https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=415JUjVgM7I
So, Vizag 2008, I think this is Christian Charbonneau says, Blessed be to Pentecost, Jonathan, I’ve been reading Exodus lately and I admit, always struggling with the plagues of Egypt. I know it’s a big topic, but I was reading the one on Hale today. Could you share any insights on that one? There are a few things I noticed. First, for this plague, pharaoh’s servants hear the warning and act to save themselves and their household by taking refuge in their houses. Second, once Moses raises his staff, there’s thunder and hail. And very interestingly, a fire passes on the earth. Finally, there’s a focus on damaging things in the field, especially structure-bearing things. Man, animal, grass, and field trees are mentioned. Thank you. So, the best way I think to understand this, it has to do with these kind of opposites. And so, you can understand that it’s, I mean, first of all, just the idea of like water, of like destructive water coming from above or like this hard water that’s coming from above. And then also fire at the same time. So, it’s like there’s hail and fire at the same time, which seems like a complete contradiction. But you also understand it if you understand it exactly as that, as kind of the two opposites happening at the same time, rather than the opposites alternating with each other. So, here’s a good example of another way of seeing this, where when the Hebrews leave Egypt, then what they have, they have alternating fire and water. So, during the day, there’s a column of water, a column of a cloud. And then during the night, there’s a column of fire. So, they follow the column of fire during the night and they follow the column of water during the day. So, you can understand it like no matter how you, the totality of its meaning, you can understand it as this alternating reality, like a motor, right? So, it’s like the day, you know, the hot day is led by the cool water, and the cool night is led by the hot flame. And so, think of it as a yin-yang symbol if that’s useful to you. You have like the white with the black dot and the black with the white dot. The opposites are led by their other, and this is what is making the cycle turn properly, let’s say. But then when there’s a confusion and then both happen at the same time, then that is when it causes a breakdown. And so, this is actually probably a really good time to understand that, you know, the idea that it’s like fire and water at the same time. Think of our day, think of our age where you both have the most intense level of control that has ever existed, you know, police state that has ever existed in the history of humanity with the most control and quantification and calculation that has ever existed. And at the same time, this sense that we live in a constant carnival and that anything goes and that anything can happen. And so, it’s like the beast and the whore together, right? They’re just, they’re somehow they shouldn’t be together, but they’re together. And so, this is this image of, let’s say, hail and fire at the same time. At least that’s my kind of understanding of that. So, I think that the fact that it destroys things in fields or it destroys trees, especially has to do with this breakdown, the breakdown of the world, destroying the structures, it’s destroying the things that are holding them together. And so, yeah, and so maybe the going, the taking refuge in the house and taking your animals into the house with you is like an image of the ark, I would imagine. So, that’s the best way that I can understand that. Anyways, those are hard. I mean, they’re hard to understand those kinds of things in scripture.