Why 10 plagues

His confessions do not appear to represent true repentance but mere words to secure the changes in the physical world. The fact that both Pharaoh and God are each responsible for the stubbornness of Pharaoh is no secret. The author wants readers to see this point, repeatedly. God did not have to do it that way, but this is the way he chose to do it.

No one let the Israelites go. It was God who brought them out of Egypt by his fear-inspiring acts of judgment. The narrator did not try to hide it—exactly the opposite. He wanted it to be impossible for readers to simply brush it aside or ignore it. God is sovereign. He is God. Part of that means he has the right and the power to rightly and justly make his enemy stubborn in order to display his mighty power in redeeming his chosen people from bondage.

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Was the world a cosmological mistake or an intentional creation? What existed before the univer Related Posts. ZA Blog May 1, ZA Blog April 12, Your form could not be submitted. Please check errors and resubmit. Subscribe to the Blog Get expert commentary on biblical languages, fresh explorations in theology, hand-picked book excerpts, author videos, and info on limited-time sales. Email Address. Nile to blood. Hapi also called Apis , the bull god, god of the Nile; Isis, goddess of the Nile; Khnum, ram god, guardian of the Nile; others.

Heqet, goddess of birth, with a frog head. Set, god of the desert storms. Re, a sun god; Uatchit, possibly represented by the fly. Death of livestock. Hathor, goddess with a cow head; Apis, the bull god, symbol of fertility.

When is Passover ? Learn all about the holiday here. Likewise, Ramban , a 12th-century Jewish commentator, suggests that God punishes Pharaoh not primarily for enslaving the Israelite people, but rather for dismissing God and ignoring a divine command see his comment to Exodus The final plague, the killing of the firstborn, targets both the people and their most visible god—Pharaoh—who also loses his oldest son and thus the successor to the throne.

Producing the plagues of blood or frogs requires only the transformation of an existing substance: God, through Moses and Aaron, changes the water to blood and draws presumably pre-existing frogs out of the water. In contrast, God creates the lice. Only the creator of the universe, according to the rabbis, can create something new.

As further evidence of the miraculous nature of the plagues, one midrash notes the biblical description of the plague of hail as a mixture of fire and ice, commenting:. Imagine two fierce legions who were always at war with one another, but when the king needed their services for his own battle, he made peace with them, so that both should carry out the orders of the king.

In like manner, fire and hail are hostile to each other, but when the time came to make war with Egypt, God made peace between them and both smote the Egyptians.

Shemot Rabbah The midrash further understands the hail to prefigure the punishment that, according to the Book of Ezekiel, God will bring on Gog and Magog in the war that will precede the coming of the messianic age. In linking the redemption of the Israelites from slavery with the ultimate redemption of the world, the midrash implicitly justifies any violence as a necessary means of reaching an unambiguously-positive end.

Boils are painful bumps usually surrounded by red, swollen skin, and are typically caused by Staphylococcus aureus, a type of bacteria commonly found on the skin's surface, according to the Mayo Clinic. An outbreak of the highly infectious disease smallpox, which caused distinctive raised blisters, could result in a large number of people simultaneously coming down with rashes and welts. Smallpox is thought to have affected communities in Egypt at least 3, years ago, based on evidence of smallpox scars found on several mummies dating back to that period — including the mummy of Pharaoh Ramses V, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The seventh plague brought a heavy hail accompanied by thunder and streaming fire. The chaotic weather struck down people, livestock and trees, although the area of Goshen, where the Israelites lived, was spared, according to the book "Tanakh, A New Translation of The Holy Scriptures" The Jewish Publication Society, A nearby volcanic eruption about 3, years ago on Santorini, an island north of Crete in the Aegean Sea, may explain this plague, as well as others.

It's possible that the volcanic ash mixed with thunderstorms above Egypt, leading to a dramatic hailstorm, Nadine von Blohm, from the Institute for Atmospheric Physics in Germany, told the Telegraph.

When the Pharaoh once again refuses to let the Jewish people go, hungry locusts descend as the eighth plague. Moses warns the Pharaoh: "They shall cover the surface of the land, so that no one will be able to see the land. The volcanic eruption on Santorini may have created favorable conditions for the locusts, said Siro Trevisanato, a Canadian molecular biologist and author of "The Plagues of Egypt: Archaeology, History and Science Look at the Bible" Gorgias Press, According to the Old Testament, a darkness so thick that "people could not see one another" descended on Egypt for three days.

Perhaps the darkness coincided with an eclipse on March 5, B. However, the fact that Israelites had light in their homes might mean "lights out" for the eclipse hypothesis, as it doesn't make scientific sense why some people, but not others could overcome the darkness. Another idea is that a volcanic eruption about 3, years ago on Santorini, an island north of Crete in the Aegean Sea, spewed ash that caused the darkness, according a to National Geographic special, as reported by the Telegraph.

However, the eruption happened about miles kilometers from Egypt and before the exodus event, according to the Christian Courier. In the 10th, and last plague, Moses tells the Pharaoh that all the firstborns in the land of Egypt would perish.

Perhaps, the algal bloom that turned the rivers blood red released mycotoxins, poisonous substances that can cause disease and death in humans, according to a review in the journal Clinical Microbiology Reviews.

Grain contaminated with these mycotoxins could have been deadly, and could explain the death of the firstborn children, said epidemiologist John Marr, who was the chief epidemiologist at the New York City Department of Health, as reported by Slate. The firstborn might have been the first to pick the grain, and thus would have fallen victim to it first as well, according to the Telegraph. Live Science.