by
Damien F. Mackey
“There is blood everywhere …. Lo the river is blood”.
o “Groaning is throughout the land, mingled with laments”.
“All is ruin!”
“The land is without light”.
Ipuwer Papyrus
Have you ever heard of the Ipuwer Papyrus? It is an ancient document.
Many believe it to be a recollection of the Ten Plagues, perhaps even by an eyewitness.
Turning water to blood was one of the miraculous powers with which the Lord had invested his servant, Moses, in order to prompt his people, and even the Egyptians, to believe. The other miraculous abilities were the rod of Moses turning into a serpent, and the hand becoming leprous, but then restored to health.
The water to blood phenomenon would be the last chance before Egypt would feel the full force of the Ten Plagues (Exodus 4:8-9):
Then the Lord said, ‘If they do not believe you or pay attention to the first sign, they may believe the second. But if they do not believe these two signs or listen to you, take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground. The water you take from the river will become blood on the ground’.
Amazingly, even this late - and in the face of the Lord’s powerful words about delivering his people “with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment” (Exodus 6:6) - we find Moses still reluctant to co-operate, to face Pharaoh, owing to his perceived lack of eloquence: ‘I speak with faltering lips’ (Exodus 6:1-12):
Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh: Because of my mighty hand he will let them go; because of my mighty hand he will drive them out of his country’.
God also said to Moses, ‘I am the Lord. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name the Lord I did not make myself fully known to them.
I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, where they resided as foreigners. Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the Israelites, whom the Egyptians are enslaving, and I have remembered my covenant.
“Therefore, say to the Israelites: ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. And I will bring you to the land I swore with uplifted hand to give to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. I will give it to you as a possession. I am the Lord’.”
Moses reported this to the Israelites, but they did not listen to him because of their discouragement and harsh labor.
Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Go, tell Pharaoh king of Egypt to let the Israelites go out of his country’.
But Moses said to the Lord, ‘If the Israelites will not listen to me, why would Pharaoh listen to me, since I speak with faltering lips?’
A half century or more ago, now, this great man, Moses, had himself actually ruled Egypt as Pharaoh - as Djedefre (Djedefptah)/Niuserre Ini/Userkare.
But, after a short time, he had abdicated.
He was, too, a sage and a scholar, as Ptahhotep (as Kagemni), a writer of Instructions.
But Moses was also Chief Vizier and Judge in Egypt. “This is the same Moses they had rejected with the words, ‘Who made you ruler and judge?’ He was sent to be their ruler and deliverer by God himself, through the angel who appeared to him in the bush” (Acts 7:35).
In this official guise, as Weni (Mentuhotep), Moses would lead the armies of Egypt, against Ethiopia (Cush), and against the Bedouin. A military genius, he was also known as General Nysumontu (a Moses-like name, Nysu, like Sinuhe, and Niuserre Ini, which latter element also connects nicely with Weni/Uni). On this, see my article:
Ini, Weni, Iny, Moses
(DOC) Ini, Weni, Iny, Moses
Yet, despite all of that, Moses was most reluctant to confront pharaoh Neferhotep.
How to explain this? Perhaps because (Numbers 12:3): “… Moses was a very humble man, more so than any man on the face of the earth”.
He seemed to lack the self-assurance of his predecessor, Joseph, the Man of Dreams.
Had pharaoh Neferhotep even heard of Moses?
That this king had apparently no personal vendetta against Moses can be assumed from Exodus 4:19: ‘Go, return into Egypt; for all the men are dead who sought thy life’.
Egypt’s so-called ‘Middle’ Kingdom (which was effectively still the Old Kingdom, hence the title of this article) was now rapidly coming to its end.
Egyptian Magicians emulate miracles
How so?
A possible explanation for this is given here at:
How were Pharaoh’s magicians able to perform miracles? | GotQuestions.org
How were Pharaoh’s magicians able to perform miracles?
