Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh and say to him, ‘This is what the Lord says: Let my people go, so that they may worship me. 2 If you refuse to let them go, I will send a plague of frogs on your whole country. 3 The Nile will teem with frogs. They will come up into your palace and your bedroom and onto your bed, into the houses of your officials and on your people, and into your ovens and kneading troughs. 4 The frogs will come up on you and your people and all your officials.’”
5 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Tell Aaron, ‘Stretch out your hand with your staff over the streams and canals and ponds, and make frogs come up on the land of Egypt.’”
6 So Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt, and the frogs came up and covered the land. 7 But the magicians did the same things by their secret arts; they also made frogs come up on the land of Egypt. 8 Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, “Pray to the Lord to take the frogs away from me and my people, and I will let your people go to offer sacrifices to the Lord.” Exodus 8:1-8
Frogs? Why frogs as a plague?
Many theories abound and are often related to the Egyptian goddess Heqet and another frog god Kek. It could very well be that the Hebrew God – the Lord – was showing Himself strong against these two gods, and in all probability poking fun at those gods, especially Heqet, the goddess of fertility.
The frogs probably weren’t dangerous but they would have been very annoying. Everywhere you stepped, it was on or very near a frog. It’s cute for an hour or two, but the frogs needed to go. Nobody could be productive because they were always dealing with the frogs.
Think about trying to eat or get water from a well. Frogs everywhere. In the water. In the buckets. On the table. In the food. Yes, the frogs needed to go.
They stopped productivity but they had to be deal with. Until they addressed the issue head on, they were stopped in their tracks. So, what did they do? They petitioned the government to make it stop. They didn’t know how it would happen but they trusted that Pharaoh could eliminate their crisis. We don’t know exactly how this occurred, but in the last verse of this passage, the Pharaoh summoned Aaron and Moses to make it stop, so their complaints reached the palace.
Are there any pressing frogs you need to eliminate from your life as the new year begins? What would free you up to be more productive, however you define that word?