The Torah reading Va’era (Ex. 6:2–9:35) is the first of two accounts of how the 10 plagues on Mitzraim (Egypt) humbled a superpower of the time to bring freedom not just to Israel but to the entire world.

How much more would Heaven’s sending the quintessential Son of Man to humble the “prince of the power of the air” win freedom for Israel, and by extension the whole world.

Victuals from Va’era

* Our forebears in faith were charged to take the Name of God to the nations. Are we proclaiming the Name or blaspheming it?* Are we hardening our hearts against the plans of Heaven or working toward them? It is easy to resist where Heaven is going, that is why we have to check ourselves. We need to measure ourselves to see if we have really left our house of bondage. Have we repented of our actions or do we merely regret our actions?* Do we acknowledge with our very lives that we know who’s really in charge of the Earth?* Yes, there are moral lessons and shadows of Messiah in this reading, but this is real history! In other words, real Israel in Egypt, real plagues, real redemption.

The cycle of plagues we see in Exodus are repeated in the book of Revelation. Also we see that just as Pharaoh hardened his heart, dug in his heels and refuse to submit to HaShem, the leaders of the earth in the last days will be the same.

Everyone experienced the first three plagues but starting with the fourth plague, God made a distinction between where the children of Israel lived in Goshen vs. the rest of Mitzraim (Egypt).

Most of the plagues were inflicted on all the citizens of Mitzraim, but starting with the seventh plague, the people of Mitzraim did have a choice to avoid the consequences of the hail. Moses called out to the people of Mitzraim to exercise just a little faith and compassion and to bring their livestock and servants indoors to save them from the hail to come. Those who headed Moses’ warning didn’t lose their servants and livestock in the plagues. The stubborn ones who refused to believe Moses’ words and those who lacked compassion for the animals and servants entrusted to them lost those livestock and servants to death by the hail.

Ezekiel’s prophecy against Pharaoh (Ezekiel 28:25–29:21)

In the haftarah (parallel reading) for Parashat Bo, the prophet Ezekiel was speaking to the descendants of Israel about 1,000 years after the Exodus. They are being threatened with exile from the land that God had given them. Israel thought Mitzraim had their back, but that mighty nation had been crippled over time.

The people of Israel had fallen down by trusting in Mitzraim to save it from a long-running folly of trusting in mankind’s power and understanding of the source of power, rather than trusting in the Source of life and existence as well as Israel itself.

Don’t trust in a Mitzraim, Babylon or another power that’s supposedly more powerful than the LORD’s promises.

From Babylon on, Mitzraim was a vassal state of all the subsequent empires that came through, including the Persians, Greeks, Romans and the Islamic empires.

What do we see in the book of Revelation? Again, there will be those who will appeal to Babylon for a sense of safety, but it is an illusion.

‘Finger of God’ vs. Lord of Flies (Luke 11:14–23; Matt. 12:22–30)

How is Yeshua’s rebuke to the crowds and the Pharisees who couldn’t ...