BibleProject - Why Are There 10 Plagues? – Exodus E3

Episode Date: March 28, 2022

The ten plagues––they’re fascinating, they’re famous, and they sometimes seem overly harsh. Where do they fit in the story of the Bible and the process of God revealing his own name and character? In this episode, Tim and Jon talk about the ten plagues, or ten acts of de-creation, in which Yahweh uses his power over creation to undo his own creation in judgment. Listen in as we explore how God’s response to evil reveals another layer of his character.View full show notes from this episode →Timestamps Part one (00:00-11:15)Part two (11:15-24:15)Part three (24:15-44:45)Part four (44:45-01:00:03)Referenced ResourcesHebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, Ludwig Koehler, Walter Baumgartner, M. E. J. Richardson, J. J. StammExodus: An Exegetical and Theological Exposition of Holy Scripture (Volume 2) (The New American Commentary), Douglas K. StewartInterested in more? Check out Tim’s library here.You can experience the literary themes and movements we’re tracing on the podcast in the BibleProject app, available for Android and iOS.Show Music “Defender (Instrumental)” by TENTS"My Room Becomes The Sea" by Sleepy FishShow produced by Cooper Peltz. Edited by Dan Gummel and Zach McKinley. Show notes by Lindsey Ponder. Powered and distributed by Simplecast.

Hey, this is Cooper at Bible Project. I produce the podcast in Classroom. We've been exploring a theme called the City, and it's a pretty big theme. So we decided to do two separate Q and R episodes about it. We're currently taking questions for the second Q and R and we'd love to hear from you. Just record your question by July 21st

and send it to us at infoatbiboproject.com. Let us know your name and where you're from, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds and please transcribe your question when you email it. That's a huge help to our team. We're excited to hear from you. Here's the episode. A River of Blood, an infestation of frogs,

nats, flies, disease, boils, hail, locusts, darkness. Today, we're gonna talk through what we commonly call the Ten Plagues, the Ten Acts of Decreation that God brings upon Egypt. In order to display his character and name as, yeah, the liberator of the oppressed. We're gonna look at how each of these plagues, as we call them, are connected to the biblical idea

of de-creation. How God is holding the order of the universe together, but when people plant their flag in violence and oppression, he'll let it all go. So every one of these is both a demonstration of Yahweh's power as author of creation, but it's a de-creation story, never-level. And it's intense, because this isn't merely a showdown with one single corrupt ruler. This narrative is painted as a showdown with evil itself. Pharaoh and Egypt represent the height of corruption and human rebellion, partnered with spiritual rebellion. So when God brings the 10 acts of de-creation on Egypt, God says it's a judgment against Pharaoh and the gods, the gods of Egypt. Today on the podcast, we are finishing the first movement of the Exodus scroll, tracing

the theme of God's name. What does the God of the Bible do when he is faced with horrendous evil? There are times when God deals with severe justice against human rebellion and evil. And you learn something about someone's character for how they respond to really horrendous evil. I'm John Collins, this is Bible Project Podcast and today, talk with Dr. Timothy Mackey,

tracing the name. Thanks for joining us. Here we go. Hey Tim. Hey John. We are in Exodus. Yes. We are so in Exodus. We are so in Exodus.

We are actually still in the first movement of Exodus. Yeah. Exodus is broken up into three movements. We're going through each of them tracing a pattern, a theme, pattern. And in this movement, it starts at the beginning of Exodus, or introduced to the Big Bad Pharaoh, and the nation of Israel multiplying, being fruitful, and the Pharaoh being threatened, him trying to take them out by killing the babies.

Well, he had three different... Three attempts. Three attempts to take them out by killing the babies. Well, he had three different- Three attempts. Three attempts to take them out. Yeah. The last one is, let's just throw the babies in the Nile River. Yep. And that's where we're introduced to Moses. Mm-hmm.

And Moses grows up in Pharaoh's household. And his whole story of being called by God, Yeah. Told God's name. Yep. And then commissioned by God to go and rescue Israel from the Big Bad Egypt. Yes. And all of that is so that God's name and then commissioned by God to go and rescue Israel from the big bad Egypt. Yes. And all of that is so that God's name could be known by Israel

and by all the other nations. This is the kind of God who will rescue the oppressed and is doing something in the world through this people. Yep. Yeah. Good summary. That's great. And the focus on the name is key because it's one of Moses' objections, why he doesn't. Want to be the one sent by God to lead the people out of Egypt? He says, you know, people ask what your name is, what will I even tell them? And then you get the description and explanation of the name Yahweh and its meaning, and we talked about that at length. But then when Moses finally does go to the King of Egypt, the first response of the King

of Egypt is, I don't recognize Yahweh. Who is this Yahweh? Who is Yahweh? That's not a name of any God I know. I don't acknowledge him. I don't know that name. So the recognition of the name is becomes really foregrounded there by the narrator. And so, as you're saying, Pharaoh's increasing stubbornness is increasing violence and oppression

of the people is countered by an increasing intensity of God's power displayed through these acts of de-creation, which is our code word for when God hands creation over and allows it to start splintering back into chaos and disarray. It's undoing the Genesis 1 created order, as it were. And that's what we're going to be exploring today is the 10 acts of de-creation that God brings upon Egypt in order to display his character and name as the liberator of the oppressed. And what helps center me and why this is important is to think about that God's name isn't so much about God caring that he looks good or some insecurity has, it's that the God of the Bible is presented

as the source of all life. Yes, in order. In order. And the sustainer of life. That's right. In order. And so knowing the name is synonymous with the idea of flourishing and having life, and being at the center of how everything ought to work,

or the symbol of eating of the tree of life in the Genesis stories. And so blessing, flourishing, peace, all this stuff, the world as it ought to be requires that you are connected to the source of life. Yeah, that's one key piece. So to not acknowledge Yahweh is almost to embrace a contradiction. To say, I don't acknowledge Yahweh, you're using vocal cords and breath. It comes to you as a gift from Yahweh, the creator of all that is. So, at least within the worldview of the biblical story, you are contradicting your own existence

by not acknowledging Pharaoh is contradicting his own existence. So that's one thing. But another thing is Pharaoh has set himself up as a rival to Yahweh. And so there's some cultural background, Egyptian kings were believed and claimed to be the incarnation of their most high gods, which change names and forms over time, but Ray or Ra, the sun god, was often, you know, an image of that. So that's one piece. But second is Pharaoh is setting himself up as this distorted image of God as a ruler. Because what humans are made to do is to rule in Genesis 1.

