4. The Plagues of Egypt

Moses once more on the banks of the Nile. – The Pharaohs of the time of the Exodus. – Tanis as the Pharaoh’s residence. – The appearance of the great brethren at the palace. – The contest with the Egyptian magicians. – The plagues of Egypt and their connection with the physical peculiarities of the country. – Their religious and moral character. – The last fatal night. – The tenth plague. – The terror of the Egyptians and the dawn of Israel’s freedom.

When Moses again appeared upon the banks of the Nile, the chief oppressor of the people of Israel and his own personal enemy, Pharaoh Thothmes III, was no longer among the living, and the throne had passed to his successor Amenophis II, and afterward to his grandson Thothmes IV. It was under these last two Pharaohs that the great drama of the Israelite people’s deliverance from Egyptian bondage was brought to completion. So far as one may judge from the monuments that have come down to us, these Pharaohs were no longer distinguished by the warlike spirit and might of their predecessors. They were effeminate, haughty, and at the same time weak-willed despots, who loved courtly splendour and pompous ceremonies, who patronised the sciences and arts, and who paid no attention whatsoever to the inner life and political condition of their country. Such sovereigns are a true calamity for a people. Paying no heed to it themselves, and caring only that the taxes be collected and that the means of the treasury not be exhausted for the upkeep of the outward brilliance of court life, they abandon the country to the depredations of various plunderers, who in the name of the government fleece the people for their own private gain and lay upon them unbearable burdens. The very same thing was happening in Egypt. Under these Pharaohs the people groaned still more; yet, owing to the weakness of the central authority, the agitation for liberation could at the same time advance more successfully among them, the people could discuss their condition more freely and communicate with their leaders without hindrance. And thus, little by little, the people had become so far prepared that the great brethren could boldly step forward before Pharaoh as the spokesmen of the popular desire.

The most favoured residence of the Pharaoh of this period was the city of Tanis, or Zoan, lying upon one of the northern channels of the Nile, in the region of Goshen. It was a city of columns, statues, sphinxes, and ornaments of every kind, such as marked the residence of the Pharaohs. Magnificent palaces were the scene of constant courtly feasts and rejoicings, which stood in such striking contrast with what was being done beyond the walls, where the people groaned beneath their crushing labours and burdens. It was as the representatives of this very people that Moses, together with his brother Aaron, appeared at the palace.

Given the heedlessness of a Pharaoh who knew nothing whatsoever of the condition of his realm, and judged of it only by the courtly pomp that surrounded him and the servility of the court flatterers who extolled the glory and might of the Pharaonic throne, the appearance at the palace of certain insolent representatives of an insignificant, despised alien tribe could only call forth from Pharaoh a smile of contempt. To the request of Moses and Aaron that he let the people of Israel go into the wilderness to offer sacrifice unto the Lord, Pharaoh replied haughtily and at the same time good-humouredly that he knew no such Lord of theirs, and advised them not to busy themselves with stirring up idle disturbances among the people, but rather to go and attend to their own work. “Wherefore do ye, Moses and Aaron, draw the people away from their work? Get you unto your burdens,” he said, and with these words dismissed the venerable elders from the palace[1]. He could not, of course, even have supposed what political significance lay in this appearance of the representatives of Israel at the palace; yet he could not but surmise that some unlawful movement had begun among the people, which therefore had to be checked. This movement arose from idleness, he thought, and therefore he ordered the labours and burdens to be increased. But by this, of course, he only hastened the political crisis that was preparing. The rupture had at last to be consummated, and the great liberating brethren appeared once more at the palace, to demand decisively the liberation of the people, confirming their right to do so by extraordinary signs.

