Then the LORD said to Moses, "Go in to Pharaoh and say to him, 'Thus says the LORD, "Let my people go, that they may serve me. But if you refuse to let them go, behold, I will plague all your country with frogs. The Nile shall swarm with frogs that shall come up into your house and into your bedroom and on your bed and into the houses of your servants and your people, and into your ovens and your kneading bowls. The frogs shall come up on you and on your people and on all your servants."'" And the LORD said to Moses, "Say to Aaron, 'Stretch out your hand with your staff over the rivers, over the canals and over the pools, and make frogs come up on the land of Egypt!'" So Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt, and the frogs came up and covered the land of Egypt. But the magicians did the same by their secret arts and made frogs come up on the land of Egypt. Then Pharaoh called Moses and Aaron and said, "Plead with the LORD to take away the frogs from me and from my people, and I will let the people go to sacrifice to the LORD." Moses said to Pharaoh, "Be pleased to command me when I am to plead for you and for your servants and for your people, that the frogs be cut off from you and your houses and be left only in the Nile." And he said, "Tomorrow." Moses said, "Be it as you say, so that you may know that there is no one like the LORD our God. The frogs shall go away from you and your houses and your servants and your people. They shall be left only in the Nile." So Moses and Aaron went out from Pharaoh, and Moses cried to the LORD about the frogs, as he had agreed with Pharaoh. And the LORD did according to the word of Moses. The frogs died out in the houses, the courtyards, and the fields. And they gathered them together in heaps, and the land stank. But when Pharaoh saw that there was a respite, he hardened his heart and would not listen to them, as the LORD had said.
Exodus 8:1-15
The importance and significance of this passage is that it records the first signs of spiritual conviction in Pharaoh in face of God's dealings with him. In ignoring his magicians' performance (7) the tyrant seems tacitly to admit their inability to remedy the situation, and to recognise a higher hand at work in it that made their efforts irrelevant. It is clear that he had begun to be unnerved by the inexorable divine visitation upon his land, and that fear had struck into his heart. This was surely a time of hope and opportunity for him; to be wrought upon in this way is always fraught with destiny, and a right reaction and response can lead to do so. Nor is Moses slow to encourage him to incalculable blessing for those who are prepared to respond to God's dealings (9) for he allows Pharaoh to decide when the miracle of reversal shall take place, so as to prove to his own satisfaction that it is God Who is at work, and not any chance circumstance. And yet, when Pharaoh saw that there was respite (15) he hardened his heart against the voice of God. This is the first of three occasions on which it is explicitly said that he hardened his heart, and it is significant that he did so after he had been wrought upon and softened by God through the judgment of the plagues. This is the point at which God's strange work begins. The plagues, which should have been instructive and illuminating to Pharaoh - and could have been, and in fact had begun to be - suddenly began to be punitive and destructive to him. Having refused the word that might have led to his ultimate salvation, Pharaoh found in the end that it became his destruction and damnation.