The Plagues of Egypt, Part Two

(Exodus 8:16 - 9:12)

Jehovah instructed Moses to tell Aaron, "Stretch out your staff and strike the ground that the dust may turn into midges that will infest the land of Egypt."

They did as they were told: Aaron stretched out his hand and with his staff struck the ground so that throughout Egypt the dust spawned midges to afflict both man and beast.  The Pharaoh's magicians attempted with their sorcery to summon forth midges as Aaron had done, but they could not successfully do so.  And so the midges remained a scourge to man and beast.

The magicians advised the Pharaoh, "This has indeed been wrought by the power of God," but the Pharaoh was unpersuaded and wouldn't listen to them -- just as Jehovah had foretold.

Jehovah told Moses, "Get up early in the morning and approach the Pharaoh when he goes down to the river to wash.  Say this to him: 'Jehovah tells you to let my people go so that they may make a sacrifice to me.  If you do not free them, I will send against you, against your servants and your subjects, swarms of flies.  Your palace and the homes of your people will be infested with swarms of flies; even the ground on which you stand will teem with them.  But the land of Goshen, where my people live, shall be set apart and no flies will appear there.  You will realize then that I am the master of earthly events, and what will happen tomorrow will be proof that am determined to preserve this division between my people and your people."

And Jehovah did as he promised: an horrendous swarm of flies invaded the Pharaoh's palace and the homes of his servants, spreading over Egypt so that the whole country was paralyzed by the flies.  The Pharaoh called in Moses and Aaron and told then, "You may make a sacrifice to your god, but do so here in this country."

Moses replied, "It would not be proper to do so, for if we did, we would be sacrificing animals that are worshiped as idols by the Egyptians, and if we sacrifice their idols in front of them, will not the Egyptians stone us to death?  We will go three-days journey into the desert and sacrifice to Jehovah our god as he has commanded us."

The Pharaoh answered, "I will let your people go so they can make their sacrifice to your god Jehovah in the desert, but you must not go quite so far away -- and you must make entreaties to your god for me."

Moses said, "Look, I will go out tomorrow and pray to Jehovah so that he will drive away the flies from the Pharaoh, his servants, and his subjects, but the Pharaoh must cease his deceitful dealing and allow my people to sacrifice to their god."

After Moses departed from the Pharaoh, he prayed to Jehovah, who answered Moses's entreaty and removed the swarms of flies from the Pharaoh, his servants, and his subjects so that not one insect remained.

But again, the Pharaoh was obstinate, reneged on his promise, and did not let the people go.

Jehovah then told Moses, "Go see the Pharaoh and tell him, Jehovah, the god of the Hebrews demands, 'Let my people go that they may worship me, for, if you refuse to let them go and hold them still, my fury will fall upon the animals of the field.  The horses, the donkeys, the camels, the cattle, the goats, and the sheep will all succumb to a virulent outbreak of murrain.'  I will isolate the livestock of the Egyptians from that of the Israelites, so that no animal belonging to the Israelites will die."

The time was thus ordained: "Tomorrow, Jehovah will inflict this upon the land!”  And, on the next day, he accomplished what he had promised.  All the livestock belonging to the Egyptians perished and of the livestock belonging to the Israelites, not one did.  Although the Pharaoh had been informed by scouts that none of the Israelite livestock had died, still he was uncompromising and did not let the people go.

Jehovah instructed Moses and Aaron, "Take some handfuls of soot from a kiln and, in the presence of the Pharaoh, disperse it into the air.  It will spread like dust throughout the land of Egypt and will produce in men and animals swelling boils that will blister."

And they took some soot and, in front of the Pharaoh, Moses dispersed it into the air, and, as a result, there broke out upon men and animals swelling boils that blistered.  Even the Pharaoh's magicians could not stand up in front of Moses because of the sores from which they suffered, (like all did in the land of Egypt).

But Jehovah still made the Pharaoh obstinate of mind so that he wouldn't listen to them -- just as Jehovah said.

