This week’s Torah portion covers Exodus 6:2-9:35. It is called Va’era, which means “and I appeared,” the first words spoken to Moses in the text. In Va’era, the story of the Exodus begins. Plagues hit the Egyptians in full force. Pharaoh knew the names of many false gods, but the one true God, the God of the Israelites, was a mystery to him. Through a series of pestilence, blood, darkness, death, and disease, Yahweh shows himself greater than any other imaginable power.
Exodus is the most supernatural book in the Hebrew Bible. But it is also the climax, the pinnacle of Israel’s story. Until now, the patriarchs learned of God’s covenant promises through quiet acts like nighttime wrestling, angelic visitations at the door of a tent, or through firm convictions of conscience and clear revelations. But now the birth pangs are growing sharp. The Egyptians require unprecedented signs and punishments that go beyond the explainable.
The Seven “I Wills” and the Unfolding Name
The portion opens with God speaking to Moses, clarifying his identity. In Exodus 6:2-3, he says, “I am the Lord. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name the Lord I did not make myself fully known to them.” God then gives Moses a specific message for the Israelites, characterized by seven distinct promises: “I will bring you out… I will free you… I will redeem you… I will take you as my own people… I will be your God… I will bring you to the land… I will give it to you as a possession” (6:6-8).
The Resume of a Revolutionary
Still, in all of this, God did not open up the heavens and directly order Pharaoh to let his people go. That message was given only through Moses, the intermediary chosen by God. Unlike God’s selection of Abraham, who the Bible provides no backstory, we know why Moses was chosen. Exodus selects certain moments from Moses’s biography to present his resume. Moses was a defender of justice. His every instinct pushed him to fight against oppression. Three times we witness him intervening on the part of the weak. First, he avenged the death of a Hebrew slave by killing the guilty slave master.
He then tried to intervene and stop a physical fight between two Hebrew slaves, showing that his desire for justice was not just about fighting the Egyptians, but about the internal health of his people. And when he fled to Midian to escape Pharaoh’s retaliation, he defended Jethro’s daughters against greedy shepherds. In this last episode, we see that Moses not only intervenes on behalf of the Hebrews but also stands up to bullies in defense of non-Hebrews. In a matter of eight verses, Moses checks all the boxes for God’s chosen messenger: defender of the weak, friend of the slave, mediator between the people. He was also a revolutionary.
Moses told the Hebrew people that their God would lift his mighty arm and set them free. Sadly, the narrative says, “They would not listen to him, because their spirit had been broken by their cruel slavery” (6:9). And there lies the last reason for Moses’s divine selection. He was a Hebrew. But he was raised in the house of Pharaoh. He never tasted the bitterness of slavery. His spirit was not killed by oppression. Rabbi Joseph Telushkin says that because Moses was never a slave, he had a different self-image than his kinsmen. He was sensitive to injustice. And he retained the will to fight it. It would take the rest of his Hebrew brothers forty years to shake the slave mentality and think like a free people.
The Conflict of the Gods
When the plagues begin, the narrative shifts. God declares, “By this you will know that I am the Lord” (7:17). The first plague, turning the Nile to blood, was a direct strike at Hapi, the god of the Nile. The river that was the source of life for Egypt became a source of death. The magicians tried to replicate it, and they succeeded in a small way.
The second plague was an onslaught of frogs. It symbolically targeted Heqet, the Egyptian goddess of fertility, often depicted with a frog’s head. By making the frogs a nuisance and a curse, God showed that the “fertility” of Egypt was now under his command. When Pharaoh asked Moses to take them away, Moses allowed Pharaoh to pick the time, so that he would know “there is no one like the Lord our God” (8:10).
The third plague, gnats, was the turning point for the Egyptian magicians. In Exodus 8:19, they finally admitted, “This is the finger of God.” They could no longer pretend that their secret arts were equal to the power being unleashed. Yet, Pharaoh’s heart remained hard.
The Distinction of Goshen
Starting with the swarms of flies in the fourth plague, God makes a clear distinction between his people and the Egyptians. Exodus 8:22-23 says, “But on that day I will deal differently with the land of Goshen, where my people live… I will make a distinction between my people and your people.” This separation was crucial because it proved that the plagues were not random natural disasters. God was the one flipping the plague switch on and off, like surgical strikes.
The fifth plague, the death of livestock (9:1-7), hit the Egyptian economy and their religious symbols, such as the bull-god Apis. Even when Pharaoh sent men to Goshen and saw that not a single animal belonging to the Israelites had died, he refused to listen. The sixth plague, boils (9:8-12), attacked the Egyptians directly, including the magicians who could not even stand before Moses because of their sores. This was the first time the text says that the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, sealing the path Pharaoh had already chosen.
The portion concludes with the seventh plague, the hail (9:13-35). This was the first plague in which God offered the Egyptians a way out. He told them to bring their livestock and servants under shelter to avoid the coming storm. Those who “feared the word of the Lord” obeyed and were saved (9:20). This shows that the plagues were not just about punishment; they were about education. God was making his name known even to the enemy.
The hail was a mixture of ice and fire, a supernatural event that shattered everything in the fields. Under this pressure, Pharaoh finally confessed, “This time I have sinned; the Lord is in the right, and I and my people are in the wrong” (9:27). But as soon as the storm stopped, his confession evaporated. He sinned again and hardened his heart.
The Leader and the Lesson
The narrative of Va’era shows us that God prepares his leaders through their life experiences. Because his spirit had not been crushed in the slave pits, he could carry the hope that the Israelites were too broken to hold for themselves. The plagues were not just miracles; they were the “mighty arm” of God dismantling a system of oppression. By the end of this portion, the Egyptian gods are defeated, the Egyptian economy is in ruins, and the stage is set for the final liberation of a people.
Join me next week for the third Exodus Torah portion. It covers Exodus 10:1–13:16. I hope Bible Fiber can be of use to you if, in 2026, you are committed to going deeper into God’s word and reading with discipline and regularity. If you would like to get the study questions that go with this episode, visit our website and sign up for the newsletter: www.thejerusalemconnection.us
Healing the Broken Spirit (Exodus 6:9): The Israelites could not listen to Moses because the weight of their current situation crushed their spirits. They had lost the ability to imagine a future where they were free. When you are facing a season of intense pressure or disappointment, how do you guard your heart against the “shortness of breath” that keeps you from hearing hope?
The Revolutionary Heart (Exodus 2:11-17): Before Moses ever heard God’s voice, he was already stepping in to defend the weak, whether they were his own kin or strangers. He had an instinct to protect the oppressed. Looking at your own “resume” of life experiences, what specific injustices provoke a visceral reaction in you? Integrity Under Pressure (Exodus 9:27-35): Pharaoh confessed his sin when the fire and hail were falling, but he recanted as soon as the storm stopped. His “repentance” was tied to his comfort rather than an actual change of heart. How do you ensure that your commitments and values remain steady even after the “storm