ten plagues Archives - Redeeming God

I finally watched “Exodus: Gods and Kings” last night. I watched it with my wife, Wendy.

Well, we watched part of it … we got too tired and went to bed after 90 minutes.

I wasn’t too happy with many of the changes in the movie from the biblical account, but whatever. It’s Hollywood. Frankly, I’m a little more upset at the travesty of the 3-part “The Hobbit” than I am at what Hollywood did to the Exodus story. But that’s not the point here either.

What I found most fascinating was how Yahweh, the God of Israel, was portrayed in the movie. And I’m not talking about how he was a little boy. I don’t care about that.

What I found most interesting about the movie is that God was portrayed as this violent, blood-thirty, thoughtless, bumbling, vengeful deity. There was a clear power struggle in the movie between God and Pharaoh (who thought he was a god). That probably explains the subtitle for this movie: “Gods and Kings.”

And frankly, though there were many ways that the movie strayed from the biblical account of the Exodus, the way that the book of Exodus portrays God is not one of the ways the movie strayed. If we really read the book of Exodus without our Christian rose-colored glasses, the God of the book of Exodus is quite similar to the God portrayed in the movie “Exodus.” Several things about the book of Exodus which have always bothered me about how God is portrayed in that book were brought into clear focus in the movie.

What I found most interesting was how the movie stayed true to the biblical text … specifically in regard to the violence of God in the book of Exodus.

I know nothing about the director, Ridley Scott, but he is either a fundamentalist Christian who believes the book of Exodus accurately portrays God as He really is, or he’s an atheist who wants to point out how bloodthirsty the God of the Exodus is.

Isn’t it interesting that both atheists and fundamentalist Christians have a similar view about the God of the Exodus?

Anyway, here is a short list of how God is portrayed in this movie:

1. 400 Years of … Absence

When Moses first encounters God on the mountain, he wants to know why God has waited 400 years to do anything about the slavery of his people. Good question! He gets no answer. But this theme comes up later …

2. Leave Your Wife and Child

When Moses heads off to Egypt, Moses’ wife gets it right when she says, “What kind of a God asks a man to leave his wife and children?” I actually laughed at this part of the movie, because not three seconds earlier my wife asked the exact same question. Same exact words. Same tone. Everything.

Moses’ basic answer was, “I don’t ask questions. I just follow orders.” Of course, later God denies that He ever told Moses to leave his wife and children. That was Moses’ decision.

Hmmm… So is God saying that Moses could have brought his wife and young son into the hell-hole that became Egypt?

3. Freedom through Warfare

Moses begins his attempt to free the Israelites by engaging in guerilla warfare. After numerous cycles of vengeance and retaliation increase the bloodshed, pain, and suffering on all sides, God shows up again and tells Moses he’s taking too long.

Moses says, “What? You wait 400 years and now you’re in a hurry?”

God doesn’t really answer him again, but simply says “Just step back and watch what I can do.”

4. Any war you can do, God can do better

Crazily enough, this is when the pain, suffering, bloodshed, and slaughter really begins in earnest. First we get a scene of crocodiles tearing people limb from limb in the Nile river. Apparently, this is how the Nile turned to blood. All the fish die. Rice fields are ruined. People starve.

Plague follows upon plague, each one more bloody, brutal, and terrifying than the last. Worst of all, these plagues hit Egyptian and Hebrew alike. Moses brings this up to God. He basically says, “You know, if you want to be loved by the Hebrew people, you probably shouldn’t inflict the same plagues on them that you inflict upon the Egyptians.”

God responds by saying, “Oh! Good point!” and starts sending plagues just upon the Egyptians.

The scene where the poor, starving Egyptian farmer wails in misery over his last dead cow is especially touching.

5. God will have His bloody revenge!

At one point, Moses tells God that enough is enough. He grew up with these Egyptian people. He was one of them. It is difficult, he says, to see people you love suffer so greatly. Basically, Moses points out that these plagues from God don’t seem to be doing anything more than the guerilla warfare was doing, and God was behaving a little too violently.

