Estimated reading time: about 16-18 minutes
Exodus 8:17 They did it. Aharon held out his staff, struck the dust of the ground, and there were lice on man and animal alike. All the dust of the land became lice throughout all Egypt. 18 The magicians tried with their secret arts to produce lice, but they couldn’t. There were lice on people and animals.
This has got to be embarrassing. How in the world can you not produce lice? Anyone, and I mean anyone, can head on down to their local elementary school and find all of the lice they could ever need. You don’t need to be a magician to pull that out of thin air, just ask any 1st-grade teacher.
And what gives with everyone getting all bent out of shape by having lice anyway. Everybody loves lice, right? It gets you out of school for at least a week, which means sitting at home watching TV and eating junk food. Yeah, sure you have to have to use that weird shampoo and have your hair combed out by that tiny brush but the trade is totally worth it.
Of course, the point of this plague was not to get kids out of school to sit home and wait for Donahue to end so they could watch Inspector Gadget while sipping on some delicious Tang. No, something far deeper was going on here. But what could that be?
Well, in order to understand the outcome, we must first inspect the source.
It was no accident that it was dust that became these biting bugs.
Now, scientifically, dust is made of tiny solid particles suspended in the air or resting on surfaces. Indoors, it’s usually a mix of skin cells, fabric fibers, soil, pollen, hair, and microscopic debris. Outdoors, it often comes from soil erosion, wind-blown sand, volcanic ash, smoke, or pollution. How do you possibly get lice from any of these? None are really representative of life and, in fact, it’s more the opposite. These are things that typically come from decay or tiny specks of dirt. It’s almost like that’s part of the point.
Biblically, dust plays a very important role in who we are and who will come after us. It was from dust that man was created. Abraham’s descendants were numbered with the dust. The serpent was cursed with consuming dust all the days of its life. Jeremiah said that those who forsake YHVH are “written in the dust,” destined to pass away. And here we have dust turning back onto man in an intrusive and uncomfortable way.
What is it that brings dust into the conversation while discussing man living, descendants following, and enemies eating? Simply speaking, it is the Spirit of God.
Without God’s Spirit, we are nothing more than dust. That’s how we began, and that’s where we end without Him. We may raise families, build careers, and even leave behind a lineage, but that is no guarantee our children will rise above the dust either. Each generation must choose whether they will receive the breath of God or remain lifeless. Dust is our default condition, and apart from His Spirit, all our striving only returns us to the ground.
It is interesting to note that the serpent was cursed with eating dust all the days of his life. That curse reaches so much farther than the snake in the garden -- it marks Satan’s destiny of consuming lifelessness. If I refuse the Spirit of God, then I and my offspring become his food. Without God’s breath, I remain dust, and my line remains dust, vulnerable to be devoured. The Adversary feeds on emptiness, and to reject the Spirit is to offer myself and those who follow after me to be swallowed by his curse.
Dust, then, is the pivot point between life and death. In God’s hands, dust becomes a living soul. In Satan’s jaws, dust becomes food for destruction. Everything depends on whether that dust has received the Breath of Life. A vessel filled with His Spirit will never die, because the life within is not its own, but it is sustained by the Eternal breath of God. Dust filled with Abba is immortal; dust without Him remains empty, subject to decay and consumption.
When Yeshua stooped to write in the dust in John 8, He was repeating the Creator’s first act in Eden -- His hand once more pressed into dust. But this time it was not to form Adam, nor to condemn like the serpent, nor to plague like in Egypt, but to redeem. Jeremiah 17:13 says those who forsake YHVH are “written in the dust,” destined to pass away. Yet when Yeshua touched the ground, He turned the place of judgment into the place of mercy. Whether it was judgment, a curse, the adultress’s name, or the names of the accusers, one thing we know for sure is that it did not stand the test of time. Instead, it was quickly erased by the wind, by the Ruach, by the Spirit.
Dust on its own is fickle. So much so that the very thing that makes us who we are can be turned into an agitating and annoying reality. It’s been said that the thing that frustrates you the most is the thing you do. Oh, how true this is. Those areas of our lives where we refuse to grant access to His Spirit seem to dominate the annoyances in our lives. We love to accuse and project this problem onto others but that is just a tool of self-justification.
But remember, dust without Abba’s Spirit is food for the accuser. You just need to be careful not to feast upon it.
Here in Egypt, the very thing that should come together to form man has now come together to torment him. The tiniest of specks has the ability to wreak sheer and utter havoc upon an entire nation. And it does so by being nearly undetectable.
The third plague in Exodus is described differently depending on the translation because the underlying Hebrew word כִּנִּים (kinnim) is uncertain. What is known is that it is rooted in a word that can mean “small biting insect”. Ancient translators and scholars debated whether this was lice, gnats, fleas, or mosquitoes. For example,
No matter the exact translation, one thing is for certain: creepy, tingly biting bugs were all over you, swarming in your face and ears, embedding themselves into your hair, and chewing up your arms and legs. No relaxing and watching TV with all of this going on, huh? Donahue may as well run all day long because the last thing you can do is relax.
