Awww look how cute the locust is! And that hailstone with the smiley face! And the cow sick in bed, haha he's sticking his tongue out!
Dude... no. This is like making finger puppets to teach kids about the Holocaust. I never realized this in Sunday school as a little kid, but the plagues of Egypt were really really terrible and it's a pretty safe bet that people died from most of them. It's horrible to imagine, but that's the only conclusion I can reasonably come to after reading the story in Exodus 7-12.
Background info: God's people, the Israelites, were slaves in Egypt, and God told Moses and Aaron to go tell Pharoah to "let my people go" (and to blame it on God). But Pharoah said no, over and over, so God brought 10 plagues to help convince him.
Here is my list of all 10 plagues and how they ruined Egypt's economy and killed a significant amount of people:
1. Blood
The water in the Nile turned into blood. So, what does that mean? It's chemically the same as blood? It looks like blood? It's not really blood, because blood has to come from some animal or person, right? Artificial blood? Okay, whatever.
So no one could use the water from the river. Well, that's kind of gross but is it a big deal? I mean, how often do I use water from a river? No, dude. The equivalent would be if the water from the faucet was blood. So how are you going to wash your hands? How are you going to cook- boil water for pasta, wash off vegetables...? What are you going to drink? This is totally a huge problem and I know personally it's hard for me to realize how much of a big deal it is, because I have access to running water all the time- it's so convenient that I don't even notice.
2. Frogs
Did you watch the cartoons about Moses when you were a little kid? Haha, frogs. Open the cabinet and a frog jumps out. Haha! But no, this is not a joke. There were so many frogs that it's inevitable there would be dead frogs. Did you dissect a dead frog in high school? What if you found one of those in your house? What if you accidentally stepped on a frog and its guts and everything were everywhere? What if it was in the cabinet with all your food and it peed on everything?
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| This, but in your bed. Image source. |
And then, when Moses prayed to God to "take the frogs away", do you know what happened? Exodus 8:13-14 says "And the Lord did what Moses asked. The frogs died in the houses, in the courtyards and in the fields. They were piled into heaps, and the land reeked of them."
There were piles of dead frogs. And people were probably still finding dead ones in their houses weeks later.
Well. Umm. Solved that problem.
3. Gnats
There were swarms of gnats. I don't think I need to do much explaining as to why this one was gross- have you ever been camping and accidentally walked through a swarm of gnats and got one in your mouth... Can you imagine people trying to mix up soup or bread or something and gnats keep landing on it and dying? People definitely ate gnats during this plague. Unavoidable.
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| Yeah, those black specks? Those are poppy seeds. I promise. Image source. |
4. Flies
Oh, good, swarms of flies. Hey remember how there were just piles and piles of disgusting dead frogs? Well maybe that had something to do with it. And I can imagine that flies spread disease. And just like the gnats, I'm sure they died and got in people's food. Gross.
5. Livestock die
All the Egyptian livestock died. So now they had a bunch of rotting cow carcasses. FANTASTIC. I bet that smelled great. Do you think they piled them up like the dead frogs? Also, this is where it starts really threatening people's lives- no more meat to eat.
6. Boils
Apparently they were so painful that "the magicians could not stand before Moses" (Exodus 9:11). So people aren't able to go to work. This is torture.
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| Protip: Don't do a google image search for "boils." Image source. |
7. Hail
HUGE hailstones came down and killed any livestock that were outside (I guess they got new ones after plague #5- it's not like all the plagues happened in 1 week or anything), and a good portion of the crops. (Exodus 9:31-32 says the hail destroyed the flax and barley, but not the wheat and spelt. I have no idea what "spelt" is.) Seriously, this is how famines happen. What do you think happened to Egypt after all this? Seems like the only possibility is a huge famine that killed a lot of people.
Is it ironic that the first Israelite to enter Egypt prevented a famine, and then hundreds of years later God CAUSED a famine in order to get them out?
8. Locusts
Exodus 10:7 "Pharoah's officials said to him, 'How long will this man be a snare to us? Let the people go, so that they may worship the Lord their God. Do you not yet realize that Egypt is ruined?'"
Pharoah's officials saw the disaster that was happening, the irreversible damage. They begged Pharoah to just let the people go, before things got worse. But Pharoah said no, and then the locusts came.
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| These things look so disgusting. Don't do a google image search for them either. Image source. |
9. Darkness
3 days of darkness. Now that's just creepy. This sounds like psychological torment.
10. Death of the firstborn
And then "the Lord struck down all the firstborn in Egypt." People died. One person in each family died. By this point, all the Egyptians are like "GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!" and they're kicking the Israelites out the door in a panic.
It's like their life was a horror movie.
And surely more people died in the months following the Exodus, because, you know, there was no food.
Seriously, I wonder what percentage of Egypt's population died because of the 10 plagues.
Why did God do this?
This isn't a game- it's a war. God vs Egypt. And all those innocent Egyptians died because Pharoah really wanted to have slaves. This is horrifying, and I'm not okay with what God did. Does God love everyone, or not? Did he love the firstborn sons of Egypt? Did he know they each had a face and a personality and hobbies and dreams?
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| Suddenly this verse feels incredibly creepy. Image source. |
Like I said, I'm not okay with it, and the only answer I can give is "well... God can do whatever he wants..." But I don't understand and I don't like it.
Why am I writing about this?
Because I heard this story in Sunday school and I didn't understand. Because I laughed when I watched the cartoons with the Egyptians' horrified reactions to the river of blood.
I guess I thought Pharaoh finally agreed to let the people go because the plagues were annoying. Like senior pranks in high school. I didn't know it was actually because EVERYONE WAS GOING TO DIE.
I am a Christian, and therefore I need to know what the bible REALLY says, not the cleaned-up silly version with cute animals.
This was a genocide.
My God caused a genocide.
And I'm not writing this because I want to tell everyone "God is really terrible, the bible is really terrible." No, he's my God. I trust him and I love him... and I'm not okay with the plagues of Egypt. Really REALLY not okay. And I'm not afraid to speak my mind. If God's real, he can handle my criticism.
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For more posts on the book of Exodus, click here.