Exodus 11:8

My Notes

What Does Exodus 11:8 Mean?

Moses has just announced the final plague — the death of every firstborn in Egypt — and tells Pharaoh that after it happens, Pharaoh's own servants will come begging Israel to leave. "Get thee out, and all the people that follow thee: and after that I will go out." The Hebrew acharei-khen etse — after that, I will leave. Moses isn't asking permission anymore. He's dictating terms. The negotiations are over.

"And he went out from Pharaoh in a great anger" — vayyetse me'im Par'oh b'chari-aph. The Hebrew chari-aph means heat of nostril — burning fury, the kind of anger that flares so hot it's felt in the face. Moses — the meekest man on earth (Numbers 12:3) — leaves the throne room blazing. The man who started this confrontation with "I can't speak" (4:10) ends it in white-hot rage.

Moses' anger is righteous and directed. He's not angry because he's losing. He's angry because Pharaoh's stubbornness will cost Egypt its children. The meekest man on earth burned when the most powerful man on earth chose pride over his own people's survival. Meekness isn't the absence of anger. It's the proper direction of it. Moses' fury was aimed at injustice, not at personal offense. That's the difference between holy anger and self-serving rage.

Reflection Questions

• 1.When was the last time you felt righteous anger — fury aimed at injustice rather than personal offense?
• 2.How do you distinguish between holy anger and self-serving rage in yourself?
• 3.Moses — the meekest man on earth — burned with fury. How does that change your understanding of what meekness actually is?
• 4.Where is someone in authority choosing their pride over the people they're responsible for — and does that make your nostrils burn?

Devotional

Moses left Pharaoh in a great anger. The meekest man on earth — the one who argued with God about his own inadequacy, who never asked for this job, who spent forty years herding sheep in obscurity — walked out of the most powerful man's palace with his nostrils burning. The negotiations were over. The patience had reached its limit. And the fury wasn't about himself. It was about what Pharaoh's pride was about to cost.

There's a kind of anger that's holy — the kind that rises when someone in power chooses their ego over the lives of the people they're responsible for. Moses wasn't offended. He was outraged. The distinction matters. Offended people want vindication. Outraged people want justice. Moses had just watched Pharaoh sentence his own nation's firstborn to death because his pride couldn't bend enough to say: you win, take your people. The heat of Moses' anger was proportional to the senselessness of the suffering Pharaoh was choosing.

If you've been told that anger is always sinful — that the spiritual person never burns, never raises their voice, never walks out of a room with heat in their nostrils — Moses disagrees. And so does Jesus, who made a whip and drove the moneychangers from the temple. The question about anger isn't whether you feel it. It's what it's aimed at. If your fury is self-protective — wounded ego, bruised pride, personal offense — it's self-serving rage. If your fury is other-directed — burning because someone in power is choosing their comfort over other people's survival — it might be the holiest thing you've felt all week.

Commentary

Trusted original commentary from respected historical Bible scholars and theologians.

Cross References

Related passages throughout Scripture