From the infliction of the first of the plagues until the passing of
the last, after which the Egyptians yielded all that Moses and Aaron
demanded, there elapsed a whole year, for twelve months is the term set
by God for the expiation of sins. The deluge lasted one year; Job
suffered one year; sinners must endure hell tortures for one year, and
the judgment upon Gog at the end of time will be executed for the
length of one year.[174]
Moses announced the first plague to Pharaoh one morning when the king
was walking by the river's brink. This morning walk enabled him to
practice a deception. He called himself a god, and pretended that he
felt no human needs. To keep up the illusion, he would repair to the
edge of the river every morning, and ease nature there while alone and
unobserved. At such a time it was that Moses appeared before him, and
called out to him, "Is there a god that hath human needs?" "Verily, I
am no god," replied Pharaoh, "I only pretend to be one before the
Egyptians, who are such idiots, one should consider them asses rather
than human beings."[175]
Then Moses made known to him that God would turn the water into blood,
if he refused to let Israel go. In the warning we can discern the
difference between God and man. When a mortal harbors the intention to
do an injury to an enemy, he lies in wait for the moment when he can
strike an unexpected blow. But God is outspoken. He warned Pharaoh and
the Egyptians in public whenever a plague was about to descend, and
each warning was repeated by Moses for a period of three weeks,
although the plague itself endured but a single week.
As Pharaoh would not lay the warning to heart, the plague announced by
Moses was let loose upon him and his people—the waters were turned into
blood. It is a well- known proverb, "Beat the idols, and the priests
are in terror." God smote the river Nile, which the Egyptians
worshipped as their god, in order to terrify Pharaoh and his people and
force them to do the Divine will.
To produce the plague, Aaron took his rod, and stretched out his hand
over the waters of Egypt. Moses had no part in performing the miracle,
for God had said to him, "The water that watched over thy safety when
thou wast exposed in the Nile, shall not suffer harm through thee."
Aaron had scarcely executed the Divine bidding, when all the water of
Egypt became blood, even such as was kept in vessels of wood and in
vessels of stone. The very spittle of an Egyptian turned into blood no
sooner had he ejected it from his mouth,[176] and blood dripped also
from the idols of the Egyptians.[177]
The transformation of the waters into blood was intended mainly as a
punishment for the oppressors, but it was at the same time a source of
profit for the oppressed. It gave the Israelites the opportunity of
amassing great wealth. The Egyptians paid them large sums for their
water, for if an Egyptian and an Israelite drew water from the same
trough, the portion carried off by the Egyptian was bound to be
useless, it turned into blood. To be sure, nothing helped the Egyptians
in their distress, for though they drank water from the same cup as an
Israelite, it became blood in their mouth.
However, this plague did not impress Pharaoh as a punishment inflicted
in the name of God, because with the help of the Angels of Destruction
the magicians of Egypt produced the same phenomenon of changing water
into blood. Therefore he hearkened not unto the words of Moses.[178]
The next was the plague of the frogs, and again it was Aaron that
performed the wonder. He stretched forth his hand with his rod over the
rivers, and caused frogs to come up upon the land of Egypt. Moses,
whose life had been preserved by the water, was kept from poisoning his
savior with the reptiles. At first only a single frog appeared, but he
began to croak, summoning so many companions that the whole land of
Egypt swarmed with them. Wherever an Egyptian took up his stand, frogs
appeared, and in some mysterious way they were able to pierce the
hardest of metals, and even the marble palaces of the Egyptian nobles
afforded no protection against them. If a frog came close to them, the
walls split asunder immediately. "Make way," the frogs would call out
to the stone, "that I may do the will of my Creator," and at once the
marble showed a rift, through which the frogs entered, and then they
attacked the Egyptians bodily, and mutilated and overwhelmed them. In
their ardor to fulfil the behest of God, the frogs cast themselves into
the red-hot flames of the bake-ovens and devoured the bread. Centuries
later, the three holy children, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, were
ordered by Nebuchadnezzar to pay worship to his idols on penalty of
death in the burning furnace, and they said, "If the frogs, which were
under no obligation to glorify the Name of God, nevertheless threw
themselves into the fire in order to execute the Divine will concerning
the punishment of the Egyptians, how much more should we be ready to
expose our lives to the fire for the greater glory of His Name!"[179]
And the zealous frogs were not permitted to go unrewarded. While the
others were destroyed from Pharaoh and the Egyptian houses at the
moment appointed as the last of the plague, God saved those in the
bake-ovens alive, the fire had no power to do them the least harm.[180]
Now, although the Egyptian magicians also brought up frogs upon the
land of Egypt through the help of demons, Pharaoh nevertheless declared
himself ready to let the people go, to sacrifice unto the Lord. The
difference between this plague and the first was, that water turned
into blood had not caused him any personal inconvenience, while the
swarms of frogs inflicted physical suffering, and he gave the promise
to Moses to let Israel go, in the hope of ridding himself of the pain
he experienced. And Moses in turn promised to entreat God for him on
the following day. It could not be done at once, because the seven
days' term had not yet elapsed. The prayer offered by Moses in behalf
of Pharaoh was granted, all the frogs perished, and their destruction
was too swift for them to retire to the water. Consequently the whole
land was filled with the stench from the decaying frogs, for they had
been so numerous that every man of the Egyptians gathered together four
heaps of them.[181] Although the frogs had filled all the market-places
and stables and dwellings, they retreated before the Hebrews as if they
had been able to distinguish between the two nations, and had known
which of them it was proper to abuse, and which to treat with
consideration.[182] Beside sparing the Hebrews in the land of Egypt,
the frogs kept within the limits of the land, in no wise trenching upon
the territory of the neighboring nations. Indeed, they were the means
of settling peaceably an old boundary dispute between Egypt and
Ethiopia. Wherever they appeared, so far extended the Egyptian domain;
all beyond their line belonged to Ethiopia.
Pharaoh was like the wicked that cry to God in their distress, and when
their fortunes prosper slide back into their old, impious ways. No
sooner had the frogs departed from him, his houses, his servants, and
his people, than he hardened his heart again, and refused to let Israel
go. Thereupon God sent the plague of the lice, the last of those
brought upon Egypt through the mediation of Aaron. Moses could have no
part in it, "for," said God, "the earth that afforded thee protection
when she permitted thee to hide the slain Egyptian, shall not suffer
through thine hand."[183]
The Egyptian magicians having boasted that they were able to produce
the first two plagues,—an empty boast it was, for they did not bring
them about with their enchantments, but only because Moses willed them
to do it,—God put them to shame with the third plague. They tried in
vain to imitate it.[184] The demons could not aid them, for their power
is limited to the production of things larger than a barley grain, and
lice are smaller. The magicians had to admit, "This is the finger of
God." Their failure put an end once for all to their attempts to do as
Moses did.
But Pharaoh's heart was hardened, and God spake to Moses, saying, "This
wicked fellow remains hard of heart, in spite of the three plagues. The
fourth shall be much worse than those which have preceded it. Go to
him, therefore, and warn him, it would be well for him to let My people
go, that the plague come not upon him."[185]