Claim. Because the first national course was aborted by Israelite distrust, God granted Moses three signs and ten plagues as the dispensation to start the second course — each sign foreshadowing a future work of Jesus, and the ten plagues restoring Jacob’s ten deceptions by Laban.
Elaboration. With heavier grace came heavier indemnity. The three signs (dp-2-the-providence-of-restoration-under-the-leadership-of-moses §2.2.2):
- Staff into serpent (Exod 4:2-5). The staff symbolized jesus; transformed into a serpent that devoured the magicians’ serpents, it foreshadowed Jesus as the “heavenly serpent” (cf. 14, “Be wise as serpents”) who would swallow the evil serpent of the fall.
- Hand leprous then healed (Exod 4:6-7). The first insertion symbolized the archangel’s embrace of Eve tainting humanity; the second symbolized Jesus the second Adam embracing his Bride to redeem all flesh.
- Water turned to blood (Exod 4:9). Inorganic water becoming life-substance foreshadowed Jesus and the holy-spirit resurrecting fallen humanity from death-state to children of God.
The ten plagues restored, by indemnity, the ten deceptions Laban worked on Jacob during his twenty-one years in Haran. The ninth plague’s three-day darkness separated Satan’s realm from God’s. The tenth — slaying the Egyptian firstborn while passing over blood-marked Hebrew lintels — restored the Israelites from Abel-second-son position to elder-son position, prefiguring how the cross would save God’s side while Satan’s side perished. Witnessing these miracles, the Israelites trusted Moses, and the second course began. The cost of repeated failure: at each prolongation, the dispensation becomes graver, and the indemnity required of the people becomes correspondingly heavier.