There are moments when life hums instead of shouts.
You can’t see the problem, but you can feel it—the buzz in your ear, the sting on your skin, the constant irritation that keeps you awake at night.
That’s what chaos sounds like when it’s close.
It doesn’t roar like a lion; it drones like a mosquito at two a.m.
Egypt was living in that hum.
They’d heard God’s call through Moses—Let My people go—and they swatted it away like a nuisance.
They’d watched the Nile turn red and the frogs hop through their beds, and still they said, “We can handle this.”
But you can’t negotiate with God.
You can harden your heart, but you c
So the next plague came quietly.
No trumpet blast, no thundercloud, no warning.
Aaron simply struck the dust, and the dust came alive.
Scripture says, “All the dust of the earth became gnats.”
The Hebrew word is kinnim—tiny biting things.
Scholars argue whether they were gnats, fleas, or sand flies.
I’ll tell you what they were—lice.
The dust of Egypt turned into lice.
The same dust Pharaoh’s priests used for purification now crawled up their sleeves.
Men who prided themselves on cleanliness were scratching like alley dogs.
Every collar, every robe, every fold of skin alive with crawling defilement.
You didn’t need a translation for that plague—you just needed fingernails.
And for the first time, the magicians stopped pretending.
They looked at Pharaoh and said, “This is the finger of God.”
Not the hand—just the finger.
One flick from heaven, and the empire started itching.
That’s the Lord of the Flies in action:
when corruption festers long enough, God lets it crawl.
When pride piles up, He stirs the dust until it moves.
Sin has a smell, and heaven won’t perfume it forever.
Picture it: the most polished palace on earth reduced to scratching.
Perfume merchants running out of oil.
Priests shaving twice a day just to feel clean.
Children crying. Servants shaking out their bedding.
The whole nation covered in the very dust they once worshiped.
And when the itching finally slowed, the buzzing began.
The next plague wasn’t small—it was swarms.
The Hebrew word arov means “a mixture.”
Not one species, but everything that could bite, sting, or buzz.
It wasn’t a few houseflies on a picnic; it was a living cloud.
Biting flies, dog flies, stable flies—anything that feeds on rot.
The kind that land on your eyelids and don’t care if you’re Pharaoh or a farmer.
You can almost hear the royal court slapping the air, servants waving fans over the throne, guards trying to breathe through veils.
But there’s no swatting off a judgment from God.
Then God said something new:
“I will set apart the land of Goshen, where My people dwell, so that no swarms shall be there; that you may know that I am the Lord in the midst of the earth.”
This was a first.
Up until now, Israel suffered alongside Egypt—the blood, the frogs, the stink.
But now God draws a line.
Judgment falls—but not everywhere.
Chaos is real—but not universal.
God says, “My people will know My covering.”
When corruption crawls, God draws a boundary.
When darkness spreads, He carves out light.
He doesn’t remove His people from the battlefield; He marks them in it.
Psalm 91 says, “A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it shall not come near you.”
That isn’t comfort language; that’s covenant language.
It’s not about being lucky—it’s about being His.
A Modern Goshen
I remember the blackout that swept Southern California a few summers back.
Whole cities went dark. Traffic lights out, grocery stores closed, freezers thawing.
Yet one little neighborhood, tucked behind a ridge, never lost power.
People came from miles away just to charge phones, fill water bottles, and breathe in a little cool air from somebody else’s working fan.
That’s Goshen.
A patch of light in a land gone dark.
Not because its wiring was better—but because its connection was.
God never promised His people they’d skip the storm; He promised they’d shine through it.
The covering of God doesn’t mean you won’t feel the wind; it means the wind won’t own you.
The lice may crawl, the flies may swarm, but the blood still marks your door.
If you belong to Him, you’re not forgotten in the plague—you’re distinguished in it.
Egypt’s Gods
Let’s talk about the competition.
Egypt didn’t have a shortage of gods; it had a shortage of sense.
They worshiped the Nile—Hapi—as the giver of life.
They bowed to Heqet, the frog goddess of fertility.
They burned incense to Khepri, the scarab beetle—the “great god of the rising sun.”
Khepri was the celebrity god of Egypt.
The priests painted him everywhere—a beetle pushing a golden disk across the sky.
They said he represented the sun being reborn each morning.
Sounds poetic until you realize what it really was: a beetle pushing a ball of dung.
That was their picture of heaven.
“Egypt’s big god was Khepri—the scarab beetle. The story went that he pushed the sun, a great ball of glory, across the sky every day. The truth? It was a beetle pushing a ball of cow dung. The trick, of course, was not to pray for rain when the ball of dung was at high noon.”
“The tragedy wasn’t that they worshiped bugs; it was that they settled for filth when the Creator offered beauty. They built temples to dung while the heavens declared the glory of God.”
That line always lands, but don’t stop there—turn the corner.
Even the word insect means “cut apart.”
That’s what sin does—it slices what God made whole.
It takes beauty and fragments it.
It takes worship and divides it.
It makes the glorious crawl instead of soar.
Egypt worshiped what crawled; God called His people to what was whole.
And that’s the contrast we’re meant to feel.
The same dust that crawled in Egypt once formed a man in Eden.
When God shapes dust, it carries breath.
When pride stirs dust, it carries lice.
Goshen Then, Goshen Now
Maybe this week you’ve felt surrounded by flies—little irritations, endless noise, problems that keep landing on your plate.
And maybe you’ve been tempted to think God forgot which side of the line you’re on.
