Plagues of Egypt

“ Thus, in several plagues mentioned in ancient history, we find swarms of dead locusts, grasshoppers, the carcases of those slain in battle, crowded houses, and filth of all kinds, assigned as causes. This opinion was adopted by Dr. Mead, and he gives the following account of the origin of the plague in Egypt. “Grand Cairo is crowded with inhabitants, who for the most part live very poorly and nastily; the streets are narrow and close; it is situate in a sandy plain, at the foot of a mountain, which, by keeping off the winds that would refresh the air, makes the heats very stifling. ”

“ The hail, for instance, which is the seventh Egyptian plague, is the first of the plagues in the Revelation. All this may be explained by the fact that the plagues of Egypt were confined to that country and were adapted to its local climatic conditions, while the plagues of the Revelation have for their field the world itself, and were intentionally diversified in being fitted to this larger sphere.
That a close connection exists between man and his dwelling place, the earth, is a truth in which both science and the Scriptures cordially concur ”

“ The sudden and desolating arrival of a flight of locusts, the plague, or any other unforeseen calamity, is attributed to the anger of God, and is believed to be an infliction of punishment upon the people thus visited, precisely as the plagues of Egypt were specially inflicted upon Pharaoh and the Egyptians. ”

“ Here one can not but wonder that these learned Egyptians, whose colleges of priests were planted on the banks of the Nile, and who had made the climate, soil, and productions of their native land their constant study, should have been so ignorant of these natural causes of the plagues—so easily discovered nowadays by anybody who makes a summer trip to Egypt—as to be terrified into emancipating their slaves by a stormy season. ”

“ DOMESTIC PLAGUE.— Muchhasbeen written, and a great deal more talked of, respecting the annoyance of insects; and some would have it to be believed that all the plagues of Egypt were let loose upon society, and that their lives was a constant warfare against red ants and white ants, sand flies and mosquitoes, cockroaches and centipedes, scorpions, lizards, and snakes. Their noise during an evening in the rains is certainly tremendous ”

“ Blessed are those that have not seen, and yet have understood. They thought the plagues of Egypt were intended for their deliverance, whereas they were intended also for their instruction and conviction, not only to force them out of their Egyptian slavery, but to cure them of their inclination to Egyptian idolatry, by evidencing the sovereign power and dominion of the God of Israel, above all gods, and his particular concern for them. We lose the benefit of providences for want of understanding them. ”

“ AFTER the nine sad plagues that had come upon the Egyptians—the blood for water, the frogs, the lice, the flies, the cattle plague, the boils, the hail, the locusts, the darkness—there was to be still one plague more, the last and worst. That would make the Egyptians let the people of Israel go, so they must be ready.
There should be a terrible night. God's holy angel would pass over the whole land of Egypt that night, and in each house [Pg 74] of the Egyptians he would slay the eldest son of the family. ”

“ Hence, a season of affliction must be expected; war, famine, and pestilence; yea, the last plagues are coming in with such violence, that we are exposed to the assaults of nearly every creature. For even as the terrible plagues of the Egyptians overtook them before the redemption and departure of the children of Israel from Egypt, so, too, before the redemption of the children of God occurs, dreadful and unheard-of plagues will overtake the ungodly and impenitent. ”

“ Note.—In this is shown God's abhorrence of oppression and persecution. The plagues are God's rebukes against colossal forms of sin. 9. What will be the fourth plague?
“And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire.” Verse 8. See Joel 1:16-20.
Note.—Sun-worship is the most ancient and wide-spread of all forms of idolatry. In this plague God manifests His displeasure at this form of idolatry. That which men have worshiped as a god, becomes a plague and tormentor. Thus it was in the plagues of Egypt. ”

