The Second Plague

The Second Plague: Frogs

The Second Commandment: "You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand (generations) of those who love me and keep my commandments." Exodus 20:4-6

“God, who foresaw your tribulation, has specially armed you to go through it, not without pain but without stain” -C.S. Lewis

The Plague of Frogs: Exodus 8:1-15

1 Then the Lord told Moses, “Go to the king of Egypt and tell him, ‘This is what the Lord says: Let my people go to worship me. 2 If you refuse, I will punish Egypt with frogs. 3 The Nile River will be filled with frogs. They will come up into your palace, into your bedroom, on your bed, into the houses of your officers, and onto your people. They will come into your ovens and into your baking pans. 4 The frogs will jump all over you, your people, and your officers.’ ”

5 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Tell Aaron to hold his walking stick in his hand over the rivers, canals, and ponds. Make frogs come up out of the water onto the land of Egypt.”

6 So Aaron held his hand over all the waters of Egypt, and the frogs came up out of the water and covered the land of Egypt. 7 The magicians used their tricks to do the same thing, so even more frogs came up onto the land of Egypt.

8 The king called for Moses and Aaron and said, “Pray to the Lord to take the frogs away from me and my people. I will let your people go to offer sacrifices to the Lord.”

9 Moses said to the king, “Please set the time when I should pray for you, your people, and your officers. Then the frogs will leave you and your houses and will remain only in the Nile.” 10 The king answered, “Tomorrow.”Moses said, “What you want will happen. By this you will know that there is no one like the Lord our God. 11 The frogs will leave you, your houses, your officers, and your people. They will remain only in the Nile.” 12 After Moses and Aaron left the king, Moses asked the Lord about the frogs he had sent to the king. 13 And the Lord did as Moses asked. The frogs died in the houses, in the yards, and in the fields. 14 The Egyptians put them in piles, and the whole country began to stink. 15 But when the king saw that they were free of the frogs, he became stubborn again. He did not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the Lord had said.

The Verdict: The moment we choose to make God into something He is not, we become filthy frogs who jump to other idols for support.

I think often times that we ignore this commandment because, as Christians, we limit our thinking to something along the lines of: "As long as I have not crafted a physical idol that I bow down to and worship, this commandment obviously does not apply to me." First of all, all of the commandments apply to everyone, maybe just in different ways. But I hope by the end of this post, you approach this commandment a little bit differently.

When I got into researching this commandment, I honestly had no idea how it could ever apply to me (that quote in the previous paragraph was pretty much how I was approaching it). So, I read through the command a few more times and I kept getting caught up on how it says not to make an idol in the form of anything in heaven. I thought to myself, "How do you make an idol in the form of something in heaven and further more, how would this even apply to Moses and his people?" I understood how the people back then made different idols out of gold and such, but idols in the form of something in heaven?

I have heard sermons and people discuss the possible meaning this part of the commandment. I have heard that this commandment could possibly mean that we actually are not supposed to make a painting of Jesus or angels. I have heard that it could mean that we need to be careful that when we worship, we are worshipping God and not a picture of Him or a cross. I understand the notion that we do not really know what God as The Father and Holy Spirit look like and so we should not try and make them look like something they are not. Things may be different with Jesus since he came and we can make a pretty good guess at what He looked like, but I do not really know. These are other approaches to this command, but I view it slightly differently:

In the King James Version, there is a phrase that I think is vital in our understanding of this commandment:

"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image..."

Graven. Graven. Graven.

What is most interesting about this word is one of the alternated definitions in the dictionary. It says that graven is an adjective that would describe something cut into a desired shape. A graven image is one thing that you mold and shape into something completely different because you desire it to be that way (at least that is my view on the matter). This really helps me understand the way have started to view this command which is as such:

Making a graven image of what is in heaven is when we mold God into something we want Him to be rather than dealing with the True God of The Holy Bible. We make God into a graven image when we have a mindset where we think we can (and do for that matter) fully understand God. We make him graven when we purposefully leave out a part of Him (such as His Wrath, Judgment, Call to follow Him....) because we do not like those parts of who He is. When we make Him graven, we make God into something He is not. We begin to make God in our image, which is devastating because we loose track of the fact that we are made in His image. The act of making God into our own graven image is a very selfish act where we begin to use God for our own self-benefit. We cannot fall into the trap of making God something He is not.

When we do make God into this graven image, I believe we bring upon ourselves the second Plague of Frogs. The plague of frogs is disgusting and quite terrifying. After the Plague of Frogs is described, the Bible only mentions frogs three other times. Twice is the Psalms, the Plague of Frogs is described:

Psalm 78:45

"He sent flies that bit the people. He sent frogs that destroyed them."

Psalm 105:30

"Then their country was filled with frogs, even in the bedrooms of their rulers."

The last time frogs are mentioned in the Bible is in Revelation:

Revelation 16:13

"Then I saw three evil spirits that looked like frogs coming out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet."

So every time frogs appear in the Holy Bible, it is easy to see that there is absolutely nothing positive that comes from them. The Plague itself must have been terrible for everyone: imagine hoards of frogs coming everywhere-getting into everything-jumping on all of the people. I think the "frogs" that we bring upon ourselves are the things that we turn to when we make God into this false graven image. The moment that we think we can fully understand God or make God something He is not, we think that we have God fully, and we end up turning to something else. When we think we have had "enough God" we turn to other things. These other things are our "frogs"- the things that we allow to completely surround us other than God. Our frogs take priority over God, and we loose sight of Him (or at least graven image we had created Him to be). Are frogs are our sins- our selfish thoughts, desires, and actions. If we let our frogs surround us, our lives begin to spiral downward and we will forget the God we serve. We cannot continue to make the One True God into something we want Him to be. We must read the Scripture and talk to Him so that we can know whom He really is.

So what must we do? We cannot break this commandment or we will allow our sins to consume us and we will begin to loose sight of whom God truly is. So Let's stop making God into something He is not. Let's worship who He is, not who we want Him to be. He is perfect as He is. Let's not even tempt ourselves to bringing the Plague of Frogs into our lives. Let's get rid of the frogs (sins) that consume us. We cannot allow our selfish desires to take over our lives. Let us live according to God by the power of the Holy Spirit.