Not Too Bright…

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Tell Aaron, ‘Stretch out your hand with your staff over the streams and canals and ponds, 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. But the magicians did the same things by their secret arts; they also made frogs come up on the land of Egypt.
Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, “Pray to the Lord to take the frogs away from me and my people, and I will let your people go to offer sacrifices to the Lord.”

-Exodus 8:5-8

At this point, the magicians are shooting themselves in the foot to try to continue to match Aaron and Moses in the “we can do anything you can do” contest. Think about it, God just instituted the plague of frogs. Frogs were everywhere. This was a bad thing for the Egyptians. But not to be out done, here come the magicians. Remember, Egypt is now overflowing with frogs. So…what do the magicians do? They use their “secret arts” to make more frogs. At this point, I would love to have been standing beside Aaron and Moses. The 2 of them were probably scratching their heads trying to decide whether to be mad at the magicians or thank them for creating more of a hardship for Egypt. I could just see them looking at each other and saying, “Wow…these guys are idiots…but don’t stop them.”

That’s probably why the next verse says, “Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, ‘Pray to the LORD to take the frogs away …’.”

You’ll also notice that the magicians probably wised up after that little fiasco. In the next plague they mysteriously can’t reproduce the plague of flies and gnats. I envision someone smacking them on the back of the head after the last one and saying, “Idiots.” Now, they’re all, “Yeah…I dunno Pharaoh. Must be an act of God.”

Never noticed that until now.