Separating Israel

Israel suffers the first cycle of plagues along with the Egyptians. Their water turns to blood; their homes are infested with frogs; the dust of Goshen clings to them in the form of gnats.

With the fourth plague, Yahweh begins to make a distinction between Israel and Egypt: “I will set apart the land of Goshen, where my people live, so that no swarms of insects will be there. . . . I will put a division between My people and your [Pharaoh’s] people” (Exodus 8:22-23). Yahweh draws a line; He begins to consecrate a people for Himself.

The division between Israel and Egypt isn’t there at the beginning. Yahweh has to create the division because the Israelites have become Egyptians – worshiping Egyptian gods (Joshua 24), eating Egyptian food, adopting Egyptian ways. God sends judgments on both Israel and Egypt to extract Israel from Egypt, to shake them from their complacency, to form a God-fearing people in the midst of Egypt.

What happened in Egypt happens again and again in the history of the church. When God judges the world, He also judges the worldly church. His intention is not to destroy her but to discipline her so that she turns to Him in reverence. The God of exodus stretches out His hand to perform exodus after exodus, but before He extracts Israel from Egypt, He has to extract the Egypt from Israel. That extraction is painful surgery.