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Sermon Guide: Exodus 7-14 "The Dragon Slayer"

  • Writer: Jon Watson
    Jon Watson
  • Nov 3
  • 3 min read

Key Passage



Exodus 7:10–12 ESV
So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did just as the LORD commanded. Aaron cast down his staff before Pharaoh and his servants, and it became a serpent. Then Pharaoh summoned the wise men and the sorcerers, and they, the magicians of Egypt, also did the same by their secret arts. For each man cast down his staff, and they became serpents. But Aaron’s staff swallowed up their staffs.


Exodus 14:21–28 ESV
Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the LORD drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided. And the people of Israel went into the midst of the sea on dry ground, the waters being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left. The Egyptians pursued and went in after them into the midst of the sea, all Pharaoh’s horses, his chariots, and his horsemen. And in the morning watch the LORD in the pillar of fire and of cloud looked down on the Egyptian forces and threw the Egyptian forces into a panic, clogging their chariot wheels so that they drove heavily. And the Egyptians said, “Let us flee from before Israel, for the LORD fights for them against the Egyptians.”

Then the LORD said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the sea, that the water may come back upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots, and upon their horsemen.” So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the sea returned to its normal course when the morning appeared. And as the Egyptians fled into it, the LORD threw the Egyptians into the midst of the sea. The waters returned and covered the chariots and the horsemen; of all the host of Pharaoh that had followed them into the sea, not one of them remained.




Literary Design



The signs and wonders and plagues that Yahweh brings on Egypt are very carefully designed and structured. There are three cycles of three plagues, culminating in a tenth — and these ten plagues are framed or book-ended by two signs of judgment.




Bookend 1: The staff becomes a sea-serpent and swallows up Pharaoh’s staffs (Ex 7:8)



Cycle 1



• Water turns to blood (Ex 7:15)

• Frogs (Ex 8:1)

• Gnats (Ex 8:16)



Cycle 2



• Flies (Ex 8:20)

• Livestock plague (Ex 9:1)

• Boils (Ex 9:8)



Cycle 3



• Hail (Ex 9:13)

• Locusts (Ex 10:1)

• Darkness (Ex 10:21)



Climax



• Death of the firstborn (Ex 11–12)



Bookend 2: Pharaoh, serpent-like, is swallowed up by the sea (Exodus 14)




Sermon Overview



This sermon traces the Exodus plagues as a cosmic “dragon-slaying” narrative: Pharaoh is portrayed as a chaos-dragon like the mythic Leviathan, humiliated when Aaron’s staff-dragon swallows his magicians’ and finally vanquished when he is swallowed by the sea. The pattern prefigures Christ’s greater victory—Jesus, the true Dragon Slayer, humiliates the devil through his ministry, disarms him at the cross, and empties death’s power at the resurrection. Yet the dragon still writhes until the second coming, when Satan and death will be cast into the lake of fire and all chaos erased. Believers, living between cross and consummation, are called to expose evil, walk humbly, and persevere in rugged hope until the triumph and feast of King Jesus, the Dragon Slayer.


Sermon Structure


#1 Pharaoh and the Dragon



• Mythologies of dragons

• The Bible thinks of Pharaoh as a dragon, metaphorically

• Modern West and Ancient Near East: wrestling with evil



#2 The Humiliation of the Dragon



• The ministry of Jesus

• The cross

• The empty tomb



#3 The Vanquishing of the Dragon



• The return of Christ

• Final exhortations for living in this age






Questions for Discussion & Reflection



  1. We live in the age between the humiliation and the vanquishing of our enemy. It’s an in-between age, sometimes called the “already-not-yet.” What other “already-not-yet” realities do you see and experience in your life? How does the gospel give us strength and hope in our in-between waiting?


  2. Given that our enemy is humiliated but not yet entirely vanquished, what can we expect this life to be like?


  3. The end of the sermon gives three exhortations: Expose evil, Walk in humility, and Live in hope. Which of these are most difficult for you?


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