The only place it did not hail was the land of Goshen, where the Israelites were. The distinction continues. Goshen under a clear sky, Egypt under hail and lightning. The boundary between the two is not a natural boundary — there is no mountain range, no body of water separating them. The boundary is covenantal, invisible to the eye but absolute in its effects. Luke 17:34–35 describes the eschatological separation: two people in one bed, one taken and one left; two people grinding grain, one taken and one left. The separation at the end of history that Jesus describes has its archetype in the separation at Goshen: the same geography, different outcomes, based entirely on whose you are. The exemption of Goshen from every plague from the fourth onward is the most sustained and visible miracle of the Exodus narrative.

COMMUNITY REFLECTIONS

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