And so you have a ruler who is not only just doing bad things, but he is fundamentally misrepresenting the rule and character of God over. He's representing the rule of another God. He totally, yeah, of the gods of Egypt. Yeah. So when God brings the 10 acts of decoration on Egypt, in the culminating one in chapter 12, which we'll look at today, God says it's a judgment against Pharaoh and the gods, the gods of Egypt.

So this isn't like run of the mill, human stupidity and poor decision-making. Pharaoh and Egypt represent the height of corruption and human rebellion, partnered with spiritual rebellion and the archetypal foe of Yahweh among the nations. And so Yahweh plays heartball. You know, Pharaoh wants to play heartball. He takes a gloves off. And Yahweh takes a gloves off. So this is important because the narrative is giving us a foundation portrait of Yahweh's judgment against human evil, his anger and judgment of human evil. It's also important that this is not like an everyday thing, you know, this is not. This is not what I should expect when I do like make a mistake. Yeah, I mean, there are times when

as we'll go on into the story, there are times when God deals with severe justice against human rebellion and evil. And you learn something about someone's character for how they respond to really horrendous evil. But that just because somebody responds to horrendous evil in a certain way, doesn't mean they will always respond that way to every act of evil they come across. Yeah, we learn that Yahweh is patient. Yes, that's right. doesn't mean they will always respond that way to every active evil they come across. Yeah, we learn that Yahweh is patient. Yes, that's right. And that he wants to forgive.

And so there's that part of his character. Also. That we're gonna see a lot throughout these stories. But there are moments where he says, that enough is enough. Yes. And I'm gonna let this all fall apart on itself. And yeah, and that's the part of the portrait of God's character we're looking at today.

You know, I remember this really vivid memory I have when I was doing my doctoral work at University of Wisconsin and there was a Muslim student in a class I was in. And we were talking about the portrait of God's character in the Torah, especially in the wilderness narratives. And she was processing that. So we had this great conversation about how the Hebrew Bible contains all these different stories.

And they render a portrait of God, the different stories emphasize different parts of God's character. And I think the challenge that we have is pulling all the pieces together into a coherent mosaic, as it were, because it can feel like God is really merciful towards some people who don't deserve it. And then brings the hammer on other people where you go like, I might maybe be a little more lenient. And so the challenge is really knowing how to hold these together. I'll never forget that conversation because somehow it just clicked for me. And what I appreciated about the Southern students' observations was that she didn't have, I mean, she grew up with the Quran and Hebrew scriptures are a part of Muslim scripture,

but at the same time, she believed Muhammad and the Quran is like the culmination of Allah's revealing of God's character. But she really cared about the Hebrew scriptures and wanted to understand them. So she was just a great dialogue partner to have for that conversation, and I'll never forget that. But that's the challenge we have here,

is we wanna honor this portrait of God's intense justice in these stories of the plagues on Egypt. While also not forgetting, there's just one section of a bigger mosaic that we need to also see God's character within. And I think the same struggle happens when we read the Flood Narrative is Genesis 5, right? And other acts of justice throughout the Bible, not just here. I'm really excited about you explaining how these are connected to de-creation. Because they just seem like, just like,

hey, let's roll the dice and see what kind of plague is gonna show up. Yeah. I've got to have some plague dice and he's like, um, all right, Lucas, send the Lucas. Ha, ha, ha the Lucas. Totally. No, I hear that. And there are still things that puzzle me about the plagues,

but I have learned a lot in the last few years that I'm excited to talk about with you. Okay. So the section of Exodus that contains the lead-up story to the first plague. Actually, we should say the word plague's, there's a variety of words used in the stories to talk about what God is doing, what these 10 things are. And so there's sometimes called plagues, and that's translating a word used in the story from the Hebrew word Nagoff, which means to hit or to strike. There's another word that spelled with real similar letters pronounced Nagah, instead of Nagaf. That strike and Nagah means to touch, but also can mean to touch intensely. So also to like strike. And then also these acts are called either signs or wonders. Symbolic acts of power that point to the greater power of the one who can do such signs and

wonders, that kind of thing. But the word pleggs has been the one that has kind of stuck throughout, at least in our English-speaking traditions. And plegg refers to a disease, in my mind. Most often, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and only one of the 10 plagues is a disease. I guess you're right, exclusively, do we say plague

when we mean disease? Disease, yeah. So I've thought of other things to call these, like the 10 strikes or the 10 acts of decreation or something, but it's just worth noticing. Yeah. The word plague technically only refers to one of the 10, not to all of them. So the 10 strikes.

