Josiah Concept Ministries

I work with an agnostic, though one with a surprisingly open mind. Though I have no idea if I can win his heart for God, I know that I must continue to try. The problem is that he is very learned, and a very smart agnostic. One of his hobbies is to read Scripture–not just the Bible, but also the Qur’an. He always has fascinating insights on both texts.

One interesting question that he asked me was if I believed in the gods of the ancient Egyptians. Of course I don’t. So then he asked me who allowed the sorcerers of ancient Egypt to duplicate the staff changing into a serpent or turning the waters of the Nile into blood. His contention is that God would never have allowed that, since His purpose was to free the Israelites.

His real intention with that question was to back me into a corner where I had to admit that the deities of Egypt were real, and thus were the supernatural agents behind the counterfeit miracles.

The beauty of the God I serve is that He does not share His power or glory with any other deities, and in His word, the Bible, He offers the answers to almost every objection that cannot be answered with simple common sense. Is it possible that God was, indeed, the supernatural agent behind both the sorcerers and Moses?

I propose that that is very possible. God said “. . . I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and though I multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, Pharaoh will not listen to you” (Ex 7:3-4). The hardening of a person’s heart by God does not occur against that person’s free will decision. Consider:

The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. [2 The 2:9-12, emphasis added]

Could this be an example of the powerful delusion that God will send those who do not believe the truth? In that case, it is perfectly acceptable to reason that God was the supernatural agent behind both the sorcerers and Moses.

Or, one could just as easily reason that Satan was the supernatural cause of the sorcerers’ “false signs and wonders,” since the Thessalonians passage clearly states that Satan is the driving force behind the deception it speaks of. Perhaps it was Satan who converted the staffs to serpents in the first place, but it was God who created in Pharaoh the delusion that Moses and Aaron were two-bit magicians, thus beginning the process of hardening Pharaoh’s heart (as promised).

There are, indeed, a multitude of ways to look at this without once considering that the deities of ancient Egypt ever played a role. The way I see it, however, is that there was nothing supernatural about what Pharaoh’s magicians did. Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown discuss in their commentary on Exodus here that snake charmers of ancient Egypt had a way of pressing on the nape of a snake’s neck that would cause the reptile a type of catalepsy. The staffs that they were carrying, then, were snakes all along. All they had to do was cast them to the ground and release the snakes from their imposed rigidity and let the snakes do the rest.

To the untrained observer, it would appear as though the staffs had miraculously become snakes.

However, remember that Aaron’s serpent ate the magicians’ serpents (Ex 7:12). This was a clear sign of the superiority of God over whatever was the source of power for the counterfeit sign: be it Satan or illusory sleight-of-hand.

DISCLAIMER: At the time of writing, I am unable to confirm the claim made in Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown’s commentary as the source is not cited. Independent assertions of the same nature cite that commentary. Nothing in any snake charming article I have consulted has provided evidence of the nape-of-the-neck trick.

Assuming that the aforementioned trick is not a trick at all, and illusory sleight-of-hand is not the true cause of the counterfeit sign, I could accept Satan as the cause. However, the text gives no indication of Satan as the cause. The text specifies that the magicians used their own tricks to duplicate the sign. That is why I reasoned that illusory sleight-of-hand was the cause.

I will continue to research this to see if I can find independent evidence of the nape-of-the-neck trick.