desert,” to “ok you can take your women and children too, but leave your livestock.” Moses declines the offer citing, “Our cattle also shall go with us; there shall not an hoof be left behind; for thereof must we take to serve the Lord our God; and we know not with what we must serve the Lord until we come thither.” He’s saying, “we can’t leave our livestock because we don’t know what sacrifices will be required when we get there.” I don’t know if they are both pretending to believe that the Hebrews will be coming back, even though they both know that they won’t, or if Pharaoh is suggesting that even though he knows they aren’t coming back, that they should leave their livestock as like a severance package to the Egyptians for all the labor loss that they will be experiencing after the Hebrews leave for good.

Perhaps as a result from experiencing spiritual death and existential dread for the last three days, Pharaoh responds to Moses’ declination with “Get thee from me, take heed to thyself, see my face no more; for in that day thou seest my face thou shalt die.” Moses acquiesces, “Thou hast spoken well, I will see thy face again no more.” He’s saying, “if that’s what you really want, fine.”