The Plagues of Egypt

Ten strikes. One sentence that does not change. Let My people go, so that they may worship Me. Exodus 8:1

The plagues are not a list of strange weather. They are the LORD answering a refusal. Pharaoh will not let Israel go and serve. The signs are how Egypt is made to know who is speaking.

Before the Nile turns

The LORD tells Moses, before the first plague, that He will harden Pharaoh's heart, and that He will multiply signs in Egypt. Exodus 4:21 Exodus 7:3

Later the same book says Pharaoh hardened his own heart. Both sentences are there. Do not drop one to save a theory. The order in the story is this. The hardening is announced first. Through the early plagues Pharaoh hardens himself when the pain stops. From the boils on, the text also says the LORD hardened him. Exodus 8:15 Exodus 9:12

The purpose is named in the same chapters, and it is not a secret. By this you will know that I am the LORD. Exodus 7:17 He says there is no one like Him in all the earth, and that He raised Pharaoh up so that His name would be proclaimed in all the earth. Exodus 9:14 Exodus 9:16 Paul quotes that line and leaves it as the purpose. Romans 9:17

What repeats

Most of the plagues are announced before they fall. Moses is told to stand before Pharaoh, often in the morning, at the water. Gnats and boils are not offered as a day to think. Darkness is a command to stretch out the hand. The last night is announced, and then it comes at midnight.

The instrument changes. Aaron's staff strikes the water, the waters, and the dust: blood, frogs, gnats. After that the acts pass to Moses, and the last night is the LORD Himself going through the land. No staff does that.

The magicians copy the first two. They turn water to blood. They bring up frogs. At the gnats they fail, and they say the true sentence: this is the finger of God. Exodus 8:18 Exodus 8:19 At the boils they cannot even stand before Moses. Exodus 9:11

Israel is not set apart at the beginning. The distinction starts with the flies. Goshen is spared. Then the livestock, the hail, the darkness, and at last the houses marked with blood. Exodus 8:22

Pharaoh's pattern is also steady. While it hurts, he asks for prayer and offers a smaller obedience. When the thing is gone, he hardens. The bargains get more specific as Egypt breaks.

• After the frogs: I will let the people go. Relief comes. He hardens. Exodus 8:8 Exodus 8:15
• At the flies: sacrifice to your God in this land. Then, you may go, but not very far. Exodus 8:25 Exodus 8:28
• At the locusts: only the men may go. Exodus 10:11
• At the darkness: the little ones may go. The flocks stay. Moses answers that not a hoof will be left behind. Exodus 10:24 Exodus 10:26
• After the firstborn: get up and leave. Go, worship, as you have requested. Exodus 12:31

Blood

Aaron's staff strikes the Nile. Rivers, canals, ponds, and reservoirs become blood. The fish die. The river stinks. The Egyptians cannot drink it, and they dig around the Nile for water. The magicians do the same by their arts. Pharaoh turns and goes into his palace, and does not take it to heart. Seven full days pass. Exodus 7:17 Exodus 7:20 Exodus 7:21 Exodus 7:22 Exodus 7:25

Frogs

The Nile teems with them. They come into the palace, the bedroom, the bed, the houses, the ovens, and the kneading bowls. The magicians bring frogs up too. Exodus 8:3 Exodus 8:6 Exodus 8:7

Pharaoh asks Moses to pray. Moses lets him set the time, so that he will know there is no one like the LORD our God. Pharaoh says tomorrow. The frogs die in the houses, the courtyards, and the fields. When Pharaoh sees the relief, he hardens his heart. Exodus 8:10 Exodus 8:13 Exodus 8:15

Gnats

No speech to Pharaoh first. Aaron strikes the dust, and the dust becomes gnats on man and beast, through the whole land. Older English Bibles said lice. The act is the same: the dust of the ground turned into the swarm. Exodus 8:16 Exodus 8:17

The magicians try, and cannot. They tell Pharaoh it is the finger of God. His heart is hardened, and he will not listen. Exodus 8:19

Flies

This one is announced, and it is the first distinction. Swarms on Pharaoh, his officials, his people, and their houses. Not in Goshen, where the LORD's people live. By that, Pharaoh is to know that the LORD is in the land. Exodus 8:21 Exodus 8:22

The word behind "flies" is a swarm, a mixture. The translation says flies. The point of the verse is not the species. It is that the swarm fills Egypt and does not enter Goshen, and that Pharaoh still will not let the people go once it is taken away. Exodus 8:32

Livestock

The hand of the LORD on the livestock in the field: horses, donkeys, camels, herds, and flocks. A distinction is promised, and the next day it is there. The Egyptian animals die. Not one animal of the Israelites dies. Pharaoh sends and checks. Then his heart is hardened. Exodus 9:3 Exodus 9:6 Exodus 9:7

The warning said the livestock in the field. The next plague, the hail, still has animals that can be brought under shelter. The text is not forgetting itself. The death was the animals left in the field. What was kept in, or what remained after, is still there when the hail is announced. Exodus 9:19

