Moses was about 40
when he fled Egypt. We know from Ex 7:7 that he was 80 when the plagues
started. Aaron was his older brother by three years.
God warned that He would
harden Pharaoh’s heart and that they would not yield until He had fulfilled His
judgment of Egypt.
In the first foray, Aaron
cast the rod of Moses to the ground and it became a serpent. The magicians of
Egypt copied it. Indeed, wherever God is at work, there will be attempts to
mimic Him or to upstage Him. But that can only go so far.
The rod of Moses
swallowed their serpents, leaving them stymied.
1.
The first plague, of blood
Aaron duly warned
Pharaoh of what was coming and in the morning all water turned to blood, not
just the river, but every reservoir of water.
What a contrast to the
time when Joseph saved Egypt by providing them with sustenance in a time of
crisis. Now God brought a greater crisis and offered no respite.
Yet, that in itself
was not divine retribution for what Egypt had done to the Jews. That would come
later. Rather it was the first judgment of the gods of Egypt.
Metaphorically
speaking, Moses drew first blood and struck the main artery of Egypt, The Nile. However, it also judged one of their most sacred deities, the ram-headed gods
Khnum and Hapi, gods of the annual Nile flood, of pottery and of the dead.
Thus God really struck
thrice with one blow for in striking the river and the clay cisterns of water,
he also killed all the fish in the river system.
The magicians
replicated that too, so Pharaoh hardened his heart but the plague was so
pervasive that even subterranean water was affected.
Natural explanations abound,
which does not detract from the elegance of divine timing and how God has always
used natural phenomena, as for example the flood or the Red Sea.
Hence, it may have
been a form of red tide, a highly toxic red algae bloom that kills sea life and
will kill humans if consumed.
2. The plague of frogs
The natural
explanation revolves around the likelihood that the frogs fled the toxic river.
The judgment was of the frog-headed goddess of fertility, Heqet.
The words of Aaron
were that God would come against Pharaoh and his people. That addressed the
virility of the nation’s leaders and the lies that had so long sustained the pagan
culture of Egypt. How quickly god felled their pride and joy.
Yet, the magicians
mimicked that too and, as such, Pharaoh was unmoved.
3-4. So Aaron struck the dust and lice came and
after that flies
The magicians finally
recognized the finger of God. They were out of tricks. The natural explanation
would be that the lice came from rotting frogs, which were heaped and burned.
Yet Pharaoh hardened
his heart, so flies came. Hebrew had no word for flies but rather used a
general word for “swarms” which was presumed to be flies, but could just as
well have been a swarming of scarab beetles or other insects.
Perhaps it was all of the
above, but the scarab was the sacred symbol of the god Khepri.
At that stage of the
judgment, when the magicians fell back and gave up trying to compete, God also
insulated Goshen from any further plague. It was a judgment of Egypt not of his
people. He also spoke for Himself, but
Pharaoh was unmoved. He too was a ‘god’,
after all.
The idea that judgment
begins in the house of God helps to explain, in part, why the Jews felt the
initial impact of the plagues, but beyond that it was all reserved for Egypt.
That reveals a selectivity and purposefulness that was beyond natural
explanation.
5. The great moraine of livestock
Pharaoh hardened his
heart again, so God felled the livestock, which had been used as collateral by
Joseph to introduce a civil state in Egypt and to ensure sustainable order ,
which so contradicted their preference for manipulative pagan symbolism.
The Egyptians
worshipped animals in various forms, including the jackal-headed Anubis,
protector of the dead, who had his work cut out for him and Bastet the
cat-headed goddess who was an avenging lion: a toothless one.
Hathor was a goddess
often depicted as a cow, with bovine ears. Evidently her husband didn’t think
much of her. Horus was the Falcon-headed god.
Well, gods they may
have been to Egypt, but before the Great God, they were soon exposed as an elaborate
system of myths, lies and manipulations.
6-7. A plague of boils and hail
Aaron and Moses put
their hand into ash, but only Moses threw a handful into the air, to bring a
plague of painful boils. God no longer worked alone, but deferred to Moses.
Still the stubbornness
prevailed. So Moses stretched out his rod, the first plague invoked directly by
him. In the previous plague Moses and Aaron worked together, but the baton was
passing to Moses. He had grown in authority and stood alone.
Instead of leaning on
his older brother, he leant on his staff. That would define the rest of his
life.
A terrible hail,
mingled with fire poured out over Egypt. Yet Pharaoh would not budge.
(c) Peter Missing @ bethelstone.com
Image: Painting on Canvass, by John Martin, "The 7th plague".
