See how God marshals all His forces to free His people; even lice can argue the case for Him!
The frogs that covered Egypt’s landscape did not go gentle into that good night. “They gathered them together in heaps, and the land stank” (Ex 8:14). Now, without warning, without a gentlemanly visit of Moses to Pharaoh, “The Lord said to Moses, ‘Say to Aaron, “Stretch out your rod, and strike the dust of the land, so that it may become lice throughout all the land of Egypt”’” (v 16). God is picking up the pace. Now Geb was the pagan god whose realm was the dust of the earth; he was also considered the father of snakes. You recall the words of God to Satan, “On your belly you shall go, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life” (Gen 3:14), so you see the connection. Imagine worshiping a deity of dust! When you turn from the true God, eventually you’ll worship anything. So says Romans 1, “Although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things” (vv 21-23). There it is for you; the descent of man from God’s glory to creepy crawlers. But this plague, enough to make us itch just thinking about all those lice, is a pivot point in the saga. Here’s what we read: “The magicians so worked with their enchantments to bring forth lice, but they could not.…Then the magicians said to Pharaoh, ‘This is the finger of God’” (Ex 8:18-19). They had reached their black magic limit. Now this is what is called critical evidence—not Moses and Aaron saying, This is the true God, but Pharaoh’s own magicians! “But Pharaoh’s heart grew hard, and he did not heed them” (v 15).