The Deliverer (9 page)

Are the court magicians going to be able to do the same thing and make you look foolish again?

No response. I couldn’t tell if Moses received my thought transfer or not. Since he didn’t repeat my question, I presumed he must not have heard me, otherwise he would have seen the wisdom in asking God whether the court magicians were going to make him look silly by making their own frogs. I myself didn’t know the answer. The ability of Satan’s minions to create amphibians had never come up before, although I personally doubted they could do it. I was still stumped over how they managed the snake trick. I wondered if I should dash back to the lair and ask about our ability to do frogs, but then I realized there wasn’t enough time. We were about to find out anyway because Moses and Aaron, without protesting at all, turned and walked right back to Pharaoh’s court.

Pharaoh was busy with the scribes when the two entered.

“So you’re back, my brother,” Pharaoh waved the scribes away. “What new entertainment did you bring me today?” The court laughed.

Moses motioned for Pharaoh to follow him as he and Aaron walked across the room and stepped out on a balcony overlooking the city. No one else heard it when God whispered 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.’”

Moses obeyed, and so did Aaron. The frogs came up out of everywhere and covered the land. But, wouldn’t you know, the magicians did the very same thing by their secret arts.

The frog-making question was settled, and it was a mess. There were frogs all over the place. They hopped out of soup kettles and salad bowls and bounced across lunch tables all over Egypt. They popped out from under the long togas of women who went screaming hysterically into the street, demanding that someone do something. Even in Ramses’ throne room, the soldiers and slaves couldn’t contain the frogs. Moses and Aaron walked out of the chaos without much notice from anyone because every free hand in the room was slapping at frogs. The court magicians had also tried to slink out when Pharaoh ordered the guards to stop them. The guards grabbed them by their collars and deposited them right back in front of Ramses.

“Now get rid of them,” Ramses seethed just as a really big jumper landed right on top of his bald head.

The nervous magicians waved their arms and spoke in Egyptian and then in gibberish, but nothing happened. If anything, there were more frogs than ever. The more the magicians cursed the frogs, the more there were, and the more aggressive they became. The one on Ramses’ head would not budge, even with all the slaves swatting at him. All at once, I knew what was happening.

I couldn’t help but be impressed all over again by the cleverness of God. He allowed the magicians to call the frogs in (which must have surprised them if the truth be known), but they couldn’t get rid of them. God set a hook, and the magicians swallowed it, worm and all. Ramses rose to his feet in anger, dumping a dozen or so frogs out of the folds of his robe as he moved toward the magicians and slapped the main wizard to the side.

“Where are they?” he roared.

Obviously, he meant Moses and Aaron, who were outside on the front porch, trying to decide what to do next. The guards didn’t have to be told to bring them back inside. Ramses stared at them, shook his head, then sat down on his throne and waved a hand of resignation at Moses.

“Tell God to take the frogs away from me and my people, and I will let your people go to offer sacrifices to Him.”

Moses was stunned. So was I. This wasn’t like Ramses to give up without a fight. Satan would be furious when he found out Moses and Aaron were about to leave town with the slaves in tow without any resistance at all.

Moses composed himself. “I leave to you the honor of setting the time for me to pray for you and your officials and your people, that you and your houses may be rid of the frogs, except for those that remain in the Nile.”

“Tomorrow,” Pharaoh waved his hand again, signaling their dismissal.

“It will be as you say so that you may know there is no one like our God. The frogs will leave; they will remain only in the Nile.”

Moses and Aaron walked out in silence, having no idea what had just happened.

The next day, just as he promised, Moses cried out to God about the frogs. God did what Moses asked, and the frogs died in the houses, the courtyards, and in the fields. They were piled into heaps, and, I tell you, the land reeked of them.

In fact, it was so bad, the smell drifted all the way to the second heaven, where even Satan held his nose at the stench. He heard the whole thing and had already dispatched one of the demons to stand beside Ramses while the frog killing was going on. When it looked like most of the frogs were gone, the demon spoke into Ramses’ ear.