Boils

Soot from a furnace, tossed into the air in Pharaoh's sight. It becomes fine dust, and festering boils break out on man and beast. The magicians cannot stand before Moses, because the boils are on them. Exodus 9:8 Exodus 9:11

Here the narrative says, in so many words, that the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart. The earlier chapters had said He would. This is the verse where the story says He did. Exodus 9:12

Hail

The warning is the longest. All My plagues, so you may know there is no one like Me in all the earth. I have raised you up for this purpose, that My power would be shown, and My name proclaimed in all the earth. Tomorrow, the worst hail since the day Egypt was founded. Exodus 9:14 Exodus 9:16 Exodus 9:18

The warning can be obeyed. Officials who feared the word of the LORD brought servants and livestock in. Those who did not regard the word left them in the field. Hail and fire fall. Goshen is the only place it does not hail. Flax and barley are destroyed. Wheat and spelt are not, because they are later crops. That is why the next plague still has something green to eat. Exodus 9:20 Exodus 9:26 Exodus 9:31

Pharaoh says, this time I have sinned. The LORD is righteous, and I and my people are wicked. When the hail stops, he sins again and hardens his heart, he and his officials. Exodus 9:27 Exodus 9:34

Locusts

The LORD tells Moses why the heart is hard: so that these signs may be performed, and so that you may tell your children and your grandchildren, and know that I am the LORD. Exodus 10:1 Exodus 10:2

An east wind brings the locusts by morning. They cover the land until it is black. They eat what the hail left. Nothing green remains. Exodus 10:13 Exodus 10:15

Pharaoh's officials break before he does. How long will this man be a snare to us? Egypt is in ruins. Let the people go. Exodus 10:7 Pharaoh's answer is the men only. Moses and Aaron are driven out. The LORD hardens Pharaoh's heart. A west wind carries the locusts into the Red Sea. Not one is left in Egypt. Exodus 10:20 Exodus 10:19

Darkness

Moses stretches his hand toward heaven. Darkness over the land, a darkness that can be felt. Three days. No one sees anyone else. No one leaves his place. All the Israelites have light in their dwellings. Exodus 10:21 Exodus 10:23

Pharaoh will let them go, little ones included, if the flocks stay. Moses will not leave a hoof. They will need animals for the worship, and they will not know what is required until they arrive. The LORD hardens Pharaoh's heart. Pharaoh sends Moses away: do not see my face again, or you will die. Exodus 10:26 Exodus 10:28

The firstborn

One more plague. After it, Pharaoh will not merely allow them to leave. He will drive them out. Exodus 11:1

About midnight the LORD will go through Egypt. Every firstborn son dies, from the firstborn of Pharaoh on the throne to the firstborn of the servant girl at the mill, and the firstborn of the cattle. In Israel, not even a dog snarls. The distinction will be known. Exodus 11:4 Exodus 11:5 Exodus 11:7

The protection is not Goshen's address this time. It is blood. A year-old male without blemish, kept until the fourteenth day, killed at twilight. Blood on the two doorposts and the lintel. The meat roasted, with unleavened bread and bitter herbs, eaten dressed for the road. Exodus 12:5 Exodus 12:7 Exodus 12:11

On that night the LORD passes through and strikes every firstborn, man and beast, and executes judgment on all the gods of Egypt. When He sees the blood, He will pass over. No plague will fall on that house. Exodus 12:12 Exodus 12:13

At midnight it happens. From the throne to the prisoner in the dungeon, and the firstborn of the livestock. A loud wailing. No house without someone dead. Pharaoh rises in the night and sends them out to worship. Exodus 12:29 Exodus 12:30 Exodus 12:31

The gods of Egypt

That judgment is one sentence, on the night of the tenth plague. Exodus 12:12 Later readers have matched each plague to an Egyptian god: the Nile, the frog, the sun, and the rest. The chapters do not name those gods, and they do not offer that chart. The text's claim is enough, and it is narrower. The LORD judges the gods of Egypt. He does it as the LORD. The name is the point He has been making since the Nile.

How the psalms remember them

Psalm 105 and Psalm 78 both sing the signs, and neither keeps the order of the weeks in Exodus. The song can put darkness first, or set the locusts before the hail. Psalm 105:28 Psalm 78:45 They are memory, not a second timeline. When the order matters, read Exodus. When the point is that He did these things and then brought Israel out, the psalms are saying that. Psalm 105:36 Psalm 105:37

What the night was for

Tell it to your children. Know that I am the LORD. The name, proclaimed in all the earth. The blood on the house, which the LORD says He will see. Exodus 10:2 Exodus 12:13

Hebrews does not retell the ten. It says Moses kept the Passover by faith, and the sprinkling of blood, so the destroyer of the firstborn would not touch Israel's own. Hebrews 11:28 That is the night, kept as an act of faith, not as a story that Egypt merely had a bad year.