God vs. Egypt, Part 2

Hello everyone.

In my most recent post I discussed how God passed judgment on the gods of Egypt with the tenth plague,  (Ex. 12:12) and perhaps with all of the plague (implied in Numbers 33:4).  We looked at the first five plagues and talked about some of the specific gods that the Lord may have passed judgment on with each particular plague.  I would like to continue this discussion with plagues six through ten.  We will see that God is victorious over all comers.

Sekhmet

The sixth plague was the plague of boils.  Moses took soot from a furnace,and through it up in the air. The soot became a fine dust over Egypt and boils broke out on the people and animals of Egypt.  Pharaoh's magicians, who had tried so hard to compete with God, were in too much pain to even stand before Pharaoh (Ex. 9:11).  This could have been God's attack on several Egyptian gods related to health and medicine.  Most interesting of these is Sekhmet. She was a warrior goddess, but also the goddess of healing.  She had a lion's head.

The seventh plague was the plague of hail.  Before bringing this plague, God has Moses tell Pharaoh that he would now bring the full force of his plagues against Egypt and teach the Egyptians that there was no one like Him.  God would bring a hailstorm unlike any they had ever seen.  He even warns them to bring in the livestock and people out in the fields.  Those who feared the Lord obeyed the warning.  Those who were foolish enough to ignore it, did not.  Moses stretched out his hand and the Lord brought the wort storm in Egypt's history.  It beat don everything in Egypt, but left Israel's land of Goshen alone.  God is still showing a distinction between those who are His and those who are not.  This could be judgment on the goddess Nut, Egypt's goddess of the sky.  Nut was married to Geb, god of the Earth, whom God may have already passed judgment on.

Osiris

The Eighth plague was the plague of locust. Prior to the coming plague, even Pharaoh's advisers are telling him to let the Israelites go and worship God, saying "Let the people go, so that they may worship their God.  Do you not yet realize that Israel is ruined?"  But Pharaoh is stubborn and God brings the plague of locusts on Egypt, and any crop still left in tact by the hail, was devoured by the locusts.  There were several gods associated with crops in Egypt.  The most interesting is Osiris.  Osiris was the god of the afterlife, but was also the Egyptian god who made the crops grow.  Now the crops were basically gone, The God of Israel had shown himself to be more powerful than Osiris.

Plague number nine was darkness.  The places where the Israelites lived had sunlight, but for three days, the Egyptians wandered around in total darkness. This ninth plague appears to be God's judgment on one of Egypt's most powerful gods, Ra, the god of the Sun.  If Ra was that powerful, why did the Egyptians live in darkness while the Israelites lived in light?

Finally, we come to the tenth plague, the death of the firstborn.  Now, up to this point, everything has been speculation, but on the tenth plague we have the Biblical statement, that with plague God is bringing judgment on all of the gods of Egypt.  It can be pointed out that Horus, a god with a falcon's head was considered to be the protector of Pharaoh.  Pharaoh was left unprotected when the destroyer killed his son, as well.  We could look at this plague as an attack on Pharaoh himself.  He was worshiped as a god in Egypt, and it had been he who asked of Moses, "Who is the Lord that I should obey Him?"  But now he knows the answer to that question.  The Lord is a god, but The God.  The Lord is not a power, but The Power. So finally, with Egypt is ruin and his family and country in mourning, Pharaoh is broken and he lets the Israelites go.  In the end, the Lord took on all of the gods of Egypt and prevailed.  He always does.   

Tom

God vs. Egypt

Hello everyone.

As I continue my study of the book of Exodus, I wanted to share some things I have been learning in my study. When Moses first appeared before Pharaoh in Ex. 5:2, Pharaoh says, "Who is the Lord, that I should obey Him?"  Pharaoh is going to learn the answer to that question, the hard way.  God is going to bring the plagues against Egypt, and bring that powerful nation to its knees.

Hapi

In Exodus 12:12 and Numbers 33:4, the Bible says that with the tenth plague, God brought judgment on all of the gods of Egypt. As I have been reading about this, one could make a case that all of the plagues were judgment on the gods of Egypt, and at times, judgment was made on specific gods of Egypt. This judgment is what I want to examine today.

In the first plague, God turns the Nile River into blood.   There were many Egyptian gods associated with the Nile River, but this plague could be judgment against Hapi, god of the Nile.  God turned the Nile to blood. Egypt's magicians were able to duplicate the miracle.  But it would make more snse to counteract the miracle and turn the blood back into water.  The magicians and their god, Hapi, were powerless to do that.  Winner: God.

Heqet

The second plague was the plague of the frogs. This was possibly a judgment against the Egyptian goddess of fertility, Heqet.  Frogs were associated with fertility and Heqet had a frog's head. The magicians of Egypt were able to duplicate this miracle of God as well and add frogs to the overwhelming population of frogs.  But they could not get rid of the frogs.  In God vs. Heket, the clear winner was God.

The third plague was the plague of gnats.  If God had a specific target in mind for this plague, it is not as easy to see.  Some Bible scholars have hypothesized that the target here was Geb, the god of the Earth.  The reason for this, is that God had Moses strike the dust of the ground and the dust turned into gnats.  Egypt's magicians could not duplicate or counteract this miracle.  In fact, they began syaing things like, "This is the finger of God," (Ex. 8:19) differentiating The God, for Egypt's many gods.

The fourth plague was the plague of the flies.  This plague was significant because, this plague only happened to the Egyptians.  The land of Goshen, were the Israelites lived was free of flies.  God began to distinguish between those people who were His, and those who were not. (Ex. 8:23)  Of all of the plague, this one was the most difficult to find one god or goddess that was an obvious target for God's judgment.  I read a few different ideas from different writers.  Personally I like Khepri, but only because he had a dung beetle for a head.  It was Khepri's job to move the Sun across the sky. 

The fifth plague was the death of the livestock.  Like the fourth plague, this happened only to the Egyptians.  Afterwards, Pharaoh had it investigated to see if indeed only Egyptian livestock had died.  His investigators confirmed that this was true.  This could have been an attack on the Hathor, and Egyptian goddess, who is often depicted having the head of a cow.

At this point, after five destructive plagues on his nation, Pharaoh may have wanted to take back his arrogant question, "Who is the Lord that I should obey Him?"  He, his magicians and his gods are failing miserably against the one and only true God.  In fact, they never had a chance.

I'll finish this story in my next post, real soon.
Tom