“You can’t let them go. They’ve made a fool of you. The brick pits will be shut down if the Hebrews leave. Your own people will turn on you. They’re laughing at you right now for letting Moses pray in the presence of the great gods of Egypt. What were you thinking?”

Pharaoh listened to the demon, and when he saw that all the frogs were dead, he reneged on his promise to Moses and Aaron.

Now, this should have been the moment when Moses and Aaron stomped off in a huff after being lied to by Ramses. But they didn’t. They stood quietly as if waiting for something else to happen. Satan turned to me and jerked me up by one of my ears.

“What are they doing? Why don’t they leave? Did God give them any further orders?”

“No, no, not at all. I was there the whole time. He didn’t say anything else.”

I was frantically trying to remember if I’d left them alone at any time when God could have spoken to them and I missed something important. No, I was there the whole time. Well, except for the brief fit when I tried to commit suicide by flying into the wall. I might have blanked out there for a moment, but, no, I was sure that wasn’t it.

I found myself airborne again as Satan tossed me off the ledge of the second heaven with orders to get on the ground by Moses to find out what was about to happen. I arrived just in time to hear God speak. No one could hear Him except Moses, and me, of course.

“Tell Aaron, ‘Stretch out your staff, and strike the dust of the ground,’ and throughout the land of Egypt the dust will become gnats.”

“Gnats?” Moses asked.

“Gnats?” I echoed. Neither of us saw the wisdom in gnats. They were common in Egypt as it was. I couldn’t see Pharaoh being one bit impressed by gnats, and I knew Moses couldn’t see it either, but he didn’t question God.

Moses did as God said, and when Aaron stretched out his hand with the staff and struck the dust of the ground, a torrent of gnats came upon men and animals. All the dust throughout the land of Egypt became gnats. Did I ever miscall that one! You can’t imagine the catastrophe it was. Millions, make that billions, of flying, biting, miniscule gnats all over everything, everywhere, including me.

Pharaoh bellowed for the court magicians to come and clean up the mess. Any idiot would have known Pharaoh meant for them to get rid of the gnats, but at first they thought they were supposed to create more, which they couldn’t do. It was easy to see how a person might be confused. It didn’t matter anyway; they couldn’t create more, and they couldn’t get rid of the ones that were there. Men, women, cats, and dogs were swarmed over by Aaron’s gnats.

Miserable as it was walking around in a cloud of gnats, I found myself momentarily forgetting about them as I pondered what was going on. The magicians could not make gnats. Why not? How was it the magicians could produce frogs but not gnats? Basic biology proves that a leaping, croaking, multidimensional amphibian just has to be harder to conjure up than a gnat. Therefore, it could only mean one thing, which should have been obvious to me all along. The magicians never really
produced
any frogs either. For all the things we demons can destroy, we cannot create a single thing. God Himself had summoned the frogs when the magicians called for them. It was all part of His plan to make Pharaoh show his hand.

If you think the frogs might have been annoying, you should have been there for the gnats. Arms waving, everyone running for cover, the animals going crazy … there was no escape. Ramses himself grabbed the lead magician by the throat and ordered him to get rid of the gnats. The magician struggled to get free and gasped for breath.

“We can’t do it. This is the finger of God.”

Pharaoh threw him to the ground and set off in search of Moses and Aaron.

I flew back to Satan’s lair in time to hear him giving instructions to the demon he was dispatching to Ramses.

“Do not let Ramses give in to Moses. Kill him first.”

Then he turned to me. “What will God do next? What have you heard?”

“I, uh, haven’t actually heard anything.”

Satan threw a fireball at me. I ducked but knew there would be more and worse if I couldn’t come up with something.

“I can guess if you like, Your Horribleness. I’ve gotten pretty good at guessing what God will do next.”

I ducked the next fireball but remained ready to run at any moment.

“Then guess,” he snarled through his fangs.

“He will release another plague. No doubt about it. He will throw something new into the equation. It will be something to make Pharaoh look weak in the eyes of the people.”

“What would that be?”

“No idea, sir.”