So the story begins with, after Aaron and Moses went to Pharaoh and Pharaoh said, I don't acknowledge Yahweh. And then in chapter 5 and 6, Pharaoh turned up the intensity of the slavery on Israel. More bricks, less draw to make the bricks. So Moses and Aaron go back to Yahweh and Yahweh says, I told you this was going to get intense and it's about to get more so, about open up a can. So go back to Pharaoh and tell him again, let my people go. And so that's where we pick up in Exodus chapter seven. This is where we concluded our last conversation, Moses and Aaron go back to Pharaoh

and they say, let the people go and Pharaoh says, nope. And so, Yahweh says, listen, I'm about to stretch out my hand against Egypt and the Egyptians will come to recognize, to acknowledge that I am Yahweh. So here we begin the 10 plagues. So what's interesting about the 10 plagues is they're structured in a really highly designed way, in terms of their literary design.

There's 10 total, but those 10 are divided up into three groups of three, making nine. And then the 10th and final one is kind of set apart from those three groups of three. Okay. So in order they are famously blood, the Nile turns to blood. Number one. Number one. Number two. Frogs come up out of the Nile and crawl into everybody's houses and nasty. Number three are naps come fly and cover everything. Fourth, flies come and fill cover everything.

Fifth is plague, like an actual disease. The sixth is like boils, actually like skin boils. The seventh is hailstones fall and destroy all the crops. Eight is locust come and eat everything that the hail didn't destroy. And then the ninth is Darkness over the land. And then that's it to you up for the tenth, which is the death of the firstborn. And that links all the way back to the death of the firstborn sons of Israel.

Farrell long ago began back in chapter one. Farrell was tossing the boys in the river. Yeah, that's right. So those are the ten. And what's interesting is that the... Feel like we need like the ten days of Christmas song or something to remember these ten days. Five live stockpligs. That would be great. I'm sure somebody's done it. What's number four? Number four is the flies.

Four buzzing flies. Three. Three terrible nets. Two leaping frogs. And the nigh-all full of yikki blood. Something like that. Something like that. Okay, all right. I'm feeling it. Okay, so the first nine plagues come at a pretty fast pace, and then the tenth one, as I said,

set apart. The tenth one has three whole long chapters dedicated to it, whereas the first nine get, you know, anywhere from like a third of a chapter to a quarter of a chapter kind of thing. But we're talking about Exodus chapter 7 through 10 are the plagues. So here's what's fascinating. If you start studying patterns of repeated words, you'll see that just like the six days of Genesis, or organized- You're talking about just chapter 1, God creates order and six days.

In the seven day creation narrative that goes from Genesis 1 to Genesis 2 to 3. That narrative has six days of God working. And the arrangement of those six days is super intentional. And we've talked about that at length. But the organization of them into triads, two groups of three, and then the things match in in symmetry is going forward. There is an identical design to these nine plagues. There's three groups of three.

There's three triads. So it goes the blood, the frogs, the gnats, the triad one, the flies, the plague, the boils, the triad two, the hail, the locust, the darkness, the triad three. And just, you know, I can't make this stuff up. There are symmetrically repeating phrases that link these together both sideways and vertically. If you put them in a grid. If you put them in a grid, that's right. For example, the three triads, the first one of each triad happens in the morning. So each triad begins with a plague in the morning?

Or a strike in the morning? Exactly. The plague of blood, the plague of the flies, the plague of the hail, that is, plague's one, four, and seven, all have a little moment where they're introduced with a narrative saying, and God said to Moses in the morning,

and then all of them take place where Pharaoh is going out to the river or to the waters. And Moses is told to go meet Pharaoh by the waters. And it's only in the morning. It's only plagues one, four, and seven. So it's very conspicuous. Very clearly kind of marking out we're starting a new set of plagues. Yep, that's right. So it divides. There's that act right there. It divides the nine. And what a wonderful place to show down with Pharaoh at the Nile. Exactly. The first plague will take place at the Nile, with blood, but also it circles back to what Pharaoh did with the Israelite boys on the Nile,

which is toss them into the waters. So it makes all of the nine plagues a counter to Pharaoh's evil back in chapter one. That's one thing. The first of each triad, plagues one, four, and seven, all have the phrase, so that y'all will know that I'm Yahweh. That's a key phrase. That's what we're tracing. We've been tracing the name of Yahweh. Yep. That's right.

When you go to the second plague in each triad, that is plagues two, 5, and 8. The frogs plague on the livestock and the locust. Those all take place with Moses going to meet Pharaoh in his house. So each one of them is Moses going to Pharaoh, not out by the shore. That's the one, four, and seven. Plagues 2, 5, and 8 is all Moses going into Pharaoh's house and they're demanding that the people be let go. Then the third in each triad, plagues 36 and 9, which is Nats, boils and darkness. There's no warning. We're not told of when, how, or where Moses went to Pharaoh. Because normally Moses comes and says,

Hey, you're going to get another one. Here's a chance to let us go. Totally. Totally. And this, the third strike of each tryout. There's no warning. There's no warning. It's just, hey, you aren't letting my people go. Boom, here I'm gonna do this. And the plague comes, you know, without any lead up time.

So that's interesting, just right there. There are also hyperlinks and design features that knit each of the three together. Plagues one, two, and three are all a little unit that take place near the Nile. Plagues four, five, and six are all bound together. Plagues seven, eight, and nine are really long. And every one of them has a line that says, when the hail comes, it says hail will fall, like no hail has ever fallen before and no one has seen it and no one will ever see anything like it again.

When the locust come, there will be more locust more than anyone has ever seen before and no one will ever see that many again. And then with the darkness, it was that the Egyptians could not see, while the Israelites could see in the darkness. So the first two, the hail and the locust where no one has ever seen anything like this.