He hasn’t.
Sometimes God doesn’t clear the air; He claims a corner.
He says, “Right here, in this house, among this people, there will be peace.”
It’s not a bubble—it’s a boundary.
He doesn’t promise Egypt will quiet down tomorrow, but He promises Goshen will glow tonight.
When your world hums with worry, remember whose covering you’re under.
You are not the fly—you’re the field.
And the Lord of creation still guards what is His.
Beauty or Decay
The same dust that crawled in Egypt once formed a man in Eden.
When God shapes dust, it carries breath.
When pride stirs dust, it carries lice.
That’s the contrast: God’s creation versus man’s corruption.
Wherever God’s Spirit moves, there’s order—light from darkness, land from sea, life from dust.
Wherever sin reigns, there’s disorder—the light fades, the ground cracks, and even the dust rebels.
Egypt’s gods were distortions of beauty—half-animal, half-human, neither alive nor dead.
They were the world’s first comic-book heroes, except they couldn’t save anyone.
They promised fertility but bred frogs.
They promised life but bred lice.
They promised rebirth but rolled dung.
When you worship creation instead of the Creator, creation turns on you.
Romans 1 says they “exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images.”
And that exchange always costs more than you think.
You lose awe and get anxiety.
You lose beauty and get bugs.
The Beauty of Order
In Genesis 1, everything God does is both artistic and deliberate.
He separates, gathers, names, blesses.
By the end of the week, the world hums in harmony—like a symphony tuned and ready.
And God steps back and says, “It is very good.”
“Good” there doesn’t mean “acceptable.”
It means beautiful, balanced, whole.
That’s what God intended creation to be: a reflection of His nature—majestic, not messy.
But sin fractures that.
The ordered becomes divided, the good becomes corrupted, and what was meant to sing begins to swarm.
Every plague in Egypt was a reversal of creation.
Where God once said, “Let there be light,” Egypt sat in darkness.
Where God separated water and land, the Nile overflowed and stank.
Where God filled the skies with birds, Egypt’s air was filled with flies.
God was showing Pharaoh that He alone controls creation.
He was also showing Israel that the God who can send flies can also shield from them.
That’s the same truth you and I need when the world starts buzzing.
You don’t have to master the chaos; you just have to stay covered.
Covered, Not Comfortable
The people in Goshen didn’t get an air-conditioned dome.
They still smelled Egypt’s decay drifting over the fields.
But the swarm stopped at the border.
That’s how God works.
He doesn’t promise absence of trouble; He promises presence in trouble.
He marks boundaries with grace.
He says, “You’re Mine. Chaos stops here.”
Have you noticed that God’s protection usually shows up at the same place as your irritation?
You pray for the storm to stop; He gives you peace while it storms.
You want the flies gone; He gives you rest in Goshen.
That’s how faith grows—not by escaping Egypt, but by enduring Egypt without becoming Egyptian.
When the Finger Points
The magicians were right: “This is the finger of God.”
Jesus used that phrase again in Luke 11:20:
“If I cast out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.”
The same power that flicked dust into lice flicks evil out of lives.
In Egypt, that finger judged.
In Jesus, that finger heals.
The Lord of the Flies met the Lord of Glory in that moment.
Every demon, every false god, every buzz of darkness trembled when Jesus lifted a finger.
Beelzebub—“lord of the flies”—was exposed as an imposter.
The true Lord doesn’t swarm; He saves.
Battle Plan for Purity
So what do we do when life starts crawling again?
When sin creeps back, or bitterness breeds, or worry swarms?
Here’s the battle plan straight from the story:
Stay in Goshen — Don’t wander out looking for Egyptian comfort.
God’s protection works inside His boundaries.
Holiness isn’t a cage; it’s bug spray for the soul.
Keep the dust clean — What you let settle in your heart eventually moves.
Sweep it daily with prayer, confession, and gratitude.
Dust ignored becomes lice invited.
Remember whose finger wins — You don’t fight the swarm with your own hands.
The same God who drew the line in Egypt can draw one around your home, your mind, your peace.
Look for beauty — Every time sin crawls, look for what God is restoring.
The answer to filth is not denial but creation.
Make something good. Speak something kind. Plant something living.
Worship the Creator, not the crawl — Don’t spend your days swatting what God has already judged.
Lift your eyes from the insects to the heavens and say, “Lord, You are beautiful.”
The Beauty That Remains
Imagine the silence in Goshen that night.
No buzz, no hum, no stench—just quiet.
Children slept without scratching.
Parents whispered thanks.
Even the animals rested.
Meanwhile, across the border, Egypt groaned.
That’s what it looks like when God draws a line.
Peace on one side. Restlessness on the other.
Not because one was better, but because one belonged.
That’s still the story of grace.
We don’t earn the covering; we live under it.
The cross is our Goshen—the blood-marked boundary where chaos can’t cross.
You don’t have to swat the devil; you just have to stay behind the line.
Closing Reflection
You can almost hear God whisper through the story:
“You’ve spent enough time scratching what I can heal.
Come under My covering. Let Me fight the flies.”
Because the truth is, the world still worships the beetle.
Still rolls its own little ball of glory and calls it heaven.
But we’ve seen something better—
the risen Son, not the rolling dung.
So lift your eyes.
Don’t pray for rain at high noon; pray for light at dawn.
The Lord who conquered Pharaoh still reigns.
Let Him fight your battles—
and let the buzzing stop.
