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Moses 3b
I am sure you guessed it. Pharaoh changed his mind and would not let the people go.
Moses warned that there would be a plague of locusts. Now locusts are insects which are a bit like grasshoppers. Sometimes there may be very few of them but if they have plenty of food they breed very quickly so there are more and more of them. Then they fly off into the air in a huge cloud. They fly along for a time and then they come down on a field and eat all the crops. This is what happened in Egypt. Locusts flew in and began eating the crops. Pharaoh must have been thinking that the Egyptians might be short of food.
Pharaoh told he was very sorry and he would let the Israelites go if Moses would ask God to make the locusts go away. Moses prayed to God and the locusts disappeared but Pharaoh changed his mind.
The next thing that happened was that it stayed dark for three days. This might have been due to a sandstorm. No one in Egypt could even see well enough to move about.
Next Moses warned that many Egyptian people would die.
God told Moses to give very exact instructions to the Israelites so they would be safe.
It was very important that they followed the instructions very carefully.
Each family must kill a lamb or a young goat. They were told to put a blood mark on each doorpost as a sign so that God would keep them safe. They must roast the meat from the lamb over the fire. They must not eat any raw meat. They must not eat any bread which was baked with yeast but eat unleavened bread instead. Unleavened bread is really cake which has been baked without yeast.
No one was to go out that night but they must be ready to leave in the morning.
The next morning many Egyptians were dead. We are not sure how this happened.
Here is one idea. Germs had got into the food supplies in Egypt. Perhaps they had been brought by the flies or by the locusts. Many Egyptians ate the food and died.
Why did the Israelites not die too?
They ate fresh meat from a lamb or goat which had just been killed. The meat had been roasted. This would have killed off any germs which were there. Unleavened bread which had been baked would have been safer than bread containing yeast.
Another idea is that God simply killed all those Egyptians. When you understand a little more of the Bible you will be able to make up your mind as to which of these ideas you think is correct.
Pharaoh now allowed the Israelites to leave. The Jews still have a feast to remember this. It is called the feast of the Passover. The time when Egyptians were killed but the plague Passed Over the Israelites and did not harm them. It is important because it was the time that their slavery ended and they became a nation of free people.
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