And then the ninth plague is, and the Egyptians just straight up, couldn't see anything at all. So it's kind of a funny little information. That last triad is kind of like the ramps it up to. The ramps it up. Yeah, exactly. So there are actually lots of other things here, but they're all they're all united. And the phrase, this was actually something that Karissa on our team, our scholar team pointed out to me was that

in the 10 plagues chapters from the first plague on through the 10th, the phrase you will know that I am Yahweh appears, wait for it, how many times? Seven times. So once the plague start, there are seven announcements that this is happening so that Pharaoh will know that I'm Yahweh or Egypt will know that I'm Yahweh or the Israelites shall know that I'm Yahweh. So that also creates a nice cohesion through these as well. So the main takeaway is, well I don't know, you tell me. Well, with that last one that the authors would make sure that there's seven times that the phrase, you'll know I'm Yahweh in this section, seems to mean that they think that pattern,

that theme of knowing the name is kind of an ultimate importance in this section. Yeah, that's right. Seven symbolizes kind of completion. A moment, yeah, a complete statement of something. Yeah, so to do it seven times, is to say like, really pay attention to this idea. Yeah, just to recall the seven day symbolism begins

in the first story in the Hebrew Bible with the seven day creation story. And the word seven is spelled with the same Hebrew letters as the word to be filled up for complete. So things repeating in numbers of seven is a statement of wholeness or completeness or climactic importance, something like that. Yeah, that's right.

And all of this symmetry and ordering of the 10 plagues or the three sets of three plus one. Yeah. One, it kind of just helps you maybe remember them and the significance of them. Yeah, actually, that's a big part of it. It's a huge part of it. That's a huge part of it. The literary design of biblical literature,

a big part of it is aimed at helping you both memorize it, eat more easily once you see it structure, and then it helps you recite it in your mind as you meditate on it. Yeah, I'm already starting to be able to categorize it, and I might have a little bit better than before. Just hard to remember. Totally. The ten, you know, ten or of, yeah, crazy making to happen.

And the one takeaway is that each set of three begins in the morning. Like day one of creation. Like day one of creation. Yeah. And the first set of three, sorry, the first triad not only starts in the morning, but it happens at the Nile River. And all three happen at the Nile River. And starting at the Nile River, the showdown with Pharaoh at the Nile River, is really important,

like we just said. This is where he did his act of just cruel injustice and murder. And then that last set of three is like, in fact, there's no warning, and the volumes turned up, there's something probably to meditate on there too. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, lots of cool stuff going on. But let's go through them because I want you to show me

how each of these are connected to de-creation. Yeah, yeah. And any other kind of cool things that you wanna bring out. Yep, yep, deal. Okay, plague number one, a river turns to blood. Yuck. Yeah. That's gross. This is Exodus 7, verse 15, and the Lord said,

Demosa, go to Pharaoh in the morning as he's going out to the water. So I think first of all, it circles back to Pharaoh long ago throwing the baby, his relights, boys into the water. Also, and this is just kind of in the background, but assumed by the biblical authors, is the Nile was the lifeline of Egyptian culture. Yep, Egyptian agriculture, therefore their economy, therefore their empire.

Yeah. It was all funded and sustained by this river. So the Nile and the source of the Nile was viewed as a divine presence and power. The river is the embodiment of a deity and Pharaoh as the one who brings order and maintains order of the land, his exercise of authority over the river is a big part of Egyptian religion and culture and so on. Lots of water rituals. So to really go for the jugular on the first one would be, I'm just going to turn your lifeline into blood.

Yeah, totally. Which, certainly, it's again, echoing back to the innocent blood of the Israelite boys. Even though tossing a baby into the water and it drowning, you likely wouldn't see blood in the water. But the image is, Pharaoh filled the river with dead bodies. And Yahweh is going to... The blood of the innocent. The blood of the innocent is crying out.

Yeah, that's exactly what's going on. So this is the blood of Abel crying out... The blood of the innocent. The blood of the innocent is crying out. Yeah, that's exactly what's going on. So this is the blood of Abel crying out, the blood of those boys. So that's on the background. When God says to Moses, go out to Pharaoh in the morning as he's going out to the river. To do what?

That doesn't matter. The point is it's Pharaoh by the river and that creates the symbolic stage, so to speak. Go meet him on the bank of the Nile, take the staff that turned into a snake. Yeah, when Moses met, Moses met with Yahweh, the angel of Yahweh, at the Sinai bush. Yeah, that's right. One of his objections was... Yeah, what if the people don't believe me? Yeah, and so yeah

God gives Moses three signs one of them is Throw your staff on the ground and it'll become a snake and then pick it up and it'll become a staff again And actually in the narrative we didn't read it Moses just did that same sign in front of Pharaoh Mm-hmm like just in the paragraph before we're reading right now And that's where it turns into, not just a snake, but it turns into... Seamoster. Seamoster.

Yeah. Yeah, the Teneen, right? Yeah, don't wow! Good memory time. He bruved his head. Coming out. And so that's all about portraying Moses as the seed of the woman in Genesis 3.15.

Crush is the snake. The one who can handle the snake. Yeah. Yeah, so Moses is depicted as the one with power over the snake. And then in this narrative, he is confronting the king who is the embodiment of sneaky evil in the land. So take that snake staff and say to him, Yahweh, Elohim of the Hebrews, sent me saying, let my people go to worship me in the wilderness, but you haven't listened.

So this is what Yahweh says, by this you will know that I am Yahweh. There's our first of seven times that phrase will be used. Plakes, I'll strike the water in the Nile with the staff in my hand and it will turn to blood. So the water becomes undrinkable, that's a big emphasis. You can't drink blood. So what's interesting, that's interesting.

The other thing is you're told after the water turns to blood that seven days pass. You just randomly told that at the end of this plague. So it's the first plague. The last for seven days. And it begins in the morning, which echoes the first day of creation, which is the creation, the God's light enters, creates a night and day, morning and evening. And then it ends with the echo of the seventh day. There's a completeness in this plague itself.