This time Pharaoh gave more attentive heed to the representatives of the Israelites, and summoned the court council, in order to hear their declarations officially. In proof of the rightness of his demand, Aaron cast his rod upon the floor, and it was instantly turned into a serpent, hissing and writhing. Marvellous as this sign was in itself, there was in it nothing extraordinary for Egypt. It seems not to have disconcerted Pharaoh greatly. He called his court magicians, and they did the same. Egypt was the land of “black magic,” whose practitioners were numerous and divided into classes according to their specialties. In the book of Exodus three classes are mentioned: the chakamim, or sages, who occupied themselves with secret arts in general; the mekashphim, who knew charms and incantations against venomous insects and reptiles, crocodiles, serpents, and the like; and the chartumim, who, in Brugsch’s opinion, were priests in that very Tanis, or Zoan, where Moses and Aaron wrought their wonders. This class was probably identical with the “sacred scribes,” who held the posts of writers at the temples, and who were at the same time distinguished by their art of casting charms by means of sacred names and words[2]. In this respect they were “scribes of the secret writings,” and entered, together with others, into the composition of Pharaoh’s council. The names of the two chief magicians who came forward with their art against Moses are preserved by the Apostle Paul[3], and both are purely Egyptian: Jannes, or Annu, identical with the “scribe,” is often mentioned in the writings of the time of Moses, while Jambres is the name of a certain sacred book, signifying “scribe of the south.” By what means these magicians performed their signs, equal to that of Moses, it is of course impossible to say; but it is known that, both in ancient times and now in the far East, phenomena truly astonishing in this respect are performed. A certain African tribe, the Psylli, knew how to secure themselves entirely against the bite of serpents, and by various charms and incantations cast them into a lethargy and used them for play, as it were for whips[4]. Even at the present day the Egyptian conjurers perform astonishing tricks with serpents: they take them by the head, and by means of a certain jolt and a charm, render them stiff and motionless, like a stick[5].

Thus, by their first sign Moses and his brother could not prove the extraordinary nature of their commission, and the rod of Aaron surpassed the rods of the Egyptian magicians only in this respect, that, having turned into a serpent, it devoured theirs. Pharaoh could evidently look upon this “trick” of the representatives of the Israelite tribe only with the curiosity of an enlightened despot, and remained, no doubt, satisfied with the like art of his own court magicians. Of letting the people go he would not so much as think. Then there burst upon Egypt a series of calamities which, in the rapidity of their succession and in their magnitude, were without precedent in the history of the country, and which justly received the name of the “plagues” of Egypt. Between the moral and the physical world there undoubtedly exists a mysterious bond, which makes itself felt especially at the decisive moments of historical life. When iniquity attains its highest pitch, when, trampling upon every right, it seems to triumph utterly, then, for the moral law thus trampled under foot, nature herself, as it were, comes forward, and the vengeance is terrible: pestilence, famine, or the calamities of war burst as a fearful scourge upon the country that has violated the moral law. In history many examples of this may be pointed out, and Egypt presents merely, so to speak, the most prominent and famous type of such an interaction between the moral law and the forces of nature.

The plagues of Egypt had, of course, their immediate source in the miraculous acts of Moses; but their character corresponds entirely to the peculiarities of Egyptian nature, in which from time to time, even now, similar phenomena are to be observed.

When Pharaoh resolutely refused to satisfy the just request of Moses, the country was visited by the first calamity: all the water was turned into blood. All the plagues of Egypt bear not merely an elemental character, but a religious and moral significance. Their aim was not only to break the obstinacy of a despotic government, but also to undermine, in the eyes of the people, the credit of their gods. The first plague was directed straight against the chief deity of the country, Osiris or the Nile, who proved powerless to defend the country from this calamity, and his priests, by their enchantments, could only increase the calamity, themselves turning the water into blood, and not restoring it to its original property. This calamity had indeed the character of a plague, yet phenomena resembling it have been observed in the Nile by recent investigators and travellers as well. At a certain period of its annual rising the water in it takes on a red colour. “The sun,” says a certain learned traveller, “had only just risen above the hills of Arabia, and I was astonished to see that the sun’s rays produced a dark-red reflection in the water. The redness increased as the light increased, so that, when the sun had risen wholly above the hills, the Nile presented the appearance of a river of blood. Suspecting some deception of the sense of sight, I quickly bent down from the boat nearer to the water, and my first impression was confirmed. The whole of the water presented a dark-red mass, more like blood than anything else. At the same time I noticed that the river had risen several inches during the night, and the Arabs called this the red Nile”[6]. This phenomenon is explained by the appearance and monstrously rapid spread of a particular kind of small algae, which impart such a colour to the water. During such a state the water does not lose its natural properties, and on being used proves most wholesome and pleasant to the taste. But the peculiarity of the first plague was precisely this, that the water proved unfit for use, the fish died in it, and the Egyptians were compelled to dig new channels lest they perish of thirst[7].

