Estimated reading time: about 12-14 minutes
Exodus 9:8 YHVH said to Moshe and Aharon, “Take handfuls of ashes from a kiln, and let Moshe throw them in the air before Pharaoh’s eyes. 9 They will turn into fine dust over all the land of Egypt and become infected sores on men and animals throughout Egypt.” 10 So they took ashes from a kiln, stood in front of Pharaoh and threw them in the air; and they became infected sores on men and animals. 11 The magicians couldn’t even stand in Moshe’s presence because of the sores, which were on them as well as on the other Egyptians. 12 But YHVH made Pharaoh hardhearted, so that he didn’t listen to them — just as YHVH had said to Moshe.
What could be worse than losing all of your money?
For most people, wealth takes a second position only to their health. If you had $1 million dollars and suddenly became sick with a nearly incurable terminal disease, would you give up all of it if a cure were made available for the low, low cost of $1 million dollars? Most people would. It’s usually in these life and death moments that the real value of life becomes apparent.
Even the Adversary knows this to be true:
Job 2:3 Adonai asked the Adversary, “Did you notice my servant Iyov (Job), that there’s no one like him on earth, a blameless and upright man who fears God and shuns evil, and that he still holds on to his integrity, even though you provoked me against him to destroy him for no reason?” 4 The Adversary answered Adonai, “Skin for skin! A person will give up everything he has to save his life.”
And the Adversary also knows how most people choose to respond:
Job 2:5 “But if you reach out your hand and touch his flesh and bone, without doubt he’ll curse you to your face!” 6 Adonai said to the Adversary, “Here! He is in your hands, except that you are to spare his life.”
The nature of man is to curse God when pain is pushed down deep. Even well-meaning people will begin to question Abba and His ability when truly pressed into pain. Is it possible then that this plague would really get the people to repent? Hard to say, but in tandem with the preceding plagues, it should.
This plague has not brought us to the point of death but it has made life so painful that it was difficult to even stand. Miserable doesn’t even begin to describe it.
Up until now, the plagues have been largely external. Sure, there were challenges to your mindset, comfort and money, but at least you had your health, right?
We can find ways to deal with external troubles and even find excuses/reasons for their cause. But when you’re in pain there is a different mindset that tends to fall upon you. I experienced this firsthand.
A few years ago I had minor surgery to alleviate a discomfort I had developed. It was arthroscopic and quite non-intrusive. In fact, I was back on my feet in almost no time. The trouble though was that the surgery didn’t fix what it should have fixed, so several months later I went back in. However, this time they had to be a little more aggressive in their process which meant I’d be down for a little bit longer.
Recovery the second time didn’t go quite like I had hoped and there was a period of several weeks where I didn’t feel my healing was progressing as it should. Actually, I thought things may even be getting worse. Discomfort turned to pain which then started to turn towards panic. Despair wasn’t far behind.
It was this experience in my own life that showed me how easily people can get addicted to pain relief. You can tolerate a brief period of discomfort and pain, but when it stretches out over time your mind starts playing dangerous tricks on you. If you do not see an end in sight you look for immediate corners in which you can cut. The trouble, of course, is that getting temporary relief from pain is not the same as being cured from what is causing that pain. Hence, trouble ensues.
For me, things ended well but it was in the middle of this journey that desperation began to creep in. Not knowing if or when things would improve created a daily struggle within me, and since the medical community didn’t immediately fix my trouble, I decided I would do the next best thing. I turned towards God.
Job sat in a very similar position as the Egyptians:
Job 2:7 Then the Adversary went out from the presence of Adonai and struck Iyov (Job) down with horrible infected sores from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. 8 He took a piece of a broken pot to scratch himself and sat down in the pile of ashes.
It’s all here: sores, ashes, feet. This sounds eerily familiar to what the Egyptians had to endure. It was so bad that even his wife counseled him to go ahead and curse God then die:
Job 2:9 His wife asked him, “Why do you still hold on to your integrity? Curse God, and die!” 10 But he answered her, “You’re talking like a low-class woman! Are we to receive the good at God’s hands but reject the bad?” In all this Iyov did not say one sinful word.
Accusing God for His incompetence, remember? This is where a lot of people land. Even if it isn’t said out loud, it can easily be implied in your heart. Like Job, though, I never reached the point of blatantly cursing God. In fact, I never even considered it. But I did have questions.
My conversations with Him during this time were more like:
“Did I do something that deserves this struggle?”
“Did I NOT do something that deserves this struggle?”
“Are my life habits to blame for where I am right now?”
“Is this just a random thing that is happening to me?”
You know, running through the list of questions any good believer would ask. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with starting here -- maybe. (Who knows, maybe Job asked these same questions himself.)
While I didn’t curse Abba, I sure did start to question His ability. Or even if I was worth the trouble. So maybe this was a curse after all. But I kept talking and He was patient enough to keep listening.
As it turns out, I was not really getting a good answer because I was asking the wrong type of question. The real question I needed to ask was this:
“What is this pain for? What are you trying to teach me?”
To be honest, it took me a little while to get to this place. But I eventually got there. And once I did, Abba gave me a profound answer. You see, most people say they want healing, but what they really want is relief. This is why symptom control is so popular. It’s also why we seek quick fixes to cover up a much deeper issue within ourselves.
