Festering Pharoah Series

Egypt thought it had already seen the worst of it.

The rivers had bled, the frogs had croaked, the flies had swarmed.

But pride is hard of hearing.

Pharaoh still stood tall, still folded his arms, still told God, “Not today.”

So God turned up the heat.

No thunder this time. No frogs hopping down the hallway.

Just a handful of soot.

Moses stood at the edge of Pharaoh’s furnaces — the same ones that had baked Israel’s bricks for generations.

He reached into the ashes, the waste of Egypt’s labor, and tossed it heavenward.

And the wind carried judgment on a breeze.

The soot settled like dust — first on the skin of the Egyptians, then on their livestock, then on their pride.

And the text says, “Boils broke out on man and beast.”

Boils.

Not the polite kind of sickness you can hide with perfume and a sleeve.

These were open sores, angry, red, blistered.

They didn’t just hurt — they humbled.

Pharaoh’s spotless court began to scratch.

Priests with their fine linen and oils suddenly looked like they’d rolled in gravel.

The magicians, the very men who had tried to copy Moses’ miracles, couldn’t even stand before him.

Their skin burned, their faces flinched, their power oozed away.

That’s what happens when pride refuses to bow:

God brings it to a boil.

When Pride Gets Under the Skin

Pride is a strange disease.

It starts deep, invisible. You feel fine. You tell yourself, “I’m in control.”

But given time, it rises to the surface.

It shows up in how you talk, how you treat people, how you pray — or don’t.

Pharaoh’s pride had been simmering since the Nile.

Every plague was a warning sign: a fever here, a cough there, a chance to repent.

But he ignored them all.

And now the infection surfaced.

The truth is, God could have sent a sword.

He could have dropped Pharaoh in his tracks.

But instead, He let Pharaoh feel his weakness.

The skin that once wore gold now wore boils.

The same hands that pointed and ordered slaves now trembled when they tried to scratch.

There’s mercy even in that kind of judgment.

God would rather bruise our skin than lose our soul.

Sometimes the only way He can reach the heart is through the nerves.

Ever been there?

Where God doesn’t just touch your circumstances — He touches you?

He lays a hand where you’ve been untouchable.

And suddenly the proud part of you blisters.

It’s not pleasant, but it’s holy.

Ashes in the Air

Those ashes weren’t random.

Egypt’s furnaces were the symbol of its power — the empire’s heartbeat.

Day after day, Hebrew slaves fed them straw and sweat.

The air smelled of clay and smoke, of empire and exhaustion.

When Moses lifted that soot, it wasn’t just ash — it was memory.

It was everything Egypt had done to God’s people rising back up against them.

The ashes of oppression became the dust of affliction.

That’s divine irony at its sharpest.

God doesn’t waste suffering; He recycles it.

What Pharaoh used to crush others became the very thing that crushed his pride.

Sometimes God does that with us.

He takes the furnace we built — the one fueled by our own ambition or anger — and lets its ashes float back around.

Not to shame us, but to show us what fire we’ve been standing too close to.

The Gods Go Silent

Egypt’s healers would’ve been ready with their ointments and charms.

They had gods for everything — even skin care.

Serapis for healing, Imhotep for medicine.

But this time, the pharmacy was closed.

You can almost picture the priests trying to mix balms with blistered hands, calling on their idols while scratching at the same time.

No answers. No relief.

The gods of Egypt had gone quiet — just wooden faces staring out from temples, watching their worshipers burn.

That’s what false gods do.

They promise healing, but they never touch the wound.

They promise strength, but they never bear the pain.

And eventually, they have to watch their believers suffer from the very disease they claimed to cure.

Pharaoh’s empire, polished and perfumed, was now festering.

And the smell wasn’t just in the air — it was in their pride.

Boils and Boundaries

What’s striking here is that God didn’t strike the Hebrews.

The soot blew over Goshen too, but it didn’t blister there.

Once again, the line was drawn — a line of grace.

That’s the pattern through all the plagues:

God exposes the false before He exalts the true.

He lets the world see the difference between what looks powerful and what actually is powerful.

Egypt’s power came from its furnaces — smoke, labor, heat.

God’s power came from a word.