The second plague, the sending of frogs, was likewise directed straight at the undermining of Egyptian idolatry, namely the cult of the goddess Hekt, the “driver-away of frogs,” depicted with the head of a frog. At certain periods frogs appear in multitudes in Egypt, especially when the Nile and its channels, at the height of the inundation, moisten and flood all the marshes and lowlands that ordinarily dry up. Frogs and toads of every kind are brought forth in myriads, and the ancient Egyptians turned for aid to the goddess Hekt. So it was now also, through the agency of Moses, but in a degree still more terrible and unheard-of. The “driver-away of frogs” proved powerless to help in the distress, and the frogs filled even the houses and the beds, which was a true calamity for so fastidious and cleanly a people as the Egyptians. The magicians, by their art, only increased the calamity, which was evidently so extraordinary and grievous that Pharaoh was compelled to turn for aid to Moses and Aaron. Here he showed the first sign of a yielding which, however, was soon again replaced by the obstinacy of a haughty despot.

In punishment for this there followed the third plague, and that without the forewarning which had accompanied the first two. The soil of the banks of the Nile, like everything else there, was held sacred and was deified under the name of Seb, or the father of the gods. Now it was to undergo defilement. All the earth was turned into gnats and various insects. “And there were gnats upon man and upon beast”[8]. The original gives a wider notion, under which are comprehended all parasitic insects: bugs, ticks, lice, and the like. At the basis of this plague there lies likewise a natural phenomenon, observed upon the banks of the Nile. “When the inundation,” says Osburn, “rises above the level of the channels and rapidly covers the whole surface of the earth, then the fine dust, into which the mud is ordinarily turned after the preceding inundation, and which covers all the fields, presents an extraordinary phenomenon. As soon as it becomes saturated with moisture, there appear from it countless gnats and insects of every kind, hatched from eggs laid during the subsidence of the former inundation. As the water flows in, black clouds of these insects rise above the earth and are borne before the flood, attracting in their turn clouds of birds that hunt after them, all of which presents an exceedingly singular spectacle”[9]. The original word employed in the book of Exodus appears to include various venomous gnats and insects. The Greek translators, who lived in Egypt and were therefore acquainted with the peculiarities of that country, employ the word (σκνῖπες), which signifies not only harmless gnats, but also venomous insects, causing fearful sufferings not only to men, but to horses and cattle in general.

But venomous insects proper appeared as a consequence of the fourth plague, which brought upon the country the “dog-flies.” These wicked and venomous flies sometimes fill the air in clouds and are a true scourge to men and to beasts. They are usually borne by the south wind from the great marshlands of the upper Nile, and with their black mass cover everything. Their bite causes a fearful inflammation, and in Abyssinia they are so dreaded that, at their approach in a certain rainy season of the year, the inhabitants withdraw with their flocks. Such insects, even in ordinary times, constitute a true scourge for men and animals. But when the country is covered with water, they multiply to a frightful number. By no curtains can one shut oneself off from them. Since the inundation, in covering the earth, generally diminishes their food, they fling themselves, as it were with a hungry frenzy, upon men and cattle, and rush in clouds upon everything that can serve them for food. The water in vessels and every kind of food is instantly covered with them. If they constitute so disagreeable a phenomenon in the ordinary course of things, one may imagine what a calamity it was for the country when they were sent, in an unheard-of and enormous quantity, directly as a punishment. This was a true plague, and besides inflicting physical sufferings, it, together with the preceding one, was directed also at the undermining of the Egyptian cult, in which there were also special “gods of flies,” as in all the hot countries of the ancient pagan world. These gods were held to be protectors of the country against venomous insects of every kind, and the two last plagues demonstrated their utter impotence against the very calamity from which they were properly held to be the protectors.

