Passage: Exodus 8:16-19

The Big Idea

The third plague turned the dust of Egypt into lice, or gnats, and the magicians couldn’t copy it: “This is the finger of God.” It struck at the heart of Egypt’s performance-based religion, which depended on ritual cleanness. The dust points back to the curse: “Dust you are, and to dust you will return.” No religion of rules can remove the curse. But Jesus once stooped and wrote in the dust with His finger, and set a guilty woman free. He became the curse for us, brought down to the dust of death, so we could be free from both the penalty and the power of sin.

The Third Plague (Exodus 8:16-19)

(What do you call lice on a bald man’s head? Homeless.)

The Lord told Moses, “Tell Aaron to stretch out his staff and strike the dust of the ground, and throughout Egypt it will become gnats.” Aaron did, and gnats came on people and animals. All the dust throughout Egypt became gnats. The magicians tried to produce gnats by their secret arts, but they couldn’t. Then the magicians told Pharaoh, “This is the finger of God.” But Pharaoh’s heart stayed hard, and he wouldn’t listen, just as the Lord had said.

The Hebrew word may mean lice, gnats or mosquitoes. Either way, tiny biting pests covering everything.
For the first time, the magicians failed. Even they admitted, “This is God.”

A Blow to Performance Religion

This plague struck at the heart of Egypt’s religious system.

Like every religion except the grace of Jesus, Egypt’s was built on rules: keep them, and you’re accepted. Performance-based religion.
Egypt’s rules emphasized ritual cleanness. Ancient writers describe Egyptian priests shaving their bodies regularly to stay free of lice so they could serve in the temples.
Now everyone was covered in lice. They couldn’t keep their own rules. They couldn’t serve their gods.
This plague was a crushing blow to their confidence in their ability to measure up.

That’s life in performance-based religion: frustrated by failure, disappointed by defeat, never measuring up.

Many choose that life today:

How am I doing compared to you?
How hard am I trying? God wants my best. Am I giving enough?
Do I dress right, talk right, live right?

Or they swing the other way: “No one can tell me how to dress, talk or live.” But that isn’t escaping rules. It’s just making your own.

God was showing Egypt that they couldn’t keep any set of rules. The problem was in the heart. They would always end up rebelling, no matter how hard they tried. They were under the curse.

The Dust and the Curse

Notice: God struck the dust, and it became lice.

Why are people religious at all? Because everyone has a problem: we die. Egypt’s elaborate religion was an attempt to deal with sin before death. Everyone has a guilty conscience.

After Adam sinned, God said the ground was cursed because of him. He would eat from it by painful toil, it would produce thorns and thistles, and he’d work by the sweat of his brow until he returned to the ground, “for dust you are, and to dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:17-19).

Disobeying God was sin, and it had terrible consequences.
Death is the worst part of the curse.
Sin always leads to death. That never changes. God declared it, and He can’t lie.

We’re all on that train, and it has only one stop. We boarded in Eden. You and I must die for our sin.

But Jesus…

Writing in the Dust (John 8:2-11)

Early one morning Jesus was teaching in the temple courts. The scribes and Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery and stood her in front of everyone. “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act. Moses in the Law commanded us to stone such women. What do You say?” They were trying to trap Him.

The scribes and Pharisees were good at keeping the law, on the outside. Jesus said their problem was inside (Matthew 23:25-28).
The woman was guilty. The law’s penalty was death.
The trap: if Jesus said “stone her,” He contradicted His own message of mercy. If He said “let her go,” He was dismissing God’s law.

But Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with His finger.

“Take a minute to rethink your strategy, gentlemen.”
And while they thought, He gave them a hint. He wrote in the dust, literally pointing at it. “Remember the curse.”
The same finger of God that brought lice from the dust in Egypt now wrote in the dust of the temple floor.

When they kept pressing Him, He stood up and said, “Let the one among you who is without sin throw the first stone.” And again He stooped and wrote on the ground. Convicted, they left one by one, beginning with the oldest, until Jesus was left alone with the woman.

Jesus went straight to the heart of it. However hard they had tried to keep the rules, they all knew they had failed.
They couldn’t carry out the sentence. They were under the curse too.
So they abandoned her to her fate. But Jesus didn’t leave. He stayed, still contemplating the dust, the curse.

What would He do? Condemn her, or ignore sin?

Jesus stood up, and seeing no one but the woman, said, “Woman, where are your accusers? Has no one condemned you?” “No one, Lord.” Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.“

“He stood up.” That makes me think of the resurrection. Jesus took the curse to the cross as our substitute, and then He rose.
He didn’t kill us.
He didn’t ignore our sin.
He gave us life by paying for our sin.
“Seeing no one but the woman.” What a picture of the gospel. Jesus’ eyes are on His people, His bride, the church.
The law only accuses and condemns. But not after Jesus saves us. We’re free from the law’s condemnation, and empowered to “go and sin no more.”
Grace sets us free from the penalty of sin, and from its power.

Redeemed from the Curse (Galatians 3:11-13)

The Pharisees, the Egyptians and many today all trust their performance. It never works. We have to live by faith.

No one is justified before God by the law, because “the righteous will live by faith.” And the law isn’t based on faith; it says the one who does these things will live by them. But Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree” (Galatians 3:11-13).

The Pharisees were very good at law-keeping, but not good enough. It never brought them life.
Egypt was just as committed to its gods’ laws. None of it removed the curse.
So Jesus, in love and grace, became the curse for us.
He offers a different way, His way: faith.

Brought to the Dust of Death (Psalm 22)

Faith in what? In what Jesus did on the cross. And He gave us clues while He hung there.

Rabbis would quote the opening line of a passage to point students to the whole thing. From the cross, Jesus cried, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Matthew 27:46), the first line of Psalm 22.

Read that psalm. The sufferer is mocked: “He trusted in the LORD; let the LORD rescue him.” He’s surrounded by enemies like bulls and lions. He’s poured out like water; his bones are out of joint; his heart melts like wax; his tongue sticks to his jaws. “You lay Me in the dust of death.” They pierce his hands and feet. They divide his garments and cast lots for his clothing (Psalm 22:1-18).

Jesus was brought down to the dust of death for us.
He became the curse we deserved.
He offers complete freedom through His own life.

Grace Takeaway

Egypt’s priests couldn’t stay clean, and neither can we. Every religion of performance ends covered in the dust of the curse. But the finger of God that brought lice from the dust also wrote in the dust beside a guilty woman, and then Jesus went to the cross and was laid in the dust of death in her place, and ours. He doesn’t condemn you. Following Him isn’t a new set of rules; it’s a living Jesus living in you. Abide in His Word, and you’ll know its freeing power.

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Plagues 103: Lice