Answer
The story of Pharaoh’s magicians can be found in Exodus 7–8, when Moses and Aaron confront the Pharaoh in Egypt, demanding that he free God’s people, the Israelites, from slavery. Moses and Aaron performed miracles to confirm their message, and on three occasions Pharaoh’s magicians were able to duplicate the miracles.
God spoke to Moses through a burning bush and charged him to speak to Pharaoh on His behalf (Exodus 3). During that commissioning, God granted Moses the ability to perform miracles (Exodus 4:21). Knowing that Pharaoh would demand a sign, God instructed Moses and Aaron to throw down Aaron’s staff upon their first meeting with the ruler. Aaron did so, and his staff turned into a snake. Pharaoh immediately summoned his magicians, who were able to turn their own staffs into snakes. In what must have been an ominous sign for Pharaoh’s court, Aaron’s snake devoured the magicians’ snakes (see Exodus 7:8–13).
Twice more, Pharaoh’s magicians were able to perform miracles to match the signs of Moses and Aaron. The first plague that Moses called down upon the Egyptians was a plague of blood. The magicians were also able to turn water to blood as Moses had done to the Nile River (Exodus 7:14–22). The second plague was a horde of frogs sent among the Egyptian people, and the magicians summoned their own frogs as well—adding to the problem rather than alleviating it (Exodus 8:1–7). After this, however, the magicians’ power stopped, as they were unable to replicate any further plagues, and they acknowledged they were witnessing “the finger of God” in Moses’ signs (verse 19).
But how were the magicians of Egypt able to perform the miracles in the first place? There are two possible answers to this question. The first is that the magicians received their power from Satan. Although not as powerful as God, Satan, formerly one of God’s highest angels, has the power to deceive, emulate miracles, and even tell the future with a certain degree of accuracy (see Luke 4; 2 Corinthians 4:4; Acts 16:16–18). Satan may have given Pharaoh’s magicians the power to duplicate some of the signs God performed through Moses and Aaron.
The second option, and the more probable, is that the magicians simply created illusions. Through sleight-of-hand and conjurer’s tricks, they deceived their audience into believing that they were performing the same miracles as Moses and Aaron. The first illusion, that of turning the staffs into snakes, may have been performed by snake charming, which was widely practiced in ancient Egypt (and even some today). There was a way in which snake charmers could cause a snake to stiffen like a staff and relax on command. Since the magicians were summoned after Aaron threw down his own staff, they would have had time to prepare the trick in advance. As for turning the Nile to blood, only dye is needed to make water run red. The frogs may be a more complicated illusion, but, just as modern illusionists can pull rabbits out of hats, Pharaoh’s magicians could have summoned frogs.
Whether they were creating illusions or performing actual miracles, the Egyptian magicians were eventually stymied by God’s power. They were unable to summon gnats (Exodus 8:16–19), turn the sky dark (Exodus 10:21–23), call down hailstones (Exodus 9:22–26), or duplicate any of the other plagues. God’s power is great enough to defeat both man’s conniving and Satan’s power with ease.
Did the Lord also use natural phenomena?
So far, we have read of the Burning Bush episode and of Moses (and Aaron) being empowered to work certain miracles to generate belief among the Israelites – and, presumably, for any Egyptians of good will.
The Burning Bush; the ability to turn one’s staff into a serpent; to cure a leprous hand; and to turn Nile water to blood; these are all purely miraculous manifestations.
But what about the pillar of cloud, later, and the pillar of fire?
(To be considered elsewhere).
Many have argued that the Plagues of Egypt and the Exodus event were the result of natural catastrophism, volcanoes and/or earthquakes.
There does appear to be a fair amount of tectonic activity going on during the Exodus and the sojourn in the desert.
A favourite idea is that the unprecedented cataclysmic eruption of Thera (Santorini) in the Mediterranean Sea provides the explanation for the Plagues, for the pillars of cloud and fire, and for the parting of the Sea of Reeds.
