Day 32 – Cattle, Boils and Hail

Exodus 9

¹ Yahweh then said to Moses, ‘Go to Pharaoh and say to him, “Yahweh, God of the Hebrews, says this: Let my people go and worship me.

² If you refuse to let them go and detain them any longer,

³ look, the hand of Yahweh will strike your livestock in the fields, horses, donkeys, camels, oxen and flocks with a deadly plague.

⁴ Yahweh will discriminate between the livestock of Israel and the livestock of Egypt: nothing of what belongs to the Israelites will die.

⁵ Yahweh has fixed the time. Tomorrow, he has said, Yahweh will do this in the country.” ‘

⁶ Next day Yahweh did this: all the Egyptians’ livestock died, but nothing of the livestock owned by the Israelites died.

⁷ Pharaoh had enquiries made, and found that of the livestock owned by the Israelites not a single beast had died. But Pharaoh was obstinate and did not let the people go.

⁸ Yahweh then said to Moses and Aaron, ‘Take handfuls of soot from the kiln, and before Pharaoh’s eyes let Moses throw it in the air.

⁹ It will turn into fine dust over the whole of Egypt and produce boils breaking into sores on man and beast throughout the whole of Egypt.’

¹⁰ So they took soot from the kiln and stood in front of Pharaoh, and Moses threw it in the air, and on man and beast it brought out boils breaking into sores.

¹¹ And the magicians could not compete with Moses in the matter of the boils, for the magicians were covered with boils like all the other Egyptians.

¹² But Yahweh made Pharaoh stubborn and, as Yahweh had foretold to Moses, he did not listen to them.

¹³ Yahweh then said to Moses, ‘Get up early in the morning and confront Pharaoh. Say to him, “Yahweh, God of the Hebrews, says this: Let my people go and worship me.

¹⁴ For this time I am going to inflict all my plagues on you, on your officials and on your subjects, so that you will know that there is no one like me in the whole world.

¹⁵ Had I stretched out my hand to strike you and your subjects with pestilence, you would have been swept from the earth.

¹⁶ But I have let you survive for this reason: to display my power to you and to have my name talked of throughout the world.

¹⁷ Since you take a high hand with my people, refusing to let them go,

¹⁸ very well, at about this time tomorrow, I shall cause so severe a hail to fall as was never known in Egypt from the day of its foundationuntil now.

¹⁹ So now send word to have your livestock and everything else you own in the fields put under cover. On man or beast, all that happen to be in the fields and are not brought indoors, the hail will fall and they will die.” ‘

²⁰ Those of Pharaoh’s officials who respected what Yahweh said, brought their slaves and livestock indoors,

²¹ but those who did not take to heart what Yahweh said left their slaves and livestock in the fields.

²² Yahweh then said to Moses, ‘Stretch out your hand towards heaven so that it hails throughout the whole of Egypt, on man and beast and on everything growing anywhere in Egypt.’

²³ Moses stretched out his staff towards heaven, and Yahweh thundered and rained down hail. Lightning struck the earth and Yahwehrained down hail on Egypt.

²⁴ And so there was hail, and lightning accompanied the hail, very severe, such as had never been known anywhere in Egypt since it first became a nation.

²⁵ All over Egypt the hail struck down everything in the fields, man and beast, and the hail beat down everything growing in the fields and shattered all the trees in the fields.

²⁶ The only place where there was no hail was in the Goshen region, where the Israelites lived.

²⁷ Pharaoh then sent for Moses and Aaron and said, ‘This time, I have sinned. Yahweh is in the right; I and my subjects are in the wrong.

²⁸ Pray to Yahweh, for we cannot bear any more of this thunder and hail. I promise to let you go. You need stay no longer.’

²⁹ Moses said to him, ‘The moment I leave the city I shall stretch out my hands to Yahweh. The thunder will stop, and there will be no more hail, so that you may know that the earth belongs to Yahweh.

³⁰ But as for you and your officials, I know very well that you still have no respect for Yahweh God.’

³¹ The flax and the barley were ruined, since the barley was in the ear and the flax in bud,

³² but the wheat and spelt were not destroyed, being late crops.

³³ Moses left Pharaoh and went out of the city. He stretched out his hands to Yahweh and the thunder and hail ceased and the rain stopped pouring down on the earth.

³⁴ When Pharaoh saw that rain and hail and thunder had stopped, he relapsed into sin,

³⁵ and he and his officials became obstinate again. Pharaoh was stubborn and, as Yahweh had foretold through Moses, refused to let the Israelites go.

Leviticus 7

¹ ‘ “This is the ritual for the sacrifice of reparation: “It is especially holy.

² The victim must be slaughtered where the burnt offerings are slaughtered, and the priest will pour the blood all around the altar.

³ He will then offer all the fat: the tail, the fat covering the entrails,

⁴ both kidneys, the fat on them and on the loins, the mass of fat which he will remove from the liver and kidneys.

⁵ The priest will burn these pieces on the altar as food burnt for Yahweh. This is a sacrifice of reparation.

⁶ Every male who is a priest may eat it. It will be eaten inside the holy place; it is especially holy.

⁷ “As with the sacrifice for sin, so with the sacrifice of reparation — the ritual is the same for both. The offering with which the priestperforms the rite of expiation will revert to the priest.

⁸ The hide of the victim presented by someone to the priest to be offered as a burnt offering will revert to the priest.

⁹ Every cereal offering baked in the oven, every cereal offering cooked in the pan or on the griddle will revert to the priest who offers it.

¹⁰ Every cereal offering, mixed with oil or dry, will revert to all the descendants of Aaron without distinction.

