Lessons in the Ladder Days

Candace Long: I'm Candace Long with Lessons in the Latter Days, offering biblical commentary to make sense of the times that we're living in. In part six of the final week of the church age, I discuss the rest of the 10 plagues that I introduced in part five. Each plague was divinely appointed and ordered a certain way to show clearly that our Exodus to the rapture has begun.

Plague number four is the flies. The Lord told Moses to say to Pharaoh, "Send my people out so they may serve me. If you will not, I will send swarms of flies on you and your servants and your people, and the houses of the Egyptians shall be filled with them, and also the ground on which they stand."

The Hebrew word for a swarm of flies is spelled A-R-O-B, *arob*. The word means a swarm because of its incessant motion and swarming nature. In the natural, flies feed off of dead things. They're unclean; they contaminate.

Jasher writes that this plague consisted of every manner of aggressive wild beast, not just flies, but also fiery serpents, scorpions, mice, weasels, toads, hornets, fleas, bugs, gnats, and reptiles. All of these were divinely incited to attack the people.

According to my research, God sent a sea creature named Sulinuth into Egypt. Jasher wrote, "God ordered the Sulinuth, which was in the sea, to go up into Egypt. She had arms 15 feet long and went up on roofs and uncovered the raftering and flooring and reached into the houses to remove the lock and bolt."

The sages say the ground was filled with these wild beasts that nest underground. They stripped the trees, destroyed crops, and even snatched infants from their cradles. The Hebrew word *arob* is based on the same root as *arab*, which we pronounce as "Arab."

The word literally means to intermix or a mixed race. Now we are witnessing today a swarm of Arabs who left their underground nest of miles and miles of tunnels. One day on October 7th, 2023, the swarm swelled up with brazenness and pierced through the border of Israel and snatched Jews out of their homes.

Our southern border has seen a similar swarm. I have no doubt these beasts are building their own underground tunnels in our land, waiting for the signal to attack. Plague number five is the epidemic, also referred to as a pestilence or plague. We read in Exodus 9, "If you refuse to let them go, the hand of the Lord is upon your cattle which is in the field, upon the horses, donkeys, camels, oxen, and sheep, and there shall be a very grievous murrain."

Now the word "murrain" is a word that we don't use much in English, but in Hebrew, it means a destroying pestilence. The word "plague" means a highly infectious disease, usually fatal, caused by a bacteria transmitted by fleas and infected rodents. Jasher writes that nine out of ten of the livestock died in Egypt.

The animals developed a high fever, diarrhea, and ulcers in their mouths and noses. I want you to note number one, this plague follows the one before it since the bites of fleas and rodents—the wild beasts—would have easily caused its spread. Number two, the recent announcement of a $176 million deal that the U.S. government made with Moderna in July of 2024 to develop an mRNA vaccine for bird flu, the virus currently causing an outbreak in our dairy cows.

The report said the vaccine would not be ready until 2025. So my theory is that global leaders are possibly targeting a threat to our poultry and cattle industry in 2025 and creating another genetically engineered vaccine to further pollute both us and our livestock, rather than entrust our safety to the Lord alone.

Pharaoh still did not relent, so God sent plague number six, the boils. We read, "The Lord told Moses and Aaron, 'Take handfuls of ashes of the furnace and let Moses sprinkle it toward the heaven in Pharaoh's sight. It shall become small dust in all of the land of Egypt and shall be a boil breaking forth with blains upon man, beast, and throughout all the land.'"

I want you to note that this plague was the third in this set, so God gave no warning for it. It was sent to punish Pharaoh for not paying attention to the first two warnings. Commentators observe that by Moses throwing the ashes in the air, it showed that the boils were brought about miraculously, hitting both man and beast in "boils breaking forth into blains."

In the natural, boils are painful pus-filled bumps that come from bacterial infections of hair follicles. Jasher wrote that it caused so much itching that the flesh literally wasted away. Josephus recorded the boils were inside the body as well, manifesting as ulcers eating away at the insides.

Now, are we seeing evidence of this plague today? Consider the alarming rise in conditions related to external and internal boils, such as arthritis, Crohn's disease, autoimmune disease, cancer, and the one we see every day on TV, psoriasis—an autoimmune inflammatory disorder from the overproduction of skin cells resulting in an itchy and painful skin condition.

God created the hair and skin as external border protection, if you will, for our bodies. But in this plague, the skin changed to what's called "blains," which are inflammatory pustules. The skin was literally on fire. Now, Big Pharma is making a killing off of this one. The global psoriasis treatment market size alone was valued at $25.5 billion in 2023 and projected to more than double by 2032, affecting an estimated 2 to 3% of the world population.

