In the Midrash Rabboth (_Shemoth_, Beth, 92, col. 2.) there is this
comment by the Rabbis, on Exodus 2 : 23: “‘And the king of Egypt died.’
He was smitten with leprosy.... ‘And the children of Israel sighed.’
Wherefore did they sigh? Because the magicians of Egypt said: ‘There is
no healing for thee save by the slaying of the little children of the
Israelites. Slay them in the morning, and slay them in the evening; and
bathe in their blood twice a day.’ As soon as the children of Israel
heard the cruel decree, they poured forth great sighings and wailings.”
That comment gives a new point, in the rabbinical mind, to the first
plague, whereby the waters of the Nile, in which royalty bathed (Exod.
2 : 5), were turned into blood, because of the bondage of the children
of Israel.
A survival of the blood-baths of ancient Egypt, as a means of
re-vivifying the death-smitten, would seem to exist in the medical
practices of the Bechuana tribes of Africa; as so many of the customs
of ancient Egypt still survive among the African races (See page 15,
_supra_). Thus, Moffat reports (_Missionary Labours_, p. 277) a method
employed by native physicians, of killing a goat “over the sick person,
allowing the blood to run down the body.”