“ The ten plagues of Egypt must be inflicted, that they may be recorded for the generations to come as undeniable proofs, 1. Of God's overruling power in the kingdom of nature, his dominion over all the creatures, and his authority to use them either as servants to his justice or sufferers by it, according to the counsel of his will. 2. Of God's victorious power over the kingdom of Satan, to restrain the malice and chastise the insolence of his and his church's enemies. ”

“ M. Savary informs us, that, except in cases of great famine, the disease never breaks out in Cairo; which certainly implies that in cases of famine it does originate in the city itself; and Mariti, by saying that the Syrians have much reason to dread a plague hatched in the bosom of Egypt, undoubtedly intimates that plagues sometimes do originate in Egypt. Smyrna and Salonica likewise seem to come in for their share of the blame; and Dr. McBride, in his Practice of Physic,24 informs us, that some parts of Turky are visited by the plague once in six or seven years ”

“ He knew by heart every individual clump of bunch grass in the miles of red shaggy prairie that stretched before his cabin. He knew it in all the deceitful loveliness of its early summer, in all the bitter barrenness of its autumn. He had seen it smitten by all the plagues of Egypt. He had seen it parched by drought, and sogged by rain, beaten by hail, and swept by fire, and in the grasshopper years he had seen it eaten as bare and clean as bones that the vultures have left. After the great fires he had seen it stretch for miles and miles, black and smoking as the floor of hell. ”

“ Those Plagues which come out of Barbary are the most pernicious and of longest continuance, of which kind was the before mention’d; whereas such as come from Greece or Syria are more mild and of a shorter duration; for this Disease is seldom or never occasion’d by Putrifaction of Air in Egypt, unless the Nile, overflowing the Country too high, leaves its Waters a long while on the Ground, whereby the whole Land becoming a corrupt and standing Lake, that by the Southerly Winds and Summers heat, may be ripen’d and made fit to send up infectious Steams. ”

“ The land of Egypt was in the hands of the nobles and rulers of towns; each slew his neighbor, great and small." A certain Syrian also proclaimed himself king and made the entire land tributary to him, plundering the people. To these evils were added the horrors of foreign invasion. Even under a good government the sanitary conditions in Egypt are far from satisfactory. In the time of anarchy and bloodshed the hot valley of the Nile is ravaged by disease and plagues. ”

“ These plagues grew more severe with each new one. And much effort has been made to show that one would have led to another. Much has been said also, to show that the plagues, at least most of them, were events that were common in Egypt and that they were remarkable only for their severity. ”

“ I have read a good remark, made by Philo a learned Jew, which may apply to this presumptuous disposition of mankind. In treating of the plagues of Egypt, he says, ‘Some inquire why God punished the country by such minute and contemptible animals, as flies and frogs, rather than by lions, leopards, or other savage beasts that prey on man. But let them reflect, that God chose rather to correct, than to destroy the inhabitants—if he had desired to annihilate them utterly, he had no need to have made use of any auxiliaries. ”

“ But, whatever truth may be in the account given of the Ethiopic plagues, the testimonies already produced in this treatise are sufficient to render it very168 doubtful, at least, whether the plague ever does originate in Cairo, or any other place in Egypt. Besides, if we once admit the existence of any thing as a cause adequate to the production of a certain effect, wherever that cause exists the effect ought certainly to follow, unless where we plainly perceive something which prevents its action. ”

“ Eruptions of the skin also occur after the inundation, and sometimes grow into large boils. Storms of hail, though not entirely unknown, are yet extremely rare in Egypt, and storms from the south-west, which in the spring blow over the great desert, are one of the worst plagues in Egypt; they bring with them violent heat and thick dust, which darkens the sky. ”

“ Anyone who has ever been in Egypt will remember the terrible sight of the flies attacking little children suffering from ophthalmia and it is believed that the wide prevalence of this most pitiful trouble is attributable to the abundance of flies—the flies of Egypt, a plague even in the times of the Pharaohs. Things do not alter much in Egypt, and the Biblical plagues are wont to recur. ”