That's right. Goes for the jugular. This is what your whole economy is based on. Yeah. This is, represents your evil being turned back against you Yeah, this should do it. Yeah, that's right, but it doesn't Pharaoh's heart is hard and you won't let the people go second plague God says let my people go and if you don't Frogs We'll come up out of the land and actually the word frog is a lone word in Hebrew. It's not. In the Hebrew Bible? What do you mean, lone word? Sorry. Yeah. You know how in English, we have

words that are not, don't have a history back in English. They're words imported from another language. Right. So we have tons of ancient Greek and Hebrew words in English like baptism and stuff like that. Angels, that's a Greek word, spelled with English letters. So when there are lots of ancient Near Eastern loan words in classical Hebrew. So the Hebrew word is Safaaddea. And so loan word means it has no Hebrew origin. It was imported in.

It was imported in. So, let's see, I'm looking up in the Hebrew air-mac, Lexicon by Collar and Baumgartner. And it's either a lone word from Aramaic or a lone word from Arabic. Ah, Hebrew, Arama, and Arabic are all the three cousin languages of, what was called ancient, Semitic.

Semitic languages. Yes, Semitic languages, and then there's some other relatives, but kind of the way, like Italian and French and Spanish. For all Latin cousins. Yep, all linked together. So, Arabic. So often there's Arabic, loan words in biblical Hebrew

or Arabic, loan words in biblical Hebrew or Arabic, lone words in biblical Hebrew. Anyway, just kind of interesting. I was just, it's a weird looking Hebrew word because it's spelled way different than the way in Hebrew letters are often spelled. Sephardad-eem. Proof. So here what's interesting is frogs,

are they a land creature or are they a sea creature? Mm, yes. In Genesis 1, God makes a very clear separation Are they a land creature or are they a sea creature? Yes. In Genesis 1, God makes a very clear separation between the land and the sea. That's a part of the order of creation, the boundary of the sea. The fish go in the fish place and the mammals go in the land place. So these amphibians. Totally. Whoa.

And so our word amphibian is like a biological term, but it's a Greek word. Is it? Yeah, the word amphibilus, I'll let you look it up, but it's the Greek word for like both, or both and. I just know this because it's used in New Testament Greek to mean two things together. Having two modes of existence. Yeah. Amphibia modes of existence. Yeah. Amphibia is the Greek.

Yep, Amphibia, yeah. Can mean living a double life. Amphi, both kinds, and the Bia is Bios, life. Oh, totally. Both kinds of life. Yeah, it lives on the land and it lives on the sea. So the... It's got two lives.

Yeah, it's got two lives. So the point is that the frogs represent a creature that erase the boundary between land and sea. Yeah, okay. And the biblical imagination, frogs are like this. Yeah. Representation of yes, got ordered things, but there are creatures that kind of mess with that order.

Yep, that's right. So that's one thing. The second is something you're told is that all of a sudden the language about the sea creatures in Genesis 1 start coming out. So you're told the Nile will swarm with frogs, so we're just shot at it. It's exactly what God says in Genesis 1,

let the waters swarm with every swarming creature. Shodrats. Oh, okay. So, God is bringing out a creature that is swarming, but it swarms in the waters and on the land. So, it's a hybrid creature. It's a racing the boundary. That's right. And that boundary between land and sea is super important and biblical cosmology.

Yeah. It creates the place where humans can live, which is separate from the chaotic sea where you can't live out there. Yeah, that's right. So that's interesting. They didn't know about the city of my land. I think so. That's right. So the third plague is Moses is told to just hit the dust of the land and the dust

of the land will become nuts. This is the third plague now? This is the third plague. Yep. Yep. Strike the dust of the ground and they'll just become annoying little nuts. And the nuts are going to go all throughout the land and just be on people.

Okay. But you know, if you've ever been... What must have been thinking of here, like a small, small inside? Not even as big as flies. Oh, okay. Like gnats. Man, I just know this in the summer,

I ride my bike, I'm a bike commuter here in Portland, so I ride my bike everywhere. And in the summer, especially mid to late summer, often I'll be riding home from work and I'll see a little, what looks like a little gray patch of mist in front of me. Yeah. And it's like, it's a little, look bug zone. It's a little gray patch of mist in front of me. And it's like, it's a little, it's a little cloud of gnats.

Oh, those are gnats. And when I ride into them, they get in my nose and my nose. And it's, yeah, all of a sudden I've got like three gnats and my mouth and two of my nose. That's a type of gnats. Like gnats could be all sorts of things. They include, they include flies of net. Like, that's could be all sorts of things. They include flies and mosquitoes.

Oh, interesting. Well, I mean, according to kidshealth.org. That's how it came up when you Googled net. I Googled do nats bite. Oh, okay, got it. By the point is, they're just really tiny flying insects. That's Wikipedia. And that is one of many species of tiny flying insects.

Okay. Yeah. Some sort of tiny flying insect. Yeah, that's right. Now, is it significant that it came from the dust? Of course it is. Yes, it is. So he strikes the dust of the land, and what we're told is that the dust of the land becomes

nats on the humans. And humans were made from the dust of the land. Exactly. It's exactly the language used. Humans from the dust of the land. So there's a bit of a, not a reversal, but kind of a twist in the idea that God created you from the dust. Now he's covering you with something annoying from the dust.

Yeah, the dust is the main biblical motif for mortality, returning to the dust. And so here, the dust is like the mortality, the death is coming out of the ground and covering you. Yeah, whoa. Yeah, it's kind of gross. It's almost zombie-like, but not like humanoid zombie. It's kind of like the slime Man, you know what I remember the first sci-fi horror movie I ever saw I was at my grandma's house And I must have been young. I'm six or seven. It was just called either the green slime. I think it was just called the green slime

dude, it terrified. Yeah 1968 the green slime. Dude, it terrified. Yeah, 1968, the green slime. Did that movie filled my imagination for, I mean, disproportionate amount of years, like well into my tween years. I was thinking about the green slime. Wow. Yeah, it was, yeah, it was a sci-fi thriller, a group of scientists unknowingly bring back a strange green substance that threatens to take over the planet. This is the kind of movie mystery science theater like watches and it makes fun of. It is, that's exactly what it is. I really should watch it. I bet it would redeem the giant asteroid heading to Earth. Astronauts disembark to blow it up. They're successful, but they bring the green substance black.