A tsunami engendered by that awesome hecatomb can then be proposed to explain the drowning of the Egyptian army.
A possible association of Thera and the Exodus is mentioned, for instance, at Britannica.com
eruption of Thera, devastating Bronze Age eruption of a long-dormant volcano on the Aegean island of Thera, about 70 miles (110 km) north of Crete. Earthquakes, perhaps contemporaneous with the eruption, shattered Knossos and damaged other settlements in northern Crete. The Thera eruption is thought to have occurred about 1500 bce, although, on the basis of evidence obtained during the 1980s from a Greenland ice-core and from tree-ring and radiocarbon dating, some scholars believe that it occurred earlier, possibly during the 1620s bce. Ash and pumice from the eruption have been found as far away as Egypt and Israel, and there has been speculation that the eruption was the source of the legend of Atlantis and of stories in the Old Testament book of Exodus.
[End of quote]
The truth is, though, that Thera could have had nothing to do with it!
While one of the dates given in this piece above, “1500 bce”, is, as an approximation, roughly compatible with the era of Moses, this date, when properly revised downwards on the timeline, must be re-cast closer to c. 1000 BC, which is chronologically well out of range of the Exodus event.
The Thera catastrophe may have occurred just a bit before the reign of King Solomon (I Kings 6:1): “In the four hundred and eightieth year after the Israelites came out of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv, the second month, he began to build the Temple of the LORD”.
That is about half a millennium after the Exodus.
Moreover, while the Thera cataclysm must have occurred close to the Late Bronze Age, the Exodus Israelites, the Middle Bronze I nomads, on the other hand, would become conquerors of Early Bronze Age civilisations.
Finally, there is very little evidence for Thera, as massive as it was, impacting as far away as Egypt (some pumice finds, for instance):
How Did the Eruption of Thera Affect the Egyptians? - GreekReporter.com
The eruption of Thera in Egyptian chronology
The exact date of the eruption of Thera is something that scholars continue to debate.
This is due to conflicting evidence from radiocarbon dating and ice core evidence. Nevertheless, its relative date within Egyptian chronology is absolutely secure.
The reason we can say this is that archaeologists have found various items made of pumice (rock formed from volcanic material) in Egypt from one specific time period. This is the reign of Ahmose I. The pumice in question matches that found on Thera itself, showing that it came from the Minoan eruption.
Therefore, we can be absolutely sure that the eruption of Thera occurred in the reign of Ahmose I of Egypt, regardless of when the actual date really was. However, the weight of evidence places it in the 16th century BCE.
[End of quote]
Why I have wondered about the possibility of natural phenomena also being included amongst the miraculous in the Book of Exodus is because, after having read an account of the eruption of Mount Saint Helens in Washington State, in 198o, I was amazed how closely various of its effects seemed to parallel those of the Plagues of Egypt – though not necessarily in the same order.
I read about this in Graham Phillips’ terrific book, Act of God (1998).
This book also served to enlighten me mightily as to the nature of the enigmatic pharaoh, Akhnaton.
According to the Old Testament account in the book of Exodus, when the pharaoh refused Moses’ demands to let the Israelite slaves leave Egypt, God inflicted the Egyptians with a series of what the Bible calls plagues, which included darkness over the land, the Nile turning to blood, fiery hail storms, cattle deaths and a plague of boils.
In Act of God, Graham presents compelling evidence that these biblical plagues were real historical events - the result of a volcanic eruption so colossal that it also gave rise to the legend of Atlantis.
{My own opinion about the highly popular subject of Atlantis would be that the legend about it was a composite mix of ancient catastrophes, including the Great Flood, the Thera eruption, and the Fall of Tyre}.
The following is taken from The Graham Phillips Website: Act of God 1
….