¹¹ “This is the ritual for the communion sacrifice to be offered to Yahweh:

¹² “If this is offered as a sacrifice with praise, to the latter must be added an offering of unleavened cakes mixed with oil, unleavened wafers spread with oil, and wheaten flour in the form of cakes mixed with oil.

¹³ This offering, then, must be added to the cakes of leavened bread and to the communion sacrifice with praise.

¹⁴ One of the cakes of this offering must be presented as an offering to Yahweh; it will revert to the priest who pours out the blood of the communion sacrifice.

¹⁵ The meat of the victim will be eaten on the day the offering is made; nothing may be left until next morning.

¹⁶ “If the victim is offered as a votive or a voluntary sacrifice, it must be eaten on the day it is offered, and the remainder may be eaten on the following day;

¹⁷ but on the third day whatever is left of the meat of the victim must be burnt.

¹⁸ “If any of the meat of a victim offered as a communion sacrifice is eaten on the third day, the person who has offered it will not be acceptable and will receive no credit for it. It will count as rotten meat, and the person who eats it will bear the consequences of the guilt.

¹⁹ “Meat that has touched anything unclean cannot be eaten; it must be burnt. “Anyone clean may eat the meat,

²⁰ but anyone unclean who eats the meat of a communion sacrifice offered to Yahweh will be outlawed from his people.

²¹ Furthermore, if anyone touches anything unclean, human or animal, or any foul thing, and then eats the meat of a communion sacrifice offered to Yahweh, that individual will be outlawed from his people.” ‘

²² Yahweh spoke to Moses and said,

²³ ‘Speak to the Israelites and say: “You may not eat the fat of ox, sheep or goat.

²⁴ The fat of an animal that has died a natural death or been savaged by beasts may be used for any other purpose, but you are not to eat it.

²⁵ Anyone who eats the fat of an animal offered as food burnt for Yahweh will be outlawed from his people.

²⁶ “Wherever you live, you will never eat blood, whether it be of bird or of beast.

²⁷ Anyone who eats any blood will be outlawed from his people.” ‘

²⁸ Yahweh spoke to Moses and said,

²⁹ ‘Speak to the Israelites and say: “Anyone who offers Yahweh a communion sacrifice must bring him part of his sacrifice as an offering.

³⁰ He must bring the food to be burnt for Yahweh, that is to say, the fat adhering to the forequarters, with his own hands. He will bring it, and also the forequarters, with which he will make the gesture of offering before Yahweh.

³¹ The priest will then burn the fat on the altar, and the forequarters will revert to Aaron and his descendants.

³² You will set aside the right thigh from your communion sacrifice and give it to the priest.

³³ The right thigh will be the portion of the descendant of Aaron who offers the blood and fat of the communion sacrifice.

³⁴ For I have deprived the Israelites of the forequarter offered and the thigh presented in their communion sacrifices, and given them to the priest Aaron and his descendants; this is a perpetual law for the Israelites.” ‘

³⁵ Such was the portion of Aaron and his descendants in the food burnt for Yahweh, the day he presented them to Yahweh for them to become his priests.

³⁶ This was what Yahweh ordered the Israelites to give them on the day they were anointed: a perpetual law for all their descendants.

³⁷ Such was the ritual for burnt offering, cereal offering, sacrifice for sin, sacrifice of reparation, investiture sacrifice and communion sacrifice,

³⁸ which Yahweh laid down for Moses on Mount Sinai, the day he ordered the Israelites to make their offerings to Yahweh in the desertof Sinai.

Psalm 49

¹ [For the choirmaster Of the sons of Korah Psalm] Hear this, all nations, listen, all who dwell on earth,

² people high and low, rich and poor alike!

³ My lips have wisdom to utter, my heart good sense to whisper.

⁴ I listen carefully to a proverb, I set my riddle to the music of the harp.

⁵ Why should I be afraid in times of trouble? Malice dogs me and hems me in.

⁶ They trust in their wealth, and boast of the profusion of their riches.

⁷ But no one can ever redeem himself or pay his own ransom to God,

⁸ the price for himself is too high; it can never be

⁹ that he will live on for ever and avoid the sight of the abyss.

¹⁰ For he will see the wise also die no less than the fool and the brute, and leave their wealth behind for others.

¹¹ For ever no home but their tombs, their dwelling-place age after age, though they gave their name to whole territories.

¹² In prosperity people lose their good sense, they become no better than dumb animals.

¹³ So they go on in their self-assurance, right up to the end they are content with their lot.

¹⁴ They are penned in Sheol like sheep, Death will lead them to pasture, and those who are honest will rule over them. In the morning all trace of them will be gone, Sheol will be their home.

¹⁵ But my soul God will ransom from the clutches of Sheol, and will snatch me up.

¹⁶ Do not be overawed when someone gets rich, and lives in ever greater splendour;

¹⁷ when he dies he will take nothing with him, his wealth will not go down with him.

¹⁸ Though he pampered himself while he lived — and people praise you for looking after yourself-

¹⁹ he will go to join the ranks of his ancestors, who will never again see the light.

²⁰ In prosperity people lose their good sense, they become no better than dumb animals.

Thoughts and Reflection

Today we read about more plagues that God puts towards the Egyptians and for whatever reason, it hardens Pharaoh’s heart. We should look at God like wax or clay. When God is the sun, the wax will soften and clay will harden. As God reveals his power, it doesn’t impact Pharaoh.

Are we this same way to God? Over the last several years, I have looked to God for answers and guidance. It isn’t easy to become wax in the presence of the Lord, but we must.

Let’s pray for God’s grace so we may all have hearts opened up to the Lord.