Scarcely had the country managed to draw breath from the calamity described, when it was visited by a new plague, namely a murrain upon the cattle. This plague likewise had at its basis a natural phenomenon. When the inundation comes to an end and the water returns within its banks, the vapours that rise from the flooded localities often poison the atmosphere, and it becomes deadly to cattle. The murrain is even now a common phenomenon in Egypt, and sometimes rages frightfully, producing dreadful ravages not only among sheep and horned cattle, but also among camels, horses, and asses. And the protectors of cattle in Egypt, Osiris and Isis, like the other deities, proved powerless to avert the calamity.

In the sixth plague the chastening hand of God touched more nearly the very persons of men. The ashes cast by Moses produced a boil, which smote not only the cattle, but men also. This plague likewise was directed against the Egyptian cult. In various Egyptian cities consecrated to the god Set, or Typhon, red-haired and fair-haired persons, of foreign birth, were yearly offered in sacrifice, and among them there were surely Israelites also. After they had been burned alive upon the altar, their ashes were scattered by the priests into the air, as if to purify the atmosphere of all noxious elements. But now the ashes cast by Moses produced precisely the opposite effect, and smote with a boil the superstitious Egyptians, and especially the priests, for whom the calamity from it was twofold, since by law it rendered them unclean and unfit for the discharge of their priestly duties.

Grievous as all these calamities were, they could not break the obstinacy of the haughty despot, nor could they compel him to fulfil the request of Moses. Then the seventh plague was sent. It was about the month of March. The barley was in the ear, the flax was in bloom, but the wheat, the rye, and the spelt were as yet only in the green[10]. Over the fields there swept a fearful thunderstorm, accompanied by a devastating hail. This phenomenon was extraordinary. Although thunder and hail are not unknown in Egypt in the spring, yet they are seldom violent, and the present mighty storm, with its devastating hail, must have heightened to the utmost the agitation and dread of the people before the awful phenomena of nature, following rapidly one upon another and smiting the country with various calamities.

The eighth plague was accomplished by the bringing of locusts, the most fearful calamity for an agricultural country, especially one already considerably devastated by hail. From Arabia to India, and from the Red Sea and the Nile to Greece and the northern bounds of Asia Minor, the locust is a true scourge of agriculture. It flies in such clouds that it obscures the sun and devours utterly all the greenery that it meets upon its way. Incapable of guiding its flight, it is borne at the will of the wind, and woe to the country upon which it descends. It covers the earth like snow, and were that country before even a garden of Eden, after it will present a barren wilderness. Its flight nothing has power to stay. Fires are kindled, but they are extinguished by the mass of its dead bodies, while the living myriads continue their flight. Through open doors and windows it crowds in by thousands and eats up everything made of wood. Such a fearful calamity befell Egypt also, and only when the locusts had already done their devastating work did a strong wind from the Mediterranean Sea carry them off and drown them in the Red Sea.

