Then the Lord said to Moses, “Rise early in the morning and stand before Pharaoh, and say to him, ‘Let My people go, that they may serve Me, for at this time I will send all My plagues to your very heart, and on your servants and on your people, that you may know that there is none like Me in all the earth. Now if I had stretched out My hand and struck you and your people with pestilence, then you would have been cut off from the earth. But indeed for this purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you that My name may be declared in all the earth. As yet you exalt yourself against My people in that you will not let them go’” (Exodus 9:13-17).
There is one thing that all mankind should know by now about God, whether through reading His Holy Word or through life experiences: God is good!
Although God’s covenant people were enslaved through Egyptian bondage, He did not wish to destroy their oppressors. In Exodus 9:13-17, He asked Pharaoh to release His people to go and serve Him. Let’s examine these verses, “then the Lord said to Moses, ‘rise early in the morning and stand before Pharaoh, and say to him, “Let My people go, that they may serve Me, for at this time I will send all My plagues to your very heart, and on your servants and on your people, that you may know that there is none like Me in all the earth. Now if I had stretched out My hand and struck you and your people with pestilence, then you would have been cut off from the earth. But indeed for this purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you that My name may be declared in all the earth. As yet you exalt yourself against My people in that you will not let them go.”’”
Moses, being God’s voice to Pharaoh, asks that they would be released to go worship Him. At that time, he also told him what the consequences would be if he did not. Egypt was “a citadel of false gods,” but now the One and only true God was about to confront false views, bad understanding, and arrogance that had reached heaven and the throne of God itself. The Lord said, I do this that “you may know that there is none like Me in all the earth” (Exodus 9:14). Many in the world still do not know Him, although He is visible in every calamity to the discerner of truth.
In this passage of Scripture, God entreats an idolatrous nation, a stubborn and rebellious leader “that there is none like Me in all the earth […] if I had stretched out My hand and struck you and your people […] you would have been cut off from the earth” (Exodus 9:15). The Lord further explains, “for this purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you that My name may be declared in all the earth” (Exodus 9:16). His purpose in all this is that the world might know Him.
At least one thing we know about God is, He is Good!