Their research admits that the pandemic helped grow their market with a notable increase in 2020. And it shows a link between COVID and psoriasis. Here's how much they are spending in ad dollars on their top three money makers: Rinvoq at $316 million, Dupixent at $306 million, and Skyrizi at $174 million.

Now, what this should tell us is that plague six, the boils, was part of the aftermath stemming from plague number one, the polluting blood. Before we move to the final set of plagues, remember what God's reason was for this set: He wanted to make a distinction between His people and the rest of the world. He wanted others to see the difference in Goshen.

Plague number seven is the hail. In Exodus 9, "For I will at this time send all my plagues upon your heart, your servants, and your people, that you may know there is none like me in all the earth." Now, when God says "I'm sending all my plagues," it means that this one was the most severe because the early ripe fruits had come in. So the hail destroyed crops that were fully grown.

This hit at the heart of their food supply, and this one got Pharaoh's attention. The fact that God warned him is an example of His mercy, always waiting for people to repent and avoid further discipline. A Google search reported the number of hail claims increased by almost 45,000 between 2021 and 2022.

Overall, crop losses due to severe weather exceeded $21 billion in 2023, and hail, which alone causes $1.3 billion worth of crop damage annually. I anticipate we will see more judgment which threatens our food supply. This one is sure to come if our country continues its godless course and refuses to humble ourselves before God and repent.

Plague number eight, the locusts. In Exodus 10, here's an abbreviated version of what Pharaoh was told: "If you refuse to let my people go, tomorrow I will bring the locusts into your coast and they shall cover the face of the earth and eat the residue of that which remains from the hail and fill your houses."

The sages say that this plague is an example of *midah keneged midah*, which means measurement for measurement. This is the Almighty's preferred method of judgment whereby the punishment is equal to the offense. Now, since the Egyptians forced their Jewish slaves to grow crops, the locusts devoured them.

This type of grasshopper is usually solitary, but when they come together in a mass, they get all stirred up, eat more, reproduce faster, and become a swarm. Scripture says, "They ate every herb of the land and all the fruit of the trees which the hail had left. There remained not any green thing."

13th-century Rabbi Nachmanides wrote that the hail fell in the month of Adar, the last month on the Hebrew calendar when the flax and barley are fully grown. He believed that the last three plagues—locusts, darkness, and death of the firstborn—took place in quick succession in the month of Nissan before the Exodus occurred on the 15th.

Now, because the invasion in Egypt took place the month before the Exodus, I suspect we may experience this plague in 2026 right before the rapture, either literally or figuratively. Metaphorically, the word swarm is defined as a large number of things grouped together and moving quickly, destroying resources in its wake. This plague could represent swarms of immigrants crossing the border and destroying our food supply.

Plague number nine is the darkness. As the last of this set of plagues, God brought darkness on the entire land with no warning. In Exodus 10, we read, "And the Lord said to Moses, 'Stretch out your hand toward heaven that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, a darkness to be felt.' And there was a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt three days. They did not see one another, nor did any rise from his place for three days. But all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings."

The Hebrew word for darkness is *choshech*, which means misery, death, sorrow, and destruction. Our passage mentions two levels: one is called darkness, the other thick darkness. The prophet Joel tells us in chapter 2, "The day of the Lord is coming, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness."

According to the Midrash, this plague lasted seven days with two degrees of darkness, each lasting three days, ending with thick darkness on the seventh day when God parted the sea. It was so thick that Pharaoh's army could not see to attack the Jews. So let's follow the body and look for confirmation. What was Jesus doing at the very end of his last seven days?

Here's how Rabbi Michael Washer describes the scene in his book, *When All the Pictures Are Restored*: "The lamb for the nation was bound to the temple altar at 9:00 AM, at the same time that Jesus was nailed to the cross. He suffered for three hours until noon while darkness began to cover the earth. Then everything went black from noon until three."

"Each person who brought sacrifices were in total darkness. At 3:00 PM, the high priest took the lamb and turned its face toward the temple. He killed it and announced 'It is finished' at the exact time that Jesus took his last breath and spoke 'It is finished.'" Three days of darkness in Egypt; three hours of darkness enveloping Messiah as he was dying.

In like manner, I suspect that at the end of our final moments on earth, we too will be shielded by thick darkness when the Lord calls us up in the clouds. And plague number 10, the death of the firstborn. This final plague stood apart from all the others because this was the one that loosened Pharaoh's death grip on Israel.

