Frogs

I can't leave the Pharoah yet. In an interesting twist of fate, I read most of the Exodus chapters this morning where the plagues came, some comical, like the frogs, some dreadful, like all the Egyptian animals dying.
Isn't it interesting how many animals are in the Bible? Sure, it was written in agricultural ages, but still. Often the animals are enumerated, as when they made sacrifices. Animal breeding is discussed. Some animals are clean and some not.
Well, that was an aside. When Egyptian magicians equaled the first demonstrations, Pharoah scorned Moses' God-given power. That's part of hard-heartedness, is it not? Scorn for things that may seem common--the people we take for granted--things that are actually gifts straight from the hand of God. We sneer inwardly that such things can be found on any street corner, never thinking that the very street corner, the very air, the very eyes to see with are given deliberately by God, with love. When I disdain, I'm bypassing the opportunity to love.
Speaking of frogs, that whole sequence is pretty fascinating. First, they are overrun with God's frogs. Frogs everywhere, in the bedrooms and the kitchens. But then the Egyptian magicians made frogs too. That doesn't seem a very useful thing to do. And where did all the extra frogs go, since everything was already covered with frogs? So then, and I hadn't noticed this before, Moses gives Pharoah the "honor" of saying when the frogs will be gone. But when they go, they don't hop away, or disappear--no, they die. They die, and their nasty little bodies pile up everywhere. That must have been worse than the plague of the live frogs.