There are various types of volcanic eruption: some spew forth rivers of molten lava, others produce searing mud slides, but by far the most devastating is when the pressure of the magma causes the volcano to literally blow its top. One of the largest eruptions in recent years was the Mount Saint Helens eruption in Washington State USA in 1980, when the explosion blasted away the mountainside with the power of a fifty megaton bomb.
On the morning of 18 May 1980, a mass of searing volcanic material blasted outwards, killing almost every living thing or miles around. Thousands of acres of forest were flattened and molten debris covered everywhere like the surface of the moon. Within a few hours a cloud of ash thousands of feet high, containing billions of tons of volcanic material, had rolled east across three states - Washington, Idaho and Montana – where the massive volcanic cloud covered the sky and day was turned to night.
Throughout the whole area ash fell like rain, clogging motor engines, halting trains and blocking roads. Thousands of square miles of lush farmland now looked like a grey desert and millions of dollars worth of crops were destroyed. Hundreds of people, as far away as Billings in Montana, over 500 miles from the volcano, were taken to hospital with sore eyes and skin rashes caused by exposure to the acidic fallout ash. For weeks afterwards fish in thousands of miles of rivers were found floating on the surface, killed by chemical pollutants in the water.
Something very similar seems to have affected Egypt some three and a half thousand years ago when the Exodus story appears to be set.
The Plagues of Egypt
First of all there is the plague of darkness. This might have been the result of a massive cloud of fallout ash. After the Mount Saint Helens eruption the sun was obscured for hours over 500 miles from the volcano. According to Exodus 10: 21-23:
And there was thick darkness in all the land of Egypt three days: They saw not one another, neither rose any from his place for three days.
In Exodus 9:23-26 we are told that Egypt is afflicted by … another plague – a terrible fiery hailstorm:
And the Lord sent thunder and hail… So there was hail and fire mingled with the hail… And the hail smote all throughout the land of Egypt, all that was in the field, both man and beast, and brake every tree in the field.
This would be an accurate description of the dreadful ordeal suffered by people in the shadow of the Mount Saint Helens fallout cloud in 1980 - pellet-sized volcanic debris falling like hail; fiery pumice setting fires on the ground and destroying trees and houses; lightning flashing around, generated by the tremendous turbulence inside the volcanic cloud. For days volcanic debris fell like hailstones, flattening crops for miles around.
The Exodus account of another of the plagues could easily be a report given by someone living in the states of Washington, Idaho and Montana, over which the volcanic fallout cloud was blown after the Mount Saint Helens eruption of 1980:
And it shall become small dust in all the land of Egypt, and shall be a boil breaking forth with blains upon man, and upon beast... (Exodus 9:9.)
Fine dust causing boils and blains! Hundreds of people were taken to hospital with skin sores and rashes after the Mount Saint Helens eruption due to exposure to the acidic fallout ash, and livestock perished or had to be destroyed due to prolonged inhalation of the volcanic dust. According to Exodus 9:6:
And all the cattle of Egypt died.
After the Mount Saint Helens eruption fish also died and were found floating on the surface of hundreds of miles of waterways. The pungent odor of pumice permeated everything and water supplies had to be cut off until the impurities could be filtered from reservoirs. According to Exodus 7:21:
And the fish that was in the river died: and the river stank, and the Egyptians could not drink of the river, and there was blood throughout all the land of Egypt.
As well as the grey pumice ash volcanoes blast skywards, many volcanoes have another, more corrosive toxin in their bedrock - iron oxide. (This is the same red material that covers the surface of Mars.) After the Mount Saint Helens eruption thousands of tons of iron oxide were discharged into the rivers killing fish for miles around. It would certainly explain the Exodus reference to the Nile turning to blood, as iron oxide would turn the river red:
And all the waters that were in the river turned to blood. (Exodus 7:20).