Whether it was lice, gnats or mosquitos, this plague represents comfort being stripped away and human control being shattered. Small creatures, normally insignificant, became unbearable. Abba’s mighty power was on full display and it was shown through the tiniest of creation. Amazing.
What’s interesting to note is that while the magicians could keep pace for a bit, this one proved to be beyond the reach of the Adversary’s power. And while we’re on this topic, let’s take a moment and see what role these hired charlatans possessed.
Pharaoh’s magicians are a fascinating part of the Exodus story because they show the limits of counterfeit power. At first, they seemed to keep pace with Moses and Aharon. They could throw down staffs that became serpents, turn water into blood, and summon frogs from the Nile. But one crucial detail stands out: they could only add to the problem, never undo it. They multiplied the destruction, but they could not in any way bring relief.
This is a vital spiritual principle and we can use it as an evidence-based tool to help us not be deceived in the coming days. The principle is this: Healing always involves reversal into the intended state, restoring what was broken back to wholeness. Healing is not to make you who you were never meant to be.
Now if the magicians had the ability to perform miracles, from where did they get this power? If you saw someone do something like this with your own eyes, how are you supposed to tell the difference between a legitimate miracle vs a counterfeit one? Easy, legitimate ones bring life whereas the false ones simply mesmerize. And that is exactly the warning Yeshua gives us. He warned us to watch for the false and counterfeit version of miracles:
Matthew 24:24 "For there will appear false Messiahs and false prophets performing great miracles — amazing things! — so as to fool even the chosen, if possible."
And Paul reiterates this exact point:
2 Thessalonians 2:9 The man who avoids Torah [the man of lawlessness] will appear and do the work of the Adversary with all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders. 10 He will enable him to deceive in all kinds of wicked ways those who are headed for destruction, because they would not receive the love of the truth that could have saved them.
This is real power and it is in the hands of men. It’s the Adversary that enables man to offer up counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders. And while micro-versions of this deception lives around every corner, one day it will be put on a global display:
Revelation 13:13 It [the beast from the earth, often called the false prophet] performs great miracles, even causing fire to come down from heaven onto the earth as people watch. 14 It deceives the people living on earth by the miracles it is allowed to perform in the presence of the beast.
This shows how far the deception will go -- even imitating God’s signs. The false prophet will use miracles to lead people into worship of the beast.
But true miracles don’t just impress; they bring life and restoration. The magicians, operating through the power of the Adversary, could corrupt and destroy but never heal or renew. That power can imitate, but it cannot create or restore.
By the third plague, their abilities failed entirely. When Moses struck the dust and it became a biting bug, the magicians tried and failed, confessing, “This is the finger of God!” Their admission revealed what the plagues were intent on exposing: Pharaoh’s gods, Egypt’s powers, and Satan’s counterfeits could not bring life. Only YHVH, the covenant-keeping God, could heal, restore, and redeem His people.
This same lesson not only existed in ancient Egypt, and it isn’t just reserved for the End of Days, it still lives among us here today. The enemy can offer imitations that captivate for a time -- wealth, power, pleasure, self-reliance -- but these always break down and bring decay. Only Abba can reverse corruption and restore creation to its intended design.
Pharaoh’s magicians remind us that destructive power is never the same as healing authority -- and only YHVH has the latter.
Our world still presents “magicians” that appear to keep pace with God’s truth. Technology, politics, medicine, wealth, and even entertainment can mimic solutions for a time. They offer quick fixes and dazzling displays that seem to rival the promises of God. But just like Pharaoh’s magicians, these counterfeits can only add to the problem, never undo it. They multiply anxiety, dependency, and distraction but cannot heal the deeper human need for redemption and peace.
Consider technology: it promises connection, yet many are lonelier than ever. Politics pledges justice and prosperity, yet corruption and division multiply. Medicine can extend life (with a few side-effects, perhaps), but it cannot restore the Eternal life that only comes from Yeshua. Money promises security, yet often fuels endless striving and fear. These are Pharaoh’s magicians in modern dress -- able to impress, but powerless to reverse the curse.
The Adversary’s power is always destructive, never restorative. Healing belongs only to God, because healing is the act of returning creation to its intended state. Just as Aharon’s staff swallowed the serpents of Egypt, so too Yeshua swallows up death and every counterfeit power through His resurrection. The false magicians of our age may dazzle briefly, but they cannot give life. Only the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, revealed in Yeshua, has authority to restore, redeem, and heal.