All these calamities at last appeared to shake Pharaoh. He hastily summoned to him Moses and Aaron, and this time, with a humility unwonted in him, begged them to forgive him for his refusal of their request. But as soon as the calamity had ceased, the haughtiness of the eastern despot revived again in him, and he yielded to the prompting of the priests, who maintained that all these calamities were simple phenomena of nature, and that therefore the state ought not, on the strength of them, to deprive itself of so numerous a working force as the Israelites represented for Egypt. Indeed, even before this calamity, the ministers of Pharaoh, who understood the needs and condition of the country better than he, had begun to urge him to yield to the request of Moses, since otherwise Egypt would perish. And Pharaoh did indeed make a concession, but with the limitation that only the men should go to the feast in the wilderness, while all the rest must remain at home. “I am ready to let you go, but wherefore with your little ones? See, ye have some evil purpose,” he said[11], and ordered Moses to be driven from the palace. But the plague that followed thereupon compelled him to become still more yielding, and he now permitted all the Hebrews to go, only that the flocks should remain at home, as a pledge that they would return to the country. But the diplomatic negotiations, which had long since given both sides to understand what was really meant by the pretext of a three days’ celebration in the wilderness in honour of Jehovah, had now to take a more abrupt and candid turn. Moses rejected Pharaoh’s condition and said that he demanded the release of all the Israelites whatsoever, together with all their flocks, down to the last hoof, saying nothing more of the temporary nature of the journey. Such a demand evidently had again to touch the pride of Pharaoh. Meanwhile the country was visited by the ninth plague. The sun was the supreme deity of Egypt, and now it too had to reveal its impotence before the awful Jehovah. An impenetrable darkness covered the country, lasting three days, so that men could not see one another, and all movement and all activity had to come to a halt. This phenomenon may find some explanation likewise in the atmospheric peculiarities of the country. In the period between the months of March and May there usually blows from Africa, from the equator, the scorching wind, the khamsin. It blows in intervals lasting from two to four days, throughout an entire month. In the wilderness it raises huge whirlwinds of sand, which sometimes bury whole caravans, and there is even a historical instance in which these whirlwinds of sand overwhelmed a whole army, namely the host of Cambyses, sent against Ammon, which literally vanished in the sands, just as though it had been drowned beneath the waves of a stormy sea[12]. During this wind the air is exceedingly thick, so that the sun’s rays scarcely break through even on the clearest days; and sometimes there simply sets in a total darkness. On such occasions the people usually shut themselves up in their houses or cellars, while in the wilderness, for this purpose, dugouts are expressly excavated, where one may take shelter from this fearful sandstorm. Artificial light is useless at this time, since it cannot penetrate the thick air. The streets are wholly empty, and everywhere a deathly stillness reigns, as by night.

A certain Arab chronicler of the end of the eleventh century relates of a great storm, which was accompanied by such a darkness that all were thrown into terror and confusion, thinking that the end of the world had come[13]. Alarmed by the fearful darkness, Pharaoh once more displayed a yielding. But the demand of Moses, that the people take with them all their flocks as well, again awakened the stubbornness of the infuriated despot, and the audience ended with fearful threats from Pharaoh, that the insolent disturber of his peace should die, if only he saw his face again. But events had now taken a wholly decisive turn, and Moses could, with profound irony, answer Pharaoh that he should indeed see his face no more[14].

Great historical events are not accomplished all at once. More than a generation had passed since the time when Moses, in an irrepressible outburst of noble indignation, slew an Egyptian overseer for his cruelty to one of Moses’ own kinsmen. Perhaps he secretly hoped that this incident would serve as a signal for a general rising of the people in the struggle for freedom. But the chains of slavery had eaten, so to speak, even into the soul of this people, and it was deaf to the call of the deliverer, who himself had to save himself by flight from the death sentence that threatened him. But this did not kill within him the great idea. In the secluded ravines of the Sinaitic peninsula, in the hours of pastoral leisure, he lived by his great idea, but its realisation he had to await for many and many a year. The whole of his youth passed away, and his beard was covered with the snow of old age, and only then did there come to him from the banks of the Nile the joyful tidings that his kindred people, under the liberating influence of Aaron, had at last roused in spirit to a sense of freedom, and was ready to receive the liberating mission of the great brethren. It was then that there began the struggle described above between the representatives of an oppressed people and the despotic oppressor, a struggle in which so awful a part was played by the physical calamities that, in rapid succession, descended upon the country. The last fearful phenomenon, more than all the rest, struck terror into the superstitious Egyptians, and the ministers, more than ever, implored Pharaoh to let these despised slaves go. But the weak-willed and at the same time haughty despot, while agreeing to yield, at the same time again changed his mind, and waited until his country was visited by a new calamity, still more fearful than all the preceding, and one, moreover, that touched personally Pharaoh himself.

