Why did God smite Egypt with all those plagues? The answer, brothers and sisters, was first of all to teach Pharaoh a lesson — and then, by extension, to teach that lesson to the Egyptians and to the rest of the world. God wanted the king of Egypt to know His identity, His location, His uniqueness, His ownership of the earth, and His discrimination between Egypt and His own people — and God wanted this to be clear not just to Pharaoh, not just to Egypt, not just to Israel, but to the whole world. The plague account clarifies who God is, where He is, and how powerful He is on behalf of His people