The Bible Book

71

See also: Moses and the Burning Bush 66–69 ■ The Passover 72–73 ■ The Exodus 74–77 ■ The Twelve Spies 88 ■

The Final Judgment 316–21

EXODUS TO DEUTERONOMY

Egypt. No record exists of this

in Egyptian sources. Some scholars

date the Exodus to around 1446 bce,

which would place it during the

reign of Thutmose III, while others

say it may have happened as late

as 1275 bce, during the reign

of Ramesses II. Several other

pharaohs have also been proposed.

Plague follows plague

God’s response to Pharaoh’s refusal

to free the Israelites is to have

Moses summon a series of plagues

to afflict the Egyptian people,

culminating in the tenth and most

calamitous: the slaying in a single

night of all the firstborn male

children and animals of the

Egyptians (see pp. 72–73).

Excluding this final plague, the

plagues come in sets of three, a

number often associated with

divinity and used by the writers

of Exodus as a device to build

narrative tension and expectation.

The first two plagues in each set

are preceded by a warning; the last

is not. The gravity of the plagues

increases with each set.

The plagues not only convince

Pharaoh to free the Israelites, but

they also rekindle the Israelites’

faith in the Lord. These powerful

acts demonstrate that the God

of their fathers is worthy of worship

and superior to the host of pagan

gods in Egypt, the most powerful

country in the region at that time.

Plagues reappear as a symbol of

God’s wrath and judgment later in

the Bible. They include the Seven

Last Plagues that complete God’s

wrath at the Final Judgment,

described in Revelation by the

Apostle John.

God’s purpose

There is little historical evidence

for the plagues. The one surviving

document that may provide

evidence, the Ipuwer Papyrus,

describes scenes that could match

the Exodus story—including a

reference to a river of blood (the

first plague)—but scholars believe

that it was written between 1850

and 1600 bce, preceding any of the

proposed dates for the Exodus

by several centuries. ■

1. Blood The Nile
   River turns to blood,
   so it is undrinkable.
   2. Frogs Land,
   houses, and people
   are covered in frogs.
   4. Flies Swarms
   of flies cover
   Pharaoh’s officials.


2. Gnats The dust
   throughout Egypt
   turns into gnats.


3. Livestock All
   the livestock of the
   Egyptians dies.
   6. Boils People and
   animals break out
   in boils.


4. Hail A severe
   hailstorm falls
   on Egypt.
   8. Locusts All the
   trees and plants are
   devoured by locusts.


5. Darkness The
   sky turns dark for
   three days.
   10. Firstborn All
   the firstborn sons
   of the Egyptians die.

The Ten Plagues

Evidence for the plagues

Over the years, scientists have

made many attempts to discover

evidence for the ten plagues and

explain what caused them.

Working in the 1950s, Danish

academic Greta Hort was the

first to argue that the plagues

were the result of a chain of

natural catastrophes in Egypt.

Later, in the 1990s, Hort’s theory

was given further credibility

by American epidemiologists

John S. Marr and Curtis Malloy,

who suggested that the tenth

plague could be attributed to

poisonous mycotoxins (fungal

toxins) infecting the grain

supply in Egypt.

In 2010, new theories of how

the plagues could have resulted

from natural causes emerged.

These included ideas that a shift

in the Egyptian climate from

wet to dry was the trigger for

the first plague, and that the

penultimate three plagues were

the result of a volcanic eruption

on the island of Santorini in

Greece, causing a large ash

cloud to spread across Egypt.

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