It's rated G. Is it really? Anyhow, why am I thinking about this? Oh, yeah, the gnats. The gnats are like the green slime. They're the dust of the earth coming alive and then trying to like cover you and drag you back into it. There you go. That's it. So next, plague number four is the flies. And what we're told about the flies is they will come up out of the ground and they will fill the land. And so the idea of blessing in Genesis 1 is about filling and multiplying. But flies to fill and multiply is kind of like the opposite of life.

It's like flies like to decompose things. Yeah, totally. That's their job. Yeah. Yeah, they hang out on decomposing things, mostly manure piles and carcasses. Lovely. Yeah. And they fill the land.

With death. Yeah, so this mirrors the be fruitful and multiply and fill the land, which is about life. And what you're saying is flies are often hanging around death and they're what filling the land The other thing happens with the plague of the flies is God makes a distinction This is the first one where God makes a separation. So God separated between my people and your people and so there will be no

Swarming flies in the land of Goshen where Israel is hanging out, but there will be many The fly is in the land of Goshen, where Israel is hanging out, but there will be many flies. So there's this separation of Israel and Egypt. That's a plague number four. Plague number five is an actual plague, like a disease, that comes on the livestock of the land. And so in the plague on the livestock, oh yeah, this is interesting. So in the plagues on the livestock, God says he's going to make a distinction between the herds of Israel and between the herds of Egypt. And he will set in a pointed time. Yeah, an

appointed time for this to happen. It's the word moed. Yeah, this is echoing when God separated between light and dark on day one. But then he handed over the responsibility of separating to the lights and that they become signs of the appointed times and that they separate. So at least at this one, for example, I don't think the parallel is between Egypt and Israel and the lights above, but it's that this is the language of creation of God separating and appointing times, but here it's to bring death instead of life on Egypt. Okay. Yeah, plague number five.

Plague number six, who is about the boils? So here he used to go to a oven, most of this is to go to a oven and get a whole bunch of sooty dust and then throw it up into the skies. And then the wind will carry it all around and as it lands on people's skin, it will erupt into boils and the leaves. It's really creative now. It's totally.

I think one of the key things here is the word the boils are on human and beast. The word boil is the Hebrew word snake backwards. And that wouldn't struck me as significant until a few years ago I realized that that happens all over the place. Word play is in spelling words backwards and forwards and scrambling letters is like a main literary technique of the biblical authors. And so, um, so what's the word? Shachin.

Shachin instead of Nefesh. Or Nechash. Yeah, Nechash. Shachin. Shachin. It's an anagram. Yeah. Yeah, backwards and forwards.

The seventh, plague is the hail, hail stones. This is a long one. Yeah, you said the third of each set is a long, the seventh isn't the third then. It's the beginning of the third triad. The beginning of the third triad. That's right. Plagues one, four, and seven each begin a triad. Yeah. So seven, eight, nine. Okay. Yep. So you get the phrase, you know, I'm going to send another strike so that you will know, it's a variation on our theme phrase, which is typically y'all will know that I'm y'all way. The hail plague begins with saying so that you will know that there is no one like me in all the land. So we're rampant things up here. And

so the hail is about sending stones from the sky. Oh, dude, I was driving home from Mount Hood yesterday, which is about an hour and a half east of Portland. And it was the most intense hail storm I've ever driven through. Right around Sandy, Oregon. Oh, big big big big. Big pieces huge. Yeah, as big as I've ever seen Oregon, I've seen bigger and Wisconsin like. Your stories of time size that put dents and cars. Yeah, but your stories are like softball sized hair.

Yeah, I can get even more intense, but this was more like BB pellet, you know. For you driving through it, it's even more intense. But it was just the amount and intensity of it. It was so loud, you know, I was with my family in the car and we couldn't hear each other talk to each other, we had to yell. Anyway, it was pretty exciting.

So hey, but man, just think if you don't have a framework for what that is, just the fact that sometimes clouds will come and they look like they're gonna drop rain, but instead they drop ice rocks Shooting ice rock that's terrifying stuff man. Yeah, so Connection to de-creation. I mean what the hailstones do is they come upon human and beast and all the vegetation of the field so It hits all of the things that the land brings forth for blessing

in life in Genesis 1 on days 3 and 6, which is let plants come out of the plants of the field, come up, let creatures come up out of the ground, and then God makes humans from the dust of the ground, and those are the things that are struck in the hail. All the land blessing. Yeah, that's right. Land blessing is reversed. Leading to the eighth plague, locusts. The locusts are gonna come and they're gonna eat everything that sprouts up out of the ground

from day three in Genesis. They're gonna eat every tree that sprouts from the field, every green thing in the field and all of the fruit and vegetation of the trees. It's just all the vocabulary of day three of Genesis. And they're going to fill your houses like the...

