Exodus - an Authentic Record of Events

The Bible is the inspired word of God. This page is a continuation in a series of articles about the Bible as God’s word.

Part 14  Exodus - an Authentic Record of Events

We continue from last time to see some more ways in which the record of Israel’s exodus from Egypt are a foreshadowing of future events in the outworking of the purpose of God.

• Moses, with Aaron, was sent by God to be His spokesman, and his authority was certified by the supernatural powers which God had assigned to him.

However, Pharaoh’s magicians, men regarded by the king as capable of producing extraordinary deeds by the occult control of nature, refused to accept the signs of God’s power.

“So Moses and Aaron went in to Pharaoh, and they did...just as the Lord commanded. And Aaron cast down his rod before Pharaoh and before his servants, and it became a serpent. But Pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers; so the magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with their enchantments. For every man threw down his rod, and they became serpents. But Aaron's rod swallowed up their rods” - Exodus 7:10.

• Jesus, in like manner, was sent by God, who attested the authority of His Son by conferring on him the power to give sight to the blind, cure people of deafness, mental illness, etc. The enemies of Christ publicly rejected these signs of divine power in Jesus and attributed them instead to Beelzebub - see Matthew 12:24, which had been regarded as an evil spirit and originally a pagan god of the then-defunct Philistines.

Other enemies resisted the apostles, for example, Alexander the coppersmith (see 2 Timothy 4:14 ) and Diotrephes (3 John v. 9). Related to this we read in 2 Timothy 3:1,

“But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be...lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power...Now as Jannes and Jambres resisted Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, disapproved concerning the faith; but they will progress no further, for their folly will be manifest to all, as theirs also was.”

The plagues in Exodus are repeated in the New Testament.

• Water turned to blood, literally - the first plague in Exodus.

“Moses and Aaron did so, just as the Lord commanded. So he lifted up the rod and struck the waters that were in the river, in the sight of Pharaoh and in the sight of his servants. And all the waters that were in the river were turned to blood” - Exodus 7:20.

• Water turned to blood, figuratively - the second and third vials of Revelation.

“Then the second angel poured out his bowl on the sea, and it became blood as of a dead man; and every living creature in the sea died. Then the third angel poured out his bowl on the rivers and springs of water, and they became blood” - Revelation 16:3.

This is understood by students of Scripture to be a figure which is used in “the Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show His servants - things which must shortly take place” when Jesus “signified it” by the use of signs and symbols - Revelation 1:1. Here, the water becoming blood refers to warfare on sea and land in the time period concerned.