Torah Trails #14 Va'era

Torah Trails

Rabbi Yehudah “Tochukwu” ben Shomeyr

Kristopher Shoemaker

#14 Va’era

Exd. 6:2-9:35

Ezk. 28:25-29:21

II Cor. 6:14-7:1

Memory Verses: Exd. 6:2-3, Ezk. 29:21, Rev. 16:21

Exd. 8:1-7, Rev. 16:13-14

A constant musty, humid stench with a hint or urine, a constant deafening drone of croaks, whistles and chirps. So loud you had to shout to converse with your neighbor, so loud you couldn’t even think! Everywhere you look, FROGS! You try to step and you trip or slip on a frog. You can’t sit or lie down without squashing a frog. The ground looks like a moving, living greenish wave of hoping frogs. Frogs like living, dirty popcorn, randomly popping up from the ground. Everywhere you look or turn; FROGS! In your bedpan, in your baking bowls, EVERYWHERE! In your water jar, on your food! You can’t sleep or eat. They leap on your head and with their moist, sticky pads, they crawl all over your body. No peace or quiet, it was enough to drive anyone to the brink of insanity!

YWHW verses the Egyptian god Heket. YHWH brought a countless hoard of frogs from the rive like a tsunami, but Pharaoh wasn’t impressed, his sorcerers could do similar. They too called forth frogs.

Frogs are unclean, defecate anywhere indiscriminately. One can be annoying, a dozen a nuisance but thousands are definitely a plague!

Speak, and say, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers, which hath said, My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself.  But I will put hooks in thy jaws, and I will cause the fish of thy rivers to stick unto thy scales, and I will bring thee up out of the midst of thy rivers, and all the fish of thy rivers shall stick unto thy scales.  And I will leave thee thrown into the wilderness, thee and all the fish of thy rivers: thou shalt fall upon the open fields; thou shalt not be brought together, nor gathered: I have given thee for meat to the beasts of the field and to the fowls of the heaven. Ezk. 29:3-6

In the time of Moses and the plagues, Egypt the tyrant and taskmaster was worn down, decimated and defeated. In Ezekiel, Egypt is called a dragon and is pulled out of the river with fish stuck to its scales to flounder, thrash and die to become food for the scavengers. Dead and defeated.

Rev. 16:13-14

In Exodus, frogs are called unclean animals and a plague. In the Revelation there is mentioned 3 miraculous deceiving spirits described as unclean frogs coming out of the mouth of the dragon, the Beast and the False Prophet, the evil, satanic trinity. In Ezekiel, Egypt is called a dragon. Egypt and the dragon both symbolize an evil, anti-Messiah, pagan and godless reign.

The Frogs in the Exodus YHWH used eventually led to the death of the firstborn and the utter demise of Egypt that kicked off the Exodus of the children of Israel out of Egypt. In Ezekiel, Egypt was again defeated by YHWH by being yanked out of the river and ate by an army of scavengers. In the Revelation YHWH uses these deceiving “frogs” that will eventually lead to the defeat of the Dragon, the spiritual Egypt at the Battle of Armageddon.

Whoever thought something as humble and ridiculous as frogs could ever be used as a weapon of mass destruction? But our God YHWH can do and use ANYTHING!

“Abba YHWH Elohim, You never cease to amaze and astound us with your creative ways of warfare against the enemy on behalf of Your people. You, my God are indeed Great and Awesome and we praise You! In Yeshua’s Name, Amen!”