“ The people refuse to listen to Moses; (2) Aaron is appointed to be Moses’ spokesman, not with the people, but with Pharaoh; (3) one sign is given (not three) and performed before Pharaoh; (4) the rod is turned into a reptile (tannīn) , not a serpent (nāhāsh) .
(2) vii. 14–xi. 10. The First Plagues of Egypt.—In this section the analysis again reveals three main sources, which are clearly marked off from one another both by their linguistic features and by their difference of representation. The principal source is J, from which are derived six plagues, viz. ”

“ Learned men have disputed how far these plagues were miracles. Some of them are said not to be uncommon in Egypt, others to be almost unknown. But whether they—whether the frogs, for instance, were not produced by natural causes, just as other frogs are; and the lice and the flies likewise; that I know not, my friends, neither need I know. If they were not, they were miraculous; and if they were, they were miraculous still. If they came as other vermin come, they would have still been miraculous: God would still have sent them ”

“ In telling each of these plagues, it is not enough to describe what happened, but the teacher must assist in making the child realize what the plagues meant to Egypt. Thus, in teaching the first plague, dwell on how indispensable water is and what distress results if people are deprived of water for any length of time. ”

“ They are also accustom’d to drink muddy and corrupt Waters, whereby is ingendred much Choler, thick and adust Blood, gross and crude Humours, which create many Distempers, the chief of which, and most to our purpose, are Sore Eyes and Blindness, Scabs and Leprosie, Dropsie, Frenzie, Malignant Fevers, Poxes of both kinds, Plague and Pestilence, &c. which tho’ other Nations are likewise subject to, yet it being not so constantly or grieviously, these may properly enough be nam’d, The Plagues of Egypt ”

“ The previous plagues were nearly all brought upon Egypt by Moses' staff, and with most of them the natural sources are distinctly mentioned; but the last plague came direct from Jehovah without the intervention of Moses, certainly for no other reason than to make it apparent that it was a purely supernatural punishment inflicted by His own omnipotence. The words, “There was not a house where there was not one dead,” are to be taken literally, and not merely “as a general expression;” ”

“ The plagues by which God afflicted the whole land of Egypt, Goshen excepted, where the Israelites dwelt, were the following: -
1. He turned all the waters of Egypt into blood.
2. He caused innumerable frogs to come over the whole land.
3. He afflicted both man and beast with immense swarms of vermin.
4. Afterwards with a multitude of different kinds of insects.
5. He sent a grievous pestilence among their cattle.
6. Smote both man and beast with boils. ”

“ There shall be a great cry and clamor in all the land of Egypt in such wise that there was never none like, ne never shall be after, and among all the children there shall not an hound be hurt, ne woman, ne beast, whereby ye shall know by what miracle God divideth the Egyptian and Israel. Moses and Aaron showed all these signs and plagues tofore Pharaoh, and his heart was so indurate that he would not let them depart. ”

“ The worst colours are sometimes put upon the best actions. Nay, 3. They so far undervalue their deliverance that they wish they had died in Egypt, nay, and died by the hand of the Lord too, that is, by some of the plagues which cut off the Egyptians, as if it were not the hand of the Lord, but of Moses only, that brought them into this hungry wilderness. ”

“ The anguish and the torture that God brought upon the Egyptians at the Red Sea caused them by far more excruciating pain than the plagues they had endured in Egypt, for at the sea He delivered them into the hands of the Angels of Destruction, who tormented them pitilessly. Had God not endowed the Egyptians with a double portion of strength, they could not have stood the pain a single moment. ”

“ On account of those, therefore, who by neglect of their own salvation please the evil one, and those who by study of their own profit seek to please the good One, ten things have been prescribed as a test to this present age, according to the number of the ten plagues which were brought upon Egypt. For when Moses, according to the commandment of God, demanded of Pharaoh that he should let the people go, and in token of his heavenly commission showed signs, his rod being thrown upon the ground was turned into a serpent. ”