Over the years various scholars have individually attributed these plagues to different natural phenomena. The darkness could have been due to a violent sandstorm; the hail the result of freak weather conditions; the boils caused by an epidemic; and the bloodied river may have been the result of seismic activity to the south, near the Nile’s source. However, the likelihood of them all happening at the same time seems just too remote. A volcanic eruption, however, would account for them all. ….
[End of quote]
The most that I could say, at this stage, is that, whilst much of what happened involving Moses and Aaron was purely miraculous, the Lord could also have allowed a natural catastrophe to trigger a series of plagues.
The material and the timing, however, was all His.
The Exodus account needs to be supplemented by King Solomon’s vivid description of the Plagues in the Book of Wisdom. For instance:
Wisdom of Solomon 16 – God’s Justice in the Plagues: Plagues as lessons for the nations. - Pope Kirillos
….
Wisdom of Solomon chapter 16 presents a profound meditation on God’s Justice and Mercy as revealed through the plagues visited upon the Egyptians and the corresponding blessings bestowed upon the Israelites. The chapter explores how God used these plagues not merely as instruments of punishment, but as pedagogical tools designed to teach both the Egyptians and the Israelites about His power, justice, and ultimately, His mercy. The plagues targeted the Egyptians’ objects of worship, demonstrating their futility. Simultaneously, the Israelites experienced miraculous deliverances, fostering faith and dependence on God. This chapter highlights the duality of God’s actions: judgment tempered with mercy, designed for both correction and salvation. We will delve into each verse, drawing from Patristic insights and Coptic Orthodox tradition, to uncover the deep spiritual truths embedded within this powerful narrative. ….
War on the gods of Egypt
Just prior to the last devastating Plague, the death of Egypt’s firstborn, the Lord declares his intention to smite the gods of Egypt (Exodus 12:12):
‘For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the Lord’.
This would almost certainly include Pharaoh himself (and his firstborn son), who was considered by the Egyptians to be the Divine Son of Ra (the Sun God).
There have also been some excellent articles written on the Lord’s use of the Plagues to undermine the various gods of Egypt. For example, Joe LoMusio’s:
“Against the Gods of Egypt” - Identifying the Ten Plagues
(7) "Against the Gods of Egypt" - Identifying the Ten Plagues
and Timothy Sliedrecht’s:
Against All Gods: Purpose of the Ten Plagues
(7) Against All Gods: Purpose of the Ten Plagues
Christopher Eames has also written well on this subject (2021):
‘Against All the Gods of Egypt’
God used the 10 plagues to send a powerful message to Egypt and the Israelites—and to us.
The 10 plagues of Egypt constitute one of the strangest collections of miracles in the Bible. Water turned to blood, legions of frogs, dust turned to lice, boils—nowhere else in the Bible do we see such a peculiar display of divine judgment.
Have you ever wondered why God sent such an eclectic mix of plagues? And why He sent 10? He could have easily crushed Egypt and freed the Israelites through just one plague. Why didn’t God just intensify plague number seven—the hail—and be done with it?
There is a fascinating reason why God performed so many powerful and peculiar miracles. He didn’t send the 10 plagues to merely free the Israelites or to punish Egypt’s Pharaoh and his people. In Exodus 12:12, God says, “[A]gainst all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord.”
Egypt at the time was the world’s dominant power, and it possessed one of the most widespread, complex and ancient religions on Earth. God used the plagues to warn and punish an entire religious and political system—and to free an entire civilization from slavery to false religion!
The One True God
….
Through the 10 plagues, God was making Himself known to the Egyptians and to the Israelites. The Israelites actually experienced the first three plagues because they needed to learn who God was!
Some experts believe that Egypt had a pantheon of as many as 2,000 pagan gods and goddesses. Through the plagues, God proved that He was the one and only all-powerful, divine Being of the universe. “And God said unto Moses: ‘I am that I am’” (Exodus 3:14). ….