“What good are you?” He threw another fireball at me as I dove for the floor. I didn’t have to be told to return to the earth to see what would happen next. I arrived just in time to hear God speaking to Moses.

“Get up early in the morning, and confront Pharaoh as he goes to the water. Say to him, ‘This is what the Lord says: “Let My people go so that they may worship Me. If you do not let them go, I will send swarms of flies on you and your officials, on your people and into your houses. The houses of the Egyptians will be full of flies.

“‘“But on that day, I will deal differently with the land of Goshen, where My people live; no swarms of flies will be there, so that you will know that I, the Lord, am in this land. I will make a distinction between My people and your people. This miraculous sign will occur tomorrow.”’”

If I had been Ramses, the gnats would have been the finisher for me. Let the people go with Moses. I would’ve given in while it was still an option. Make them promise to come back right after the weekend, but call for a time-out. I guess Ramses’ head must have hardened right along with his heart, because once again, he defied God.

So, God did it. Dense swarms of flies poured into Pharaoh’s palace and into the houses of his officials. Throughout Egypt, whatever the gnats missed before was completely ruined by the flies.

This time, it looked as if God’s plan was beginning to work. As soon as the word got out that there were no flies in Goshen where the Hebrews lived, mobs of people began to gather outside of Pharaoh’s court. The guards could barely keep them in line. The magicians, fearing a coup, pleaded with Ramses.

“The crowd is out of control. They’re going to overrun the palace unless you do something.”

“You do something,” Ramses roared back, pushing the chief magician aside and storming to the window to see for himself.

“Ramses, you must listen. It’s been fun, but the jig is up. Our hat tricks aren’t going to help.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Cry uncle. Here’s my hankie; wave it at them—just do something.”

Fearing the riots were at the boiling point and about to break out, Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron.

“Go! Sacrifice to your God, but stay here in this land.”

I thought Moses might take that deal, but he didn’t.

“No, that won’t work. The sacrifices we offer our God would be detestable to the Egyptians. If we offer sacrifices in the city, they’ll stone us. We must take a three-day journey into the desert to offer sacrifices to our God, as He commands us.”

Pharaoh sighed and slumped back on his throne. One of his advisers leaned over and whispered in his ear.

“He’s right. They cannot worship their God here.”

“Why not?” Pharaoh whispered back.

“What if their God proves superior to the gods of Egypt?

Then what are you going to do?”

The look on Ramses’ face showed he hadn’t thought about what might happen in a one-on-one between the gods of Egypt and the God of Moses.

“All right. I’ll let you go offer sacrifices to your God in the desert, but you must not go very far, and you must come back in three days like you said.”

Then Ramses ordered everybody out of the room except for Moses and Aaron. When the guards were gone, he turned to Moses and said, “Now pray for me.”

Moses never flinched, but I was dumbfounded at Pharaoh’s request. Not that I wouldn’t have done the exact same thing, in case there were to be a showdown between the gods. Either he was getting over himself, or he was hedging his bets.

“As soon as I leave you, I will pray, and tomorrow the flies will leave. Only be sure that you do not act deceitfully again by not letting the people go to offer sacrifices to God.”

Moses’s naïveté was more than I could stand. Even though he couldn’t see me, I waltzed right over and got in his face.

“Are you serious, Moses? How many times are you going through this before you catch a clue? Get over the sentimentality that this man was once your brother, if that’s what your problem is. You just agreed to pray for Pharaoh, who not only worships the gods of Egypt, but he also thinks he is one. He doesn’t honor our God—I mean, your God—and you know it. Don’t even think about asking God to cut him some slack. Do you think God could ever overlook the fact that Ramses sacrifices the Israelites to the gods of Egypt on a regular basis? If you want to go out on a limb and ask God to bend the rules for somebody, let me tell you my story.”

I dropped my wings in remorse and resignation to my fate as I watched Moses walk away. He left Pharaoh and prayed to God, and God did what Moses asked. The flies left.

Then, once again, Pharaoh hardened his heart and would not let the people go.