They're going to multiply and fill. Yeah. Yeah. God brings a wind over the desert to blow them in. A rewach. Yeah. So just like God's rewach was there in the darkness bringing order. Here God's Ruaach, as it were, brings in these creatures that will decimate the land and bring disorder. Leading to the ninth

plague, climax of the triads, which is, and this is great, what God says Moses is, let there be darkness. It's exactly the inversion of day one. Day one, let there be light. Yep, let there be darkness. Let there be darkness. But for the sons of Israel, there was light in their dwellings, but the darkness was intense over the land of Egypt for three days. So every one of these is both a demonstration of Yahweh's

power as author of creation so that you will know that I'm Yahweh that repeats seven times throughout this. And so the first nine are really a coherent kind of tight section that are all inverting and alluding to the creation stories, but it's a de-creation story. You're on every level. So this leads to the last climactic, which is kind of this set apart 10th and final one, mirroring the 10 words that God speaks in Genesis 1. Oh, 10 times in Genesis 1 God speaks. God speaks the word. Yep. There's seven days 10 words, but 10 times God speaks in Genesis 1

Here there's 10 words that God speaks of striking Egypt. Yeah, so There's an announcement that God's going to strike the first born of Egypt and all the firstborn of Egypt human and beast will die However, and so this echoes again back to Pharaoh's death of the sons of Israel back at the beginning In fact back in chapter 4 God even said you're killing my firstborn son Israel So be careful how you respond, because I'll do the same to you. That was a warning. Before the plague even started that was a warning.

Back in Exodus chapter four. So now God says, you know, that's what I'm gonna bring. Pharaoh is still stubborn, he still won't let the people go. And so he's going to invert Pharaoh's evil back on himself, and the firstborn among human and beast will die. So what God provides here, however, in the plague on the firstborn is something that contrasts

Pharaoh back in chapter one. Pharaoh had no mercy, just throwing baby boys into the water. Here God says, hey, I'm going to turn your evil back on your own head, but for anybody is relied or Egyptian, who fears the word of the Lord. Here is a means of escape. Your house can become an ark of refuge. So there's this big emphasis, this Passover, and this emphasis on going into the house.

The word house in Hebrew, haba'et, or actually the phrase into the house, habayta, is the word for Noah's Ark spelled backwards. Teva habayta, it's great. It's great. So the house becomes the little ark where humans and animals go in together, and they seek refuge and safety in the flood. And then it also merges together

with the themes of Noah's sacrifice. When God saw Noah's sacrifice and said, I'll never again bring the strike, that is the flood. Here, Yahweh says, if you go into the house, which is a inverted arc, and offer one blameless young lamb and markets blood on the doorposts. Ooh, notice the frame, inclusive frame of the first plague, the blood of the Nile, and then the

tenth plague. The blood of the Lamb on the door. And then Yahweh will see the blood, and he won't And then Yahweh will see the blood and he won't allow the destroyer to come strike the firstborn. There's this interesting interplay where Yahweh says, I'm gonna pass through the land and I will strike the firstborn of Egypt on this night. But then it's not him, it's. But then when the narrator actually comes, it says Yahweh, or there's another time that Yahweh describes it, and he says, I won't allow the destroyer to come. And there's debate, long ancient debate on who or what the destroyer is. Interesting. But I think the bigger point for our discussion is this phrase, you will know that I'm Yahweh gets repeated again in this last, last plaque.

So they go into the safe place, the little mini eaten humans and animals together, a refuge. It's marked by a sacrifice, which is kind of similar to a no get out of the refuge. Exactly. Marks it with the sacrifice. Yes, that's right. They put it on the door. It's blood on the door. And the blood of the innocent was calling out from the river from the river. Yeah,

that's right. The blood, representing the blood of the innocent or just representing life. It's a blood, but it's blood of a substitute that Yahweh has provided. Okay. This is all developing the themes of Abraham and Isaac on Mount Mariah. Okay. Where Abraham sins cut up with him, on Mount Mariah, where Abraham sins cut up with him, wronging Hegar, the Egyptian. Immigrant. Immigrant. And so Yahweh demanded the life of Abraham's firstborn through Sarah, back only to give his firstborn son back to him, but provide a substitute. Which was the ram and the quickest. The ram and the Thicket. So here, Yahweh is demanding the life of the firstborn, both of Egypt and of Israel. But He provides for anybody who will go into an ark and take the substitute that Yahweh has provided, there will be life instead of death.

So there's this pattern of the substitute that's developing. That's right. It's provided by Yahweh. Yeah, so it's not a sacrifice of atonement, the way that Israel's later sacrifices will be in the Tabernacle. We're not quite there yet, but it is a substitutionary sacrifice. You're saying it's not explicitly that sacrifice of atonement that will be explained later. Exactly, yep.

But it is very similar. Totally. Oh yeah, it's a part of a pattern. It's part of the pattern. So that later, when Jesus tries to explain his death to his closest followers, he does it on the night of Passover. Yeah. But talks about his death as a sacrifice

that will bring ransom or atonement or covering for people's sins. Yeah. So he's merged together in Jesus' mind, Passover, and the sacrifice on the day of atonement, or covering for blip-al-sens. Yeah. So he's merged together in Jesus' mind, Passover, and the sacrifice on the day of atonement are blended together, thematically. And then the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

Exactly. That whole thing. All that. Yeah. What John calls Jesus, John the Baptist calls Jesus, the Lamb of God, who takes away sin. So, but Passover is about ransom from death. It's about all the land is being given over to death.

But Yahweh will make a distinction and preserve a chosen remnant out of the de-creation. And how does he do that? He provides a refuge and he provides a substitute. And why mark the door with the blood? Yeah, okay. I think it has to do with this theme of the door of Eden. Yeah, sin is crouched and get the door. Yeah, okay. I think it has to do with this theme of the door of Eden. Yeah, sin is crutching at the door. Yeah, back in the cane story.

The destroyer is crutching at the door. You learn there's a door to Eden that they're offering sacrifices at, cane and abel art. Oh, yeah. And then later, Noah gets out of the door of the ark and then builds his altar and offers a sacrifice. And then the door of the tabernacle, the door of the ark and then builds his altar and offers a sacrifice. And then the door of the tabernacle, the door of the temple, where right where the altar was in front of the door.