First Blood: Snake Gods
It is notable that the first words Pharaoh uttered to Moses and Aaron concerned the identity of their God. “And Pharaoh said: ‘Who is the Lord, that I should hearken unto His voice to let Israel go? I know not the Lord, and moreover I will not let Israel go’” (Exodus 5:2). To Pharaoh, Moses’s God was just another deity.
But then Moses performed a miracle that showed God’s identity in relation to Pharaoh, his magicians and the Egyptian gods: “… Aaron cast down his rod before Pharaoh and before his servants, and it became a serpent. Then Pharaoh also called for the wise men and the sorcerers; and they also, the magicians of Egypt, did in like manner with their secret arts. For they cast down every man his rod, and they became serpents: but Aaron’s rod swallowed up their rods” (Exodus 7:10-12).
There is more to this event than meets the eye. To the ancient Egyptians, a snake swallowing other snakes was a known religious refrain.
In Egyptian mythology, the powerful primordial snake god Nehebkau is considered the “original snake.” His image was depicted as a protective deity on ivory rods. Worship of him was especially popular at this time in Egypt’s history (middle second millennium b.c.e.). According to the Coffin Text Spells (ancient Egyptian mythological accounts inscribed around 2100 b.c.e.), Nehebkau swallowed seven cobras, giving him power against harm from any magic.
The Hebrew snake swallowing the Egyptian snakes, in the name of the “God of Israel,” would have been a startling display of supremacy.
….
1. Water to Blood
With the first plague, God struck Egypt’s most important resource: the Nile River. “[A]nd he [Aaron] lifted up the rod, and smote the waters that were in the river, in the sight of Pharaoh, and in the sight of his servants; and all the waters that were in the river were turned to blood” (Exodus 7:20). The Nile provided Egypt with a constant source of fresh water. Its nutrient-rich floodplains were Egypt’s breadbasket.
Turning the Nile to blood was another targeted attack on one of Egypt’s most important gods: Osiris, the god of fertility, vegetation and agriculture. The Egyptians considered the Nile River to be the “bloodstream” of Osiris. As the chief god of the Nile, Osiris gave life to the Egyptian empire. When God turned the Nile to literal blood, the river (and its god) became the source of widespread death and suffering.
This miracle attacked other gods as well: Khnum, god of the source of the Nile; Hapi, the god who presided over annual flooding; Sopdet, goddess of fertility-brought-to-soil-by-Nile-floodwater. It also insulted other Egyptian deities, including Nu, Naunet, Tefnut, Nehet-Weret and the fish-goddess Hatmehit.
….
Although Pharaoh’s magicians successfully replicated this plague, they couldn’t make it stop (verse 22). Deities such as Taweret—the pot-bellied, hippo-headed, crocodile-tailed “Mistress of Pure Water”—were not able to cleanse the Nile or all the other water that had likewise miraculously turned to blood (verse 19).
God’s onslaught on the gods of the Nile River continued for one week. But Pharaoh still refused to obey God’s command. So Moses and Aaron returned to the royal court.
2. Frogs
“Thus saith the Lord: Let My people go …. And if thou refuse to let them go, behold, I will smite all thy borders with frogs. And the river shall swarm with frogs, which shall go up and come into thy house, and into thy bed-chamber, and upon thy bed, and into the house of thy servants, and upon thy people, and into thine ovens, and into thy kneading-troughs” (Exodus 7:26-28).
Besides being gross, this plague would have had a dramatic impact on the Egyptian mind. The best-known Egyptian frog deity is the goddess Heqet. Heqet, and frogs in general, symbolized childbirth and midwifery, as well as resurrection. These motifs are closely tied to the Israelite story in Egypt.
To stop the immense population growth of the Israelites, Pharaoh had previously ordered that all newborn males be drowned by the midwives in the Nile (Exodus 1:15-22). Now, with the second plague, Pharaoh was inundated with these symbols of childbirth, midwifery and resurrection literally pouring back out of the Nile! Surely the symbolism was not lost on Pharaoh. …. [Etc., etc.]