In addition to Pharaoh’s Magicians having skills, it seems they also had some common sense too -- oh, and a tad of spiritual awareness. Although they were non-specific in their addressing of the source of the power ( אֶצְבַּע אֱלֹהִים - etsba elohim, literally “finger of God”, not “finger of YHVH”), they did recognize the God they were dealing with punched at a heavier weight than they were conditioned for.
So which god got beat? (Kind of feels like the old Mike Tyson’s Punchout game, doesn’t it? Gotta keep going through the ranks before you meet the ultimate opponent, right?)
Geb was the Egyptian god of the earth, often depicted lying beneath the sky goddess Nut. The land itself -- soil, dust, crops, and fertility -- was believed to be under his control. Egyptians credited Geb with sustaining agriculture, providing stability, and even controlling earthquakes. Priests and magicians drew from his supposed power when practicing rituals tied to the land. For a nation whose wealth and identity came from the ground nourished by the Nile, Geb embodied both security and prosperity.
It is interesting, then, that the third plague rose directly from the dust of the earth. Moses struck the ground, and the soil itself became lice or gnats. The very domain of Geb, thought to be the bedrock of Egyptian stability, turned against its worshipers. If the plagues increased in severity as acts of Abba’s measured mercy, this one makes sense as next in line: it wasn’t yet deadly like the disease on livestock or hail, but it stripped comfort and purity from daily life. Priests, who prided themselves on ritual cleanliness, were humiliated by lice crawling over their bodies, showing that even the religious elite could not stand apart.
Modern parallels to Geb appear wherever people worship the ground they walk on, not literally, but through obsession with security, ownership, and control of earthly things. We see it in the fixation on property and possessions, where identity is built on land, homes, and wealth tied to the soil. We see it in the pursuit of environmental mastery apart from God, trusting human innovation alone to sustain the earth, while ignoring the Creator who holds it all together. And we see it in the idol of self-reliance, the belief that if we just dig deep enough, we can anchor ourselves without need of God.
The plague of lice reminds us that the earth belongs not to Geb or to human mastery, but to YHVH. Dust can become a torment instead of a blessing if it is divorced from its Creator. Modern “Geb” worship looks like treating material stability, land, or possessions as ultimate. But the truth is (or at least should be) humbling: we are dust, and to dust we will return. Comfort, purity, and life itself are not sustained by the earth god of Egypt nor by modern idols of security. They are upheld only by the hand of the living God.
So that’s the god that was conquered in the eyes of the Egyptians, and of course we need to conquer it in our own lives as well. Today is a great day to repent of letting Geb have a foothold in your life or else those little nagging things will cover every area of your existence -- biting and chewing their way under your skin.
Dust that was meant to be the vessel of life suddenly becomes a consumer of our comfort. And don’t we just love being comfortable?
Egypt’s gods of the earth and purity were humiliated when dust became lice. The very ground under their feet betrayed them. In the same way, God often shakes our comfort with small irritations until we admit He alone is our refuge. Modern “lice” are the daily stresses, habits, and annoyances that keep us restless until we turn to Him.
Just like Egypt, we want a clean, comfortable, controlled life. But God sometimes allows lice -- small, irritating disruptions -- to humble us. They show us that no amount of rituals, routines, or self-effort can make life truly secure or peaceful. Only He can.
We may not face literal swarms, but we experience the same principle when Abba allows (or we invite) small, nagging disruptions to break our comfort and expose idols of self-sufficiency. How?
Here are some ways these pests may appear in our lives today:
Little thoughts that won’t leave us alone. Or maybe sleepless nights where worry crawls through the mind. We can’t shake them by willpower or distraction and they continually disrupt our peace.
Flat tires, small illnesses, technology breakdowns, unexpected bills. Not devastating, but relentless and reminding us we’re not in control.
Gossip, scrolling, overeating, procrastination. Small compromises that swarm until they rob our clarity and confidence.
Little conflicts at work, in marriage, or with friends that keep picking at us. Not catastrophic, but enough to rob comfort from us regularly.
A sense of dryness in prayer, conviction that won’t go away, the itch of conscience. God’s Spirit using “small things” to humble us and draw us back to Him.
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And there are so many more. Anything that seems to “get under your skin” could qualify. Or anything that incessantly drips upon you and in a grating and frustrating manner. You know what I’m talking about, right?
So how about you? Are there things that seemingly appear out of nowhere that continually impact your comfort? If so, this could be good. It means Abba doesn’t want you to be held captive any longer. He wants to replace your uncomfortable comfort with the comfort of His Spirit. He wants to fill every speck of dust within you with His Own Self. Receive it. Fully.
Instead of cursing the small irritations in your life, let them be a blessing. The lice, gnats, and/or mosquitos should serve as a reminder that your comfort does not come from the gods of the earth -- or your own hands. As these things swarm around you and bite you incessantly, praise Abba that He loves you enough to make you uncomfortable.
Then repent for assuming your comfort somehow supersedes the call that He has placed upon your life.