PLAGUES OF EGYPT. – Punitive wonders wrought by God through Moses and Aaron in Egypt following Pharaoh’s repeated refusals to set the people of Israel free. They are ten and occurred 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 book’s didactic purposes, is found in Wis. 11, 14-20; 16, 1-18, 25, with more extensive reference to the ninth and tenth plagues.
They may, in some way, be classified into 5 pairs: plagues from the water (the reddening river, frogs: Ex. 7, 14-8, 15); plagues from the earth (gnats, flies: ibid. 8, 16-32); plagues from fire (?) (the pestilence of the animals and the contagion of ulcers: ibid. 9, 1-12); plagues from the air and 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 changed into blood (Ex. 7, 14-25). At God’s command Aaron stretched out his staff (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 plague lasted 7 days (v. water). An analogy may be discerned in the phenomenon of the “Red Nile,” when the rising river, toward the end of June, assumes a reddish-black color (probably due to sediment carried away by the current), although this color is intense only in the upper course of the river. Even in that case, however, the waters are in no way harmful to men or animals, whereas in the biblical account they are assumed to be so, and the phenomenon is presented with an intensity and extent surpassing 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 there sprang forth an army of frogs which invaded the land and penetrated into the houses and the most secret hiding places of the Egyptians. The magicians succeeded by their spells in bringing forth the frogs, but not in making them disappear (ibid. 8, 3: later they proved powerless to imitate the other wonders, and were compelled to acknowledge “the finger of God”); they died after Moses had entreated the Lord for the cessation of the plague. 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 emphasize (as in the analogous cases that followed: locusts, horseflies, gnats) the wondrous character of the biblical account: the phenomenon occurred on an unprecedented scale, perhaps out of season, at the mere word of Moses, just as it then suddenly ceased at his command.
3) The gnats (ibid. 8, 12-15; Hebr. kinnim, whose meaning is uncertain; Vulg. sciinphes). These seem to have been tiny, highly troublesome insects resembling gnats, very common in the marshes around the Nile when the river returns to its bed. The invasion was so great that even the dust of Egypt seemed to have been changed into clouds of insects (ibid. 8, 13).
4) The flies or horseflies (ibid. 8, 16-28; Hebr. 'ārobh, of uncertain meaning; Septuagint kynomyia; Vulg. coenomya “dog fly”). Foretold by Moses, they entered in swarms into private dwellings and every part of the country, except the region of Gessen, inhabited by the Hebrews, and caused serious harm to men and beasts. This plague too ceased suddenly through Moses’ prayer, after Pharaoh had promised to release the Israelites.
5) Epizootic pestilence (ibid. 9, 1-7). A severe epidemic struck the livestock, killing a great number of horses, asses, oxen, sheep, and camels, while the livestock of the Israelites was spared.
6) Contagion of ulcers (ibid. 9, 8-12). This plague is analogous to the preceding one. When Moses and Aaron, at God’s command, cast ashes toward the sky, a terrifying contagion of pustules or tumors (of undetermined nature: “ulcers” according to the Septuagint and Vulgate) immediately began to spread, causing further slaughter among animals and also among men.
7) The hail (ibid. 9, 13-35). Moses foretold it one day in advance, to give time for the livestock to be withdrawn from the fields. In Egypt the livestock is at pasture from January to April; and the plague of hail occurred precisely around the month of February, when the barley had already put forth ears and the flax was in flower: ibid. 9, 31. On the following day Moses stretched out his staff toward the sky: thunder, lightning, and a fall of large and violent hail followed, such as had never been seen, shattering the trees, destroying the grass, and killing the people and animals that were in the fields. The hailstorm must have appeared all the more extraordinary because in Upper Egypt rain never falls, while in Lower Egypt, where these events occurred, atmospheric precipitation is rare. Although the plague devastated a large stretch of Egyptian territory (at least a considerable part of the Nile delta), it completely spared the region of Gessen, where the Hebrews were. Pharaoh himself was severely affected by II. 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, even amid the water, retained its destructive power and consumed the produce of the fields; the straightforward account of Ex. 9, 29 likewise speaks of fire: flashes and lightning.
8) The locusts (ibid. 10, 1-20). Since Pharaoh persisted in his obstinacy, Moses, at God’s command, stretched out his staff over the earth, and immediately a violent sirocco arose from the East, pouring an immeasurable number of locusts over the land. These completed the devastation, destroying all the grass and the fruits of the trees that the hail had spared. This plague is fairly familiar in the eastern countryside. Favored by the warm winds of the south and east, locusts move in extremely dense swarms toward distant pastures, and wherever they descend, desolation follows. But the wondrous character of the eighth plague emerges from the circumstances of the biblical account.
PLAIN OF THE GREEKS, DIOCESE of – Panorama.
(phot. Enit)
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 livestock, and in part in their persons, Moses announced and then inflicted the final and most dreadful punishment: the death of the firstborn. On that occasion God gave the first instructions for the sacrifice of the lamb, whose blood was to mark the houses of the Israelites (ibid. 12; V. PASQUA).
On the 14th day of Nisan (which subsequently, in commemoration of the event, became the first month of the religious year), the destroying angel struck, during the night, all the firstborn of the Egyptians, from the son of Pharaoh to that of the lowliest slave, 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, deeply affected by the fate that had befallen his firstborn and by the country’s great mourning, finally granted the Israelites permission to depart with their families and 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 reddening river and the dense darkness) present undeniable analogies with phenomena that commonly occur, under certain circumstances and in particular seasons, in Lower Egypt. In punishing the Egyptians, God could have made use of the elements and perhaps of nature, but under such circumstances and with such severity that they became a true scourge, and “the finger of God” was clearly seen (Ex. 8:15: Hummelauer, Vigouroux, Mallon, Vaccari, etc.). To reduce them, therefore, to simple natural occurrences, even if of a certain intensity, but deliberately magnified by the author in order to present, within a miraculous framework, the liberation of his people from Egyptian servitude, as many rationalists have wished to do, following A. Du Boys (a well-known member of the scientific expedition to Egypt at the time of Napoleon), is to falsify the biblical account. It is obvious that in the sacred text the ten p. are presented as real portents, wrought by God as proof and support of Moses’ mission, and recognized as such by Pharaoh himself. But if they had been simple natural occurrences, 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 confirm his mission without making himself ridiculous (P. Heinisch [V. BIBLICA.], p. 78). Their miraculous character is strikingly evident from the fact that these portents are announced beforehand by Moses and then occur and cease at the prompting of his word or through his prayer; they surpass every analogous phenomenon in intensity and extent; and, while they strike the country over a considerable area, they spare the region inhabited by the Israelites.
The tenth p. is particularly miraculous. Infant mortality has been mentioned, which in antiquity was far more frequent because of parental negligence; but the biblical account specifies that it was not children who were struck, but the firstborn, without distinction of age.
Some exegetes, including Catholics, on the basis of the analogy with the natural phenomena mentioned above, have attempted to distribute the ten p. (for whose cycle the biblical account provides no clear chronological indications) over a period 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 next three from mid-November to mid-March; the last on the 14th of Nisan, toward the end of March). But these are merely conjectures; the biblical account readily suggests a more rapid succession of events.