Here's an abbreviation of Exodus 11: "The Lord said to Moses, 'Yet one plague more I will bring upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt. Afterwards, he will drive you away completely. About midnight, I will go forth in the midst of Egypt and all the firstborn in the land shall die, and there shall be a great cry such as never been nor ever shall be again.'"

Now, to understand the meaning of this plague today, we have to look at what the words of the plague mean. On the surface, we know that the word "death" means to cease to exist. So let's concentrate on the word "firstborn." In Hebrew, the word is *bechor*, which is the first offspring that bursts through a mother's womb.

During this plague, God singled out the firstborn of Egypt to cease to exist. But what does the word mean for us? What does it mean to God? Here are three references to the word in Scripture that are relevant to us. Number one, in Exodus 4, the Lord tells Pharaoh, "Israel is my firstborn son. Send him out that he may serve me."

Israel is God's firstborn son, called to be a nation of priests with God dwelling in her midst. Now this birthright required them to bear the yoke of heaven and die to living like the rest of the world. Number two, the second insight is found in Numbers 3: "I have taken the Levites from among the people of Israel instead of every firstborn. The Levites shall be mine."

The tribe of the Levites redeemed the firstborn from being priests to their respective families. They lived closest to God's presence, and a large portion of the Torah was dedicated to their training and consecration. This birthright cost them too. They died to receiving an inheritance in the kingdom like the rest of the tribes, for the Lord was their inheritance.

And the final insight is in Colossians 1, where Jesus is referred to as "the firstborn of all creation," and in John 1 and 3, he is called "the only begotten of the Father" and "his only begotten son." So we have three firstborns here. Let's follow the body in Jesus' last days to learn more about them and what did it mean for them to die.

First is the nation of Israel, God's firstborn son, who had fallen away in Jesus' day. Spiritual blindness kept them from recognizing Messiah on the day of visitation. As a result, the nation was complicit in sentencing Jesus to die. Now, by application, consider the godlessness in many of our churches today. The majority of Israel then and the church now is spiritually dead.

The second one is Jesus during his last working day to prepare his followers for his death. Jewish scholar Dr. Alfred Edersheim in his 19th-century classic, *The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah*, wrote this about Jesus' last discourse on earth: "Jesus spoke of the meaning of his impending death. This was the parable of the seed having to die to itself to produce more."

"The Jews who heard it understood that his words referred to his removal from earth. Since this was a common Jewish expression, they understood Jesus to imply that he would be taken from earth." What I want you to see is that this death was going to be unusual. His physical body was going to be miraculously removed from the earth. This is the metaphorical meaning of the word death.

And the final group is the disciples, his Levites, those who gave up everything to follow him. He prayed for them during their intimate time together at the Seder, saying, "Father, I desire that those you have given me may be with me where I am, to behold my glory." Now, before closing, I want to leave you with three concluding thoughts for your consideration.

Number one, notice how few this last group was. At one time, Jesus had 5,000 followers, and at the end, only 11 remained, since Judas had been turned over to Satan. Now, most of the other followers were busy trying to overthrow the Roman government. This sounds very much like today.

Number two, Jasher wrote that when the final plague struck Egypt, there was a corpse in every house. Every home was traumatized. He wrote, "The likenesses of the firstborn carved in the walls were destroyed and fell to the ground. Even their bones, if they had died, were raked up by dogs and dragged before the Egyptians."

What this means is that God removed every trace of the firstborn from the earth in Egypt. One minute they were there; the next minute they were gone. And this is how it will be during the rapture. Every home will be impacted by our disappearance, and a great cry will be heard throughout the earth.

Jesus had said, "I'm going to prepare a place for you and will come again and take you to myself, that where I am, you may be also." But who is it exactly that's going to vanish from the face of the earth? The answer is the firstborn. But which one? The final thought for you to ponder is that there are two metaphorical interpretations for the expression "death of the firstborn," and I tend to think that we will experience both of them.

First, we will do what the disciples did during Jesus' final hours: we will witness the death of the body of Christ, literally and figuratively. And second, we will be miraculously removed from the earth at the rapture. In closing, what I want you to see is that the Exodus was God's ten-step process that Israel, His firstborn, had to go through because their appointed time for training and consecration was about to begin.

The very same thing is true for us today. The time for our departure is at hand, and that's why these ten plagues are so important. God recorded them in the Torah, told us to rehearse them every year to be signs for us to know where we are in our journey home. I want to thank you for being with me today.

To share this episode with others, go to candacelong.com/podcast and look for "The Final Week of the Church Age Part 6: Plagues 4 through 10." I hope you join me next time for Lessons in the Latter Days. God bless.