Yahweh deals a crushing defeat to the most powerful totalitarian government of the day. Not only does He defeat Pharaoh and his army, but He invokes all the forces of nature to bring plagues on the Egyptians and to deliver his own people. He defeats Egypt and its gods (Ex 12:12), thus showing himself to be Lord of heaven and earth.
We see the sovereignty of God in showing his purposeful discrimination in natural events. In Exodus 9:13-26, he brings a terrible hailstorm upon the Egyptians, but leaves one area untouched, the land of Goshen, where the Israelites lived. God gives rain to one and withholds it to another (Amos 4:7). He sends prosperity and he sends famine.
Thus, the natural world is intensely personalistic. Natural events come from God, the personal Lord. The idea that there is some impersonal mechanism called 'nature' or 'natural law' that governs the universe is absent from the bible. So is the notion of ultimate 'randomness'. Behind gravity, electricity, rain, hail, even apparent randomness of events, stands the personal God, who controls all things by his powerful word.
Needless to say, the hearts of man, even if he is a king, is still under God's control (Prov 21:1) as it is with Pharaoh (Ex 9:16).
Praise our Lord who controls the entire course of nature and history for His own glory and to accomplish His own purposes.
He controls the entire course of nature and history for his own glory and to accomplish his own purposes.
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