So here it's the sacrifice is made inside the house and then marked on the door. And it's a boundary between death and life. Yeah. Inside the house is life marked with a boundary of blood. Jesus says like knock and the door will be open. Is he riffing off of this boundary? Oh, that's a good man. It's good. I need to think about that. I'm thinking more of this is key temple symbolism of the transition into the temple is

going into the place of life. But for people who live in a world of death and human evil, we need to offer a substitute life that is blameless and without blemish, which is what the Passover lamb is, and then that can be a blameless representative before God. That opens the way through the door. That opens the way back into life when outside there is death. So outside the house is like outside of Eden, where there's the death of death, but inside the house, because of the substitute there is life.

That's the, that's Passover. So with this plague, I guess we're now transitioning into the Eden story images. If the first nine plagues were about creation images, creation and de-creation from the seven-day creation story in Genesis, the Passover story is filled with Eden imagery of being in or out of the garden and temple imagery. Yeah. So the Exodus narrative takes a long pause and chapters 12 and 13 of Exodus are just a long handbook, ritual handbook for how to celebrate Passover.

Yeah, this thing that they did on this day was to be done every year. Yeah, the narrative tells you how to re-enact the story is as if the narrative comes with culmination by addressing future generations of readers, saying, hey, readers, readers, here I just told you the story. Now, here's what every one of you is to do every year to re-enact this, because this is not just a story about the past. This is a story of God's patterns of how He works in the present and will work in the future.

So the past deliverance of the Exodus becomes through the yearly repetition of it in Passover ritual Pointer the future redemption, which is surely why Jesus chose this night and Passover weekend to time His showdown his showdown with the powers. Yeah, Andrewslam. Yeah, so we get two chapters of instructions of how you're gonna do this with your family Yeah, that's right and so it culminates in Passover night becoming the first of a seven-day celebration Passover is a seven-day celebration. Passover kicks off a seven-day celebration. That's the Feast of unleavened bread. Yeah, and so you don't eat unleavened bread. And this is the beginning of the Jewish

New Year, right? Yes. Exodus 12 begins by saying, this is the first day of the first month of the first year. Yeah, this is due creation. Their liberation through, they go through the danger of death out into a new set of seven days. And on the first day, they don't do any work. On the seventh day, they don't do any work. And they rest in between eating unleavened bread. It's like the rebirth, the recreation of Israel out the other side. And all of this is a demonstration of the name

and the character, the reputation of Yahweh among the nations. What a remarkable story. Yeah. Yeah. We could have spent a lot more time. Yeah, we could probably spend a whole hour just talking about new NASA research. What we didn't even talk about was the Egyptian symbolism between the ten plagues. Oh.

Like how these would have resonated for Egyptians. Like how it was showing down with the gods of Egypt. Yeah, totally. Yeah, actually for that, I'll just quick recommend a great commentary. One of my go-to commentaries on Exodus. What's that count? Yeah, one of my go-to commentaries on Exodus

by Douglas Stewart. Yeah, it's Exodus commentary in the what new American commentary series. He does a great job of talking about and exploring the Egyptian symbolism of frogs and of flies and gnats and so on. So I think those things are there in the text too and likely intended, but for readers and meditators on the Hebrew Bible, I think the creation, de-creation imagery is what's mainly in the foreground, which is why we've focused on it here.

So this brings to a conclusion the first movement of Exodus. Yeah. And in this movement we traced the theme of the name, knowing the name. We learn the name Yahweh. And we see God say, this is the kind of person I am. I will rescue the oppressed. And I'm doing something with this people, Israel. And Israel will know my name and the nations will know my name and these ten plagues are a showdown of Powers yeah, yeah, yeah, his power that's right versus The king of Egypt and his gods yes, and their powers. Yeah, that's right. By whose name are you going to live and

Quite a showdown. It is yeah, fact, here's if you're gonna have one little summary take away. Here's a good life verse from the Exodus story. A little bit of a verse. And I don't know why, I remember it because it's Exodus 12, 12. On that night, I will pass through Egypt and strike every first born among human and animals.

And I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am Yahweh. So we're back to this is a severe portrait of Yahweh's justice against an evil tyrant, against dark spiritual powers that entice humans to murder and slaughter each other in the name of political religion. That's what the story is about. And the very meaning of Yahweh's name is that he has opposed to such wanton violence and disregard for human life. And so the name of Yahweh here is like means justice and liberation for the oppressed. And the story has been sitting here for thousands of years, defining the name of Yahweh. And it's challenging readers across time and cultures ever since.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Bible Project Podcast. Next week, we begin the second movement of Exodus. Looking at the stories of Israel going through the waters, through the wilderness, and up to the mountain, all of these stories will be tracing the theme of the test. I know the word test doesn't activate positive associations for a lot of people, but that is a word introduced in the biblical story for how God relates to his chosen ones. Today's podcast was produced by Cooper Peltz and edited by Dan Gummel and Zach McKinley. The show notes are by Lindsay Ponder. Bible project is a non-profit organization. We exist to

experience the Bible as a unified story that leads to Jesus. Everything that we make is free because of the generous support of thousands of people just like you, so thank you so much for being a part of this with us. Hi, this is Thomas and I'm from Zimbabwe. Hey, this is Abby and I live in Sherwood, Arkansas. I froze to the wild bylaw project back in 2017. I used by the project for study, basically getting an in-depth understanding of my faith for the next Jewish roots. I used Bible project, definitely to go deeper in my personal study of the Bible, but also

whenever I get the chance to teach the Bible, I jump over to the Bible project for sure. We believe the Bible is a unified story, at least to Jesus. We are crowdfunded project by people like me. Find few videos, study notes, podcasts, classes, and more at Bletproject.com.