Exodus 8:19 (Darby)
Then the scribes said to Pharaoh, this is the finger of God! But Pharaoh’s heart was stubborn, and he hearkened not to them, as Jehovah had said.
The phrase, the finger of God is found four times in the Bible, three of those times in the Old Testament and, once in the New. It is synonymous with the supernatural power of God as it directly impacts events in our lives and the world.
The first reference to the finger of God is found in Exodus. Moses had just unleashed the third plague on Egypt to force Pharaoh to free the Israelites and had stretched out his staff and “strike the dust of the earth, so that it may become gnats in all the land of Egypt,”. After Pharaoh’s magicians tried and failed to replicate the miracle in verse 19, they said to Pharaoh, “This is the finger of God.”
This is the finger of God! The check and restraint put upon us must be from a Divine power. Sooner or later God will force even his enemies to acknowledge his power. Pharaoh, notwithstanding this, was more and more obstinate.
The second reference to the finger of God was when the tablets of stone were given to Moses. These tablets were “inscribed by the finger of God,” in Exodus 31:18.
It is not that God touched the tablet since God is Spirit and has no “fingers”; rather, the finger of God is an anthropomorphism indicating that God directly caused the commandments to be engraved upon the stone, as He caused the gnats and lice to be formed of the sand.
The New Testament’s reference to the finger of God is from Jesus Himself. After freeing a blind and mute man from a demon in Luke 11:20, Jesus said, “If I drive out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.”
In all accounts, the meaning is that these miracles were performed by the overt power of God.
The finger of God is a reference to God’s unlimited power as He intervenes directly in the affairs of men. The working of the finger of God is unmistakable. No device of man can compete with that power, as even the heathen magicians came to recognize in Moses’ day.
Every day man is confronted by the finger of God. We are not faced with lice, God is operative in the world, and His fingerprint is all around us.
The finger of God is a finger of challenge. It is a pointer to truth and the examiner of thoughts and actions.
According to Daniel 5:1-30, the finger of God addresses our conduct, pointing out and examining profanities and wrong deeds that are promptly dealt with.
The Finger of God Addresses Our Culture as seen in Exodus 8:16-19. The plague on Egypt was an attack on Egyptian culture and idolatry, God still addresses culture in the body of Christ and us though not by these lengths.
By Jesus’s standard in the New Testament, the finger of God is operative in our daily lives- in provisions, healing, favour and, much more. Have you experienced the finger of God in your life lately, do you recognize it? Even when you don’t see it, the finger of God is constantly working in our lives, guiding, shielding, and leading us to greener pastures. Let the finger of God shape your life and destiny.
Shalom
