PLAGUES OF EGYPT. - Punitive portents wrought by God through Moses and Aaron in Egypt following Pharaoh's repeated refusals to let the people of Israel go free. There are ten of them, and they followed one another in the order described in Ex. 7:14-12:26. In Ps. 78:44-52; 105:27-36, the order is somewhat different and the list incomplete; a commentary and poetic amplification, for the didactic purposes of the book, is found in Wis. 11:14-20; 16:1-18:25, with fuller reference to the ninth and tenth plagues.
They can, in some manner, be classified into 5 pairs: plagues from water (the river turned red, frogs: Ex. 7:14-8:15); plagues from the earth (gnats, flies: ibid. 8:16-32); plagues from fire (?) (murrain of the animals and outbreak of boils: ibid. 9:1-12); plagues from the air and the wind (hail, locusts: ibid. 9:13-10:20); plagues from the sky (darkness, death of the firstborn: ibid. 10:21-12:36).
1) The water of the Nile turned into blood (Ex. 7:14-25). At God's command Aaron stretched out his rod (cf. ibid. 4:2 ff.; 7:8 ff.) over the waters of the river, and these "were changed into blood": that is, they took on a blood-red color and became deadly for the fish. The scourge lasted 7 days (v. 22: Pharaoh's magicians managed to imitate the prodigy, it seems with a small quantity of water). An analogy may be discerned in the phenomenon of the "red Nile," when the river in flood, toward the end of June, takes on a reddish-black color (due probably to the sediments carried off by the current), a color that moreover is intense only in the upper course of the river: but even in that case the waters are not at all harmful to men or animals, as is instead supposed in the biblical account, where the phenomenon is presented with an intensity and extent that surpasses every natural limit.
2) Infestation of frogs (ibid. 7:26-8:11). After seven days, Aaron again stretched out his hand over the river: and from the waters leaped out an army of frogs that invaded the country and penetrated into the houses and the most secret recesses of the Egyptians. The magicians managed by their sorceries to bring the frogs, but not to make them disappear (ibid. 8:3: afterward they showed themselves powerless to imitate the other prodigies, and were forced to acknowledge "the finger of God"): they died after Moses had besought the Lord for the cessation of the scourge. The multiplication of frogs (or of gnats and other insects) in the marshes of the Nile, when the waters recede after the flood, is normal. But the circumstances clearly bring out (as in the analogous cases that followed: locusts, gadflies, gnats) the prodigious character of the biblical account: the phenomenon occurred in unheard-of measure, perhaps out of season, at the simple word of Moses, just as it then suddenly ceased at his command.
3) The gnats (ibid. 8:12-15; Heb. kinnim, whose meaning is not certain; Vulg. sciniphes). It seems to be a matter of tiny insects similar to gnats, very troublesome (extremely common in the marshes around the Nile when the river returns to its bed). The invasion was such that the very dust of Egypt seemed changed into swarms of insects (ibid. 8:13).
4) The flies or gadflies (ibid. 8:16-28; Heb. 'ārobh, of uncertain meaning; Septuagint kynomyia; Vulg. coenomya "dog-fly"). Foretold by Moses, they penetrated in swarms into private dwellings and every corner of the country, with the exception of the region of Goshen, inhabited by the Hebrews, and brought grave harm to men and beasts. This scourge too ceased suddenly at the prayer of Moses, after the promise to release the Israelites had been obtained from Pharaoh.
5) Epizootic plague (ibid. 9:1-7). A grave epidemic struck the livestock, killing a great number of horses, donkeys, oxen, sheep and camels, while the livestock of the Israelites was spared.
6) Outbreak of boils (ibid. 9:8-12). This plague is analogous to the preceding one. When Moses and Aaron at God's command had thrown ashes toward the sky, there immediately began to rage a frightful outbreak of pustules or tumors (of unascertained nature: "boils" according to the Septuagint and Vulg.), which caused further slaughter of animals and also of men.
7) The hail (ibid. 9:13-35). It was foretold by Moses a day in advance to give time to withdraw the livestock from the fields. In Egypt the livestock are at pasture from Jan. to Apr.; and the plague of hail occurred precisely around the month of Feb., when the barley had already put forth its ears and the flax was in bloom: ibid. 9:31. The next day Moses stretched out his staff toward the sky: there followed thunder, lightning and a crashing of heavy and impetuous hail, such as had never been seen, which shattered the trees, destroyed the grass and killed the people and beasts that were in the fields. The hailstorm must have appeared all the more extraordinary in that in Upper Egypt rain never falls, and in Lower Egypt, where these events took place, atmospheric precipitation is rare. The scourge, while it devastated for a long stretch the territory of Egypt (at least a great part of the Nile delta), completely spared the region of Goshen, where the Hebrews were. Pharaoh himself was deeply struck by it. The seventh plague is poetically described in Wis. 16:16-19, where among other things it is said that rain and hail were accompanied by a fire that preserved, even in the midst of the water, its devastating energy and consumed the produce of the fields: even in the straightforward account of Ex. 9:29 there is mention of a fire: flashes and lightning.
