Let my people go - Exodus 9

Let my people go - Exodus 9, verse 1. That's a cry that has been echoed many times down through history. Let my people go! History, sadly, is full of stories of oppression. It's not something that goes away. Today, in Zimbabwe and Burma, for example, the same cry is all too relevant - let my people go.

In this Old Testament passage we are in the middle of the plagues. The whole story of exodus, as the very name of the book suggests, is about liberation, freedom, moving on. That is what the victimised people of Israel are looking to do at this point. The Egyptians, in whose land they currently live, have got them in a corner. Their working and living conditions are terrible. Something has to give. They are not going to survive if things don't change. And the glimmer of hope is that God has sent them a champion, a leader, someone to deliver them from this dreadful situation. Moses is locked in negotiations with Pharaoh and, from time to time, it looks as though they are about to achieve a breakthrough. But each time they get to the brink of freedom, it is grabbed back. The Pharaoh is in a difficult situation. He wants rid of them - because he thinks that they constitute a threat. But he is also a long way from being willing to give up the benefits of this source of cheap labour.

Thus we have this story of the plagues, the attempt to persuade Pharaoh that it really is time to allow the Israelites to move on and all these horrible and terrible things happen to the Egyptian people. There are ten plagues in all. This is number five - so it is right in the middle. This plague strikes the domestic animals of the Egyptians with an unidentifiable, but lethal, disease. This could be anthrax, or even something like mad cow disease. It may even have been the result, in part, of the previous plagues, which had caused disruption to the natural cycle. Domestic animals were essential to the livelihood of the people - and there is no doubt that this was a major blow.

All the plagues were major blows, but each only caused Pharaoh to hesitate in exercising jurisdiction over the enslaved Israelites. Then, realising the implications of the loss of a labour force, and, presumably, quickly forgetting the impact of the various plagues, his mind is changed and the permission to go withdrawn. Let my people go.

However, it is interesting to allow this passage to challenge us and to consider how it may speak to us, perhaps asking questions like: How do we exercise the power that we have? How do we respond to others in the world around us? How do we treat those who are marginalised by others?