The Ten Plagues of Egypt Exodus 7:14-12:29 When God had had enough of his people being tormented by hard bondage in the land of Egypt (400 years of it), he sent Moses to prepare the way for him. Multiple times, God “hardened Pharaoh’s heart” in order to get glory for himself by continuing his miraculous deeds. First the Nile River turned into blood. Then out of the river came frogs. Then lice or fleas. Then biting flies. Then a pestilence that killed the Egyptian livestock. Then boils and sores. Then hail mixed with fire. Then locusts. Then darkness, and finally the death of the firstborn male of every Egyptian household. The Israelites were spared all these plagues. Then Pharaoh let the Israelites go. He could not do so until after the 10th plague because God hardened his heart. This kind of messes with free will, doesn’t it? But the Bible never says God will not interfere with free will. In fact, the Bible is clear many times that God will break any rule he feels like breaking in order to accommodate his will. Scientifically, some of these plagues have plausible explanations. The river becoming blood and not water may be taken as a metaphor for red algae, which kills fish. Frogs, however, can escape it by coming onto land. But there is no water in Egypt except the Nile, and in such a hot, dry climate, frogs don’t last long. Their carcasses brought lice, gnats, fleas, flies, and surely mosquitoes. The flies sucked the blood of the livestock. This eventually transmitted anthrax which killed the livestock, and then infected the Egyptians with boils and sores. Locust swarms are well known throughout the Sahara and Middle East. Where there are crops, locusts will eventually descend in clouds. To surmise the scientific causes of the hail, darkness, and death of firstborn is much more difficult, and inevitably so coincidental as to be hard to believe. The hail and darkness might have been caused by the Santorini eruption, which would have rained down burning debris like hail easily as far as Egypt, with ash that blocked out the sunlight. The Israelites saved their firstborn by smearing lamb’s blood on their doorsills (a metaphor for #2) and staying indoors.
Posted on: Wed, 04 Dec 2013 20:08:40 +0000
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