And those issues inevitably are rooted in something spiritual.
The Egyptians wanted to feel better, not repent. Because getting at the root of problems in our lives is oftentimes a painful journey. You have to go into memories, unforgiveness, and lies to get to the source and, frankly, that’s just too much work. This is why relief is perceived to be a much better option for most people.
Relief masks the pain for a while but leaves the root untouched. Healing requires exposure. It requires trust that the One who cuts deeper is not doing it to harm but to restore. This is what the boils in Egypt were supposed to reveal.
Boils show up in a few key contexts within the Bible. Of course, with Pharaoh’s magicians, once proud and confident, they couldn’t even stand in Moses’ presence due to the pain of the sores. The covenant curses in Deuteronomy warn of sores that would not heal if they turned from God. And in Revelation, those who worship the Beast will bear disgusting and painful sores, yet still refuse to repent.
But this pain is there to call forth a response. It always presses us to respond either with hardness, despair, or humility.
The proud advisors of Pharaoh were reduced to weakness, unable to stand before God’s servant. In the same way, our own strength collapses under the weight of affliction. What we do in that moment determines everything. If we repent, God opens us fully, deals with the infection, and restores us. If we harden, the wound festers until it destroys us.
Boils expose the wounds deep within us. But they also point us to the only cure. Healing is not in idols or in quick fixes. It is in Yeshua, the One who bore wounds so that we could be healed through them. The healed state comes not through denial or self-medication, but through repentance that allows Him to do the deep work.
But alas, we always assume there has to be a better way.
The Egyptians sought protection from disease through elaborate rituals and sacrifices, often appealing to specific deities who were believed to govern health.
Sekhmet, the lion-headed goddess of plagues and war, was both feared as a bringer of pestilence and invoked as a source of healing. Imhotep, the deified physician, was honored as a god of medicine and wisdom, credited with miraculous cures. Isis, too, was worshiped as a goddess of magic and healing, thought to possess power to dispel sickness. Each of these gods held sway in the Egyptian imagination as protectors of the body and restorers of health.
But when Moses cast the kiln ash toward Heaven and boils spread across Egypt, those gods were utterly silent. No ritual could ease the sores. No incantation could reverse the affliction. The very priests who performed the healing rites were themselves struck with boils and, humiliated, could not stand in the presence of Moses. The sight would have been devastating to Egypt’s religious confidence. The mediators of healing were incapacitated by the very plague they were supposed to cure. It was a living demonstration that the so-called gods of Egypt were powerless when confronted by the hand of YHVH.
This is why the plague struck so deeply at Egypt’s pride. Previous plagues had touched their wealth, comfort, and resources, but this one attacked their very flesh. By targeting their health and exposing the impotence of their deities, Abba stripped away the illusion that Egypt had mastery over life and death. Even Pharaoh, who was revered as divine, could not protect himself or his people from the sores. The message was that the God of Israel alone has authority over the body, over disease, and over healing.
Through the boils, YHVH revealed Himself not only as Judge but as the true Healer. Where the Egyptian gods failed, God was showing that He alone wounds and He alone heals. It was a lesson meant not only for Egypt but also for Israel, who later would be tempted to look back to Egypt’s magic and medicine rather than trusting in the provision of their God.
The plague of boils shattered the false security of Egypt’s gods and pointed to the one true source of healing that comes only from repentance and turning to YHVH.
In many ways, the gods of Egypt are still with us, they just wear new names. We may not bow to Sekhmet, Imhotep, or Isis, but we often treat modern medicine, pharmaceuticals, and self-help philosophies as if they hold ultimate power over life and death.
When discomfort sets in, we immediately reach for painkillers, distractions, or quick solutions that promise relief. None of these are necessarily wrong in themselves, but they easily become idols when they replace trust in God as the true source of healing.
Like the magicians of Egypt, our world is proud of its knowledge, its science, and its technology. Yet when real affliction comes -- whether physical, emotional, or spiritual -- these systems show their limits. Pills may numb the pain, but they cannot cure the disease of sin. Surgery may fix the body, but it cannot heal a broken soul. Therapy may offer tools, but it cannot cleanse the heart. Just as the Egyptian priests were struck with boils and could not stand, so too our modern “healers” often find themselves afflicted by the very same problems they claim to cure.
The realization of this became personal for me. When the first procedure failed, I thought perhaps I could just learn to live with my condition. It was manageable, uncomfortable, but tolerable. Yet when things grew worse, I reached the point where I had to be opened up completely. The quick fixes had failed. Relief alone could no longer carry me. It was invasive, painful, and a bit frightening, but it was the only path to real healing.
That is what repentance is like.
It is not a bandage for the symptoms of our brokenness but a surrender that lets Abba cut deeper, exposing what we would rather hide so that He can heal it. This is the central truth the plague of boils presses into us.
Every false god of healing, ancient or modern, will eventually collapse. Every shortcut to relief will eventually fail. But when we repent and allow ourselves to be opened up completely before God, He does the work no idol ever could.
Abba heals what sin infected. He restores what pain corrupted. And this healed state does not come from Pharaoh’s magicians or from modern idols of medicine and self-reliance. It comes through Yeshua, who was wounded so that by those wounds we might be healed.
I suppose this all comes down to whether we believe it.