Notes
1.  The insect instrumental in the Third Plague is not clearly defined in the Hebrew text.  Most often translations name lice or gnats.  There is, however, no species of lice that attacks both men and animals and they would not suddenly increase in numbers.  Gnats are not common in Egypt.  Neither is thus likely to be the culprit.  Midges, however, tiny, swarming insects, do seem to materialize from the dust and would fit the description.  Biting midges of the genus Culicoides are a common nuisance in Egypt, and their numbers can burgeon suddenly under certain climatic conditions.

2.  Again, with the Fourth Plague nothing specific is named, only "swarms."  Early translators thought this might mean "wild animals," but that really doesn't fit.  Generally it is thought that flies are what the swarms must have consisted of and that seems very reasonable.  House and horse flies, though, don't usually swarm and bite.  However, the stable fly does so and would fill the bill as the Fourth Plague.  They are, incidentally, more prolific than any other kind of fly and are a vector for many diseases.

3. The swarms of flies suddenly appear at Jehovah's behest, while the midges had to be summoned by Aaron with some magical passes.  Why the change in technique?  The Fifth Plague, the murrain, also comes without human agency, but to create the boils of Plague Six, Moses has to throw some soot or ashes into the air.

4.  The dying out of all the frogs -- and presumably toads -- would have caused the the fast-breeding insect populations on which they regularly fed to increase astronomically.

5.  The Israelites suffered under the first three plagues, but were not affected by the later plagues, perhaps because of Goshen's geographic location and the fact that it is removed from the main course of the Nile and closer to the sea.

6.  Moses realized that his people's custom of animal sacrifice was offensive to the Egyptians, who, despite their seeming love of animals, did practice animal sacrifice on a large scale, but with different methods and traditions.  There was less emphasis on the burnt offerings of meat favored by the Hebrews and more on the mummification of sacrificial victims.  The practice of Egyptian sacrifice of male (but not female) cattle is described by the Greek historian Herodotus (writing many centuries after the events of Exodus).  It might be noted that most meat sacrifices ended up as meals for the Egyptian priests!

7.  Moses, responding to the false promise of the forked-tongued Pharaoh, banishes the flies from Egypt, but, interestingly, there is no record of his getting rid of those pesky midges.

8.  Murrain, the Fifth Plague, is not a specific disease, but a catch-all term for any serious ailment affecting livestock.  It is not possible to identify the specific disease here.  It was, for various reasons, probably not anthrax, hoof-and-mouth disease, or rinderpest.  It might, though, have been a combination of African horse sickness and the related blue-tongue virus, which could have been easily spread by the Culicoides midges.  (These diseases have high mortality rates.)  Since this plague supposedly wiped out all the livestock in Egypt, one wonders how the Egyptians were ever able to replenish their stocks.

9.  The Sixth Plague, a disease causing boils and blisters on both men and beasts, is also a mystery.  The best candidate is a bacterial infection called glanders, which could have been spread by the stable flies.  Glanders mostly affects animals, but will spread to humans.  It was used by the Axis powers in World War I in an attempt to destroy enemy livestock.  The Japanese used it to sicken Chinese populations during World War II, and there were subsequent efforts (happily unsuccessful) to weaponize it as a biological warfare agent. 

10.  Since all the livestock in Egypt was dead as a result of the Fifth Plague, one might well ask what animals remained to be affected by the Sixth Plague -- wild animals, pets?

11.  There are several points on which the credibility of the story is strained.  Why would the Pharaoh allow his whole country to be destroyed just because he was too proud and too stubborn to allow a group of slaves to go into the desert to make a sacrifice to their god? --- They didn't ask to be free from bondage, only to be able to observe a religious holiday.  Was the Pharaoh a megalomaniac or merely a moron?  He wouldn't listen to his magicians who advised him that Jehovah was more powerful than their gods, but wasn't he also getting some input from his vizier, his political advisors, his officers, his military, his family?  Why weren't his people in revolt?  There is a suspension of belief necessary in accepting the fairy tale aspects of a story which is composed of both fantasy and probable fact.