Moses already foresaw the inevitable dénouement of the great drama, and ordered all to make ready for departure. The people had to lay in everything that might be needed in the wilderness. Life in Egypt had made the Israelites acquaintedwith the crafts and occupations of that civilised country, so that they stood far higher in respect of culture than mere nomads or herdsmen, and were therefore able at once to found a well-ordered state in Palestine. But a slave’s life could not, naturally, conduce to economic well-being. For a long time they had been gratuitous labourers, receiving no wage whatsoever for their toil, and therefore, if there were certain fortunate exceptions of persons who had managed to amass wealth, the mass was exceedingly poor. Now, before departing from the country, the people had, so to speak, at one stroke to take from the Egyptians payment for their age-long toil, each one asking of his Egyptian acquaintances all that might prove necessary in the wilderness – garments, ornaments, vessels, and the like. With the mass of the Egyptian people proper the Israelites lived on friendly terms, since they bore well-nigh equally the heavy lot of bondage; but the late events made even the higher classes treat the Israelites more indulgently and kindly, and therefore all readily gave them their possessions.

The last fatal night had come, the last night of bondage before the dawn of freedom. The memory of it had of necessity to be perpetuated in the national consciousness. The people had to keep watch that night and to perform the solemn custom of celebrating the Passover, as the banner of their liberation. Undoubtedly the Israelites had even before this had yearly feasts, celebrated in the spring. Now one of these feasts the wise lawgiver chose as a sign of the historical moment in the life of the nation now being born, and ordered the Passover to be celebrated with such rites and in such a setting as would imprint itself for ever upon the memory of the people. Henceforth, from the month of Abib, the new year was to begin, and on the fourteenth day of it the Passover was to be celebrated yearly. Each house was to celebrate it separately, to kill a lamb and to eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs, so that there might be felt at once both the sweetness of freedom and the bitterness of the bondage that had been endured. All were to eat it ready for departure – standing, with staves in their hands, in sandals, with girdles and wallets, to eat it “in haste”[15], as was required by the peculiarities of the historical moment of the people’s liberation. No one was to go out of the house, but to be ready, at the first signal, to gather under the banners of their divisions for departure from the land of bondage. The fearful solemnity of that night and of that rite was heightened by the bloody marks upon the doors, which gave to understand that on that night the last plague would be accomplished upon the despotic country.

And the plague was accomplished. The dawn, which shone for the Israelites with the rays of freedom, lighted up for the Egyptians that dreadful calamity which had burst upon them in that night. And there was a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, for there was not a house where there was not one dead; and in the very palace Pharaoh bewailed his crown prince. The angel of death smote all the firstborn of the Egyptians, “from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat upon his throne, unto the firstborn of the captive, and all the firstborn of Egypt”[16]. The cause of such great mortality is variously explained from various points of view. The Egyptians ascribed it afterward to a battle with the hateful shepherds[17], while the Psalmist, in his triumphant psalm, explains it by the sudden visitation of a fearful pestilence. “He spared not their soul from death, but gave their life over to the murrain,” as the fiftieth verse of the seventy-seventh psalm reads literally in the Hebrew original. The murrain often follows upon the khamsin, or the storm that produces the darkness described above. The mortality it produces is dreadful. In the year 1580 fifty thousand died of it in Cairo in the course of eight months. In the year 1696 ten thousand died in a single day! In Constantinople, in the year 1714, the number of victims it carried off amounted to about three hundred thousand persons. Even in Palestine it produced dreadful ravages, and once, as is seen from 2 Kings, chap. XXIV, seventy thousand died in three days. All the plagues that befell Egypt in general stood in close connection with the natural phenomena of the physical life of the country, but their miraculous character emerges still more plainly in the religious and moral significance that is bound up with them, and in that extraordinary rapidity of succession and force of manifestation with which they burst upon Egypt as real, morally motivated punishments.

The last blow the haughtiness of Pharaoh could not withstand. Learning of the fearful calamity that had befallen the country and his own house, he summoned Moses and Aaron while it was yet night, and said to them in despair: “Rise up, get you forth from among my people, – take all and go, and bless me also,” added the grief-stricken Pharaoh, as it were through tears. Now even the Egyptians themselves, smitten with terror, hastened the Israelites to depart from the country, for otherwise, said they, “we be all dead men”[18].

And the people set out upon their way, gathering, according to a plan worked out beforehand, under the banners of their elders, and concentrating about the central banner, where was the soul of the whole national movement, the legislative genius of Moses, who directed all that elemental mass of the people.