8) The locusts (ibid. 10:1-20). As Pharaoh persisted in his obstinacy, Moses at God's command stretched out his rod over the land and at once an impetuous sirocco rose from the East, which poured upon the country a countless number of locusts, which completed the devastation, destroying all the grass and the fruits of the trees that the hail had spared. This scourge is well enough known in the eastern countryside. Favored by the warm winds from the south and east, the locusts move in very dense swarms toward more distant pastures, and where they descend, there is desolation. But the prodigious character of the eighth plague emerges from the circumstances of the biblical account.
9) The darkness (ibid. 10:21-28). As Pharaoh continued in the usual game of promises not kept, Moses at God's command stretched out his hand toward the sky, and a thick darkness enveloped the country, to such a degree that no one could any longer make out other people or move from his own dwelling; but light was not lacking in the zone inhabited by the Hebrews. An analogy may be recognized in the well-known south wind, called hamsin, which not infrequently, in spring, sweeps down upon Egypt, raising in the air an immense cloud of sand and dust that at times darkens the sky in broad daylight. But the darkness here described was of an incomparably greater intensity and duration. The portent is amply described in Wis. 17:1-21, which offers a fine example of commentary and poetic amplification of an episode that the historical source (Ex. 10:23) relates in its sober essential features.
10) The death of the firstborn (ibid. 11:1-10; 12:29-35). After the preceding nine plagues, which struck the Egyptians in their possessions and in their livestock, and in part in their persons, the last and most terrible punishment was threatened by Moses and then inflicted: the death of the firstborn. On that occasion the first provisions were given by God for the sacrifice of the lamb, with whose blood the houses of the Israelites were to be marked (ibid. 12; v. PASQUA).
On the 14th day of Nisan (which thereafter, in remembrance of the event, marked the first month of the religious year), the destroying angel struck, by night, all the firstborn of the Egyptians, from the son of Pharaoh to that of the lowliest slave woman, as well as the firstborn of the animals; but he did not enter the houses of the Israelites, whose doors were marked with the blood of the lamb. Pharaoh, impressed by the fate that had befallen his firstborn and by the grave mourning of the country, finally granted the Israelites permission to depart with their families and with all their goods and possessions.
Many of these portents (the infestation of frogs, gnats, locusts and other insects, as well as the phenomena of the reddened river and the thick darkness) present undoubted analogies with phenomena that habitually occur, under certain circumstances and seasons, in Lower Egypt. God, in order to punish the Egyptians, was able to make use of the elements and perhaps of nature, but under such circumstances and with such severity that they became a veritable scourge, and one clearly saw "the finger of God" (Ex. 8:15: Hummelauer, Vigouroux, Mallon, Vaccari, etc.). To wish therefore to reduce them to simple natural facts, albeit of a certain intensity, but studiously amplified by the author in order to present the liberation of his people from the bondage of Egypt within a framework of prodigy, as many rationalists maintain, following A. Du Boys (a well-known member of the scientific expedition to Egypt in Napoleon's time), is to falsify the biblical account. It is obvious that in the sacred text the ten plagues are presented as real portents, wrought by God in proof and support of Moses' mission, and as such acknowledged by Pharaoh himself. But if they had been simple natural facts, of the kind that recur with a certain regularity or periodicity, they would have made no impression either on Pharaoh or on the Israelites, nor could Moses have appealed to them, to substantiate his mission, without making himself ridiculous (P. Heinisch [v. bibl.], p. 78). The prodigious character stands out clearly from the fact that these portents are foretold by Moses and then are accomplished and cease at the signal of his word or through his prayer; they surpass, in intensity and extent, any analogous phenomenon; and while they strike the country over a long stretch, they spare the region inhabited by the Israelites.
Particularly miraculous is the tenth plague. There has been talk of infant mortality, which in antiquity was far more frequent because of the negligence of parents: but the biblical account specifies that it was not the children who were struck, but the firstborn, without distinction of age.
Some exegetes, including Catholic ones, because of the analogy of the aforementioned natural phenomena, have attempted to distribute the ten plagues (of whose cycle the biblical account offers no clear chronological indications) over a span of 9 or 10 months, from the end of June or the beginning of July to April (the first six between July and September; the other three from mid-November to mid-March; the last on the 14th of Nisan, toward the end of March). But these are mere conjectures; the biblical account readily suggests a more rapid succession of events.
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Gaetano Stano