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Exodus 9:8-12 What would it take for Pharaoh to let God’s people go so they could serve Him? Since Moses had approached Pharaoh months earlier, Egypt had suffered through five plagues. The Egyptians had been deprived of water, slept with frogs, been covered with lice, inundated with bugs and finally suffered severe economic loss with the death of their livestock. If you will remember, Moses was an unwilling participant in these encounters. He had begged God to send someone else. Moses does not comment on his personal feelings about all of this as he records the events, but I wonder what went through his mind. In Exodus 5:22-23, after Moses’ first encounter with Pharaoh, Moses records: Then Moses turned to the Lord and said, "O Lord, why have you done evil to this people? Why did you ever send me? For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has done evil to this people, and you have not delivered your people at all." ( Exodus 5:22-23 ESV )

Exodus 9:1-17 Exodus 9:1 says: Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh and say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, “Let my people go, that they may serve me.’” ( Exodus 9:1 ESV ) As we begin chapter 9 of the book of Exodus, we are in the middle of a story. Exodus 1 begins by telling us of the enslavement of the children of Israel by the Egyptians. The first chapters cover hundreds of years of history in just a few words, and then the account slows down and increases in detail so that the events of chapters 7-14 happen over a period of months instead of years. Hundreds of years of slavery and patterns of life are being challenged. Many more hundreds of years of religious practices and traditions are also being challenged. When Pharaoh, king of Egypt, was confronted with the statement, “Thus says the Lord...,” he responded, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice?” (Exodus 5:2) With the first four plagues, God demonstrated who He is.