God gets angry at Moses at this point, and tells him, “Don’t talk to me about violence! I have watched my people suffer under slavery for 400 years, and now you think that I am being too violent?! I will have my revenge!” …

So God waited through 400 years of violent oppression and slavery so that He could exact violent revenge upon the Egyptians?

6. When it comes to a killing contest … God wins!

By now, Pharaoh is pretty upset. So late one night, in a fit of (justifiable?) anger, he declares that Moses and Moses’ God have gone too far, and if this is a contest about who can kill the most people, he will kill all of the young Hebrew children. He will prove that Pharaoh is better at killing that Moses or the God of Moses.

God hears this, and basically says, “Oh yeah? Watch this.” And then he kills all the firstborn sons of Egypt. In other words, “You think you’re good at killing? You know nothing. When it comes to a killing contest, I always win. Watch this …”

Then all the firstborn sons of Egypt die, including Pharaoh’s own son.

As a result, Pharaoh finally tells Moses that he and the Israelites can leave Egypt, but in so doing, he asks the most poignant question of the movie. He says to Moses, “What kind of God kills little children? How can you worship such a God?”

We, as the movie viewers are supposed to see the irony. Pharaoh seems to have forgotten that he, as an Egyptian deity, was planning to kill children, and therefore, his question proves that he is not a god or, if he is, he is not worthy of worship.

But doesn’t the same logic apply to the God of Israel? It seems so.

Closing Questions about the Exodus

That’s where I stopped watching the movie. I will finish it tonight.

Look. I believe the Bible too. And yes, in case you are wondering, I believe in the inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible. Yes, every word.

So how can I write what I did above? Because I believe that the truth which the inspired and inerrant biblical text teaches us is not the truth that many Christians say it is.

I plan on writing a lot more about this in the months ahead, so stay tuned.

Until then, if you are troubled by what I have written above, or if you were troubled by the way God was portrayed in this movie, but you are not troubled by the way God is actually portrayed in the book of Exodus, you might want to ask yourself “Why?” How is it that you would get upset if Pharaoh killed children, but not upset when God does it?

Why are some Christians upset that the cast of Exodus was mostly “white” people, but not too upset about the violence of God in the movie?

Why are some Christians upset that God was portrayed as a child, but not upset that God was horribly violent?

Why are some Christians upset at the “naturalistic” explanation for the plagues, but not upset at how God was the primary source of this violence?

Why are Christians upset about everything in the Exodus movie, except for how God was involved with violence?

Well… maybe some people were upset about these things, and I just didn’t hear about it.

How about you? Did you watch the movie “Exodus”? What were your thoughts? Share below!

The Death of Jesus in the Tenth Plague

By Jeremy Myers

12 Comments

If you haven’t read the previous two posts on the tenth plague, you might want to go do that now. It will help this post make more sense.

In light of the idea that God did not kill the firstborn sons of Egypt, why then does the Bible say that it is God who would destroy them (Exodus 11:1, 4-5; 12:12)? This is a perfect example of a place in Scripture where God takes responsibility for a terrible event which occurred on His watch.

God didn’t participate in the destructiveness of the event, but due to the rebellion of the Egyptians and the destruction they had invited upon themselves, God was not able to fully prevent the destruction that came, and so took measures to rescue and deliver those He could. As for the rest of the event, God allows Himself to take the blame for the death of the firstborn because this disaster happened on His watch and so He bears responsibility for it.

There are two pieces of evidence later in Scripture which reveal to us that this is the way the tenth plague should be understood.

The Destroyer Killed the Firstborn Sons of Egypt

The first is what the writer of the book of Hebrews says about this event in Hebrews 11:28. In that text, the author clearly hesitates from saying that it was God who killed the firstborn sons of Egypt and writes instead about “he who destroyed the firstborn.” The author of Hebrews seems to be saying that it was the destroyer who destroyed the firstborn sons of Egypt, and it was God who kept the destroyer from touching the sons of those families who had the blood of the lamb on their doorpost.

The Death of Jesus on the Cross Reveals God’s Role in the Passover

It is this blood of the lamb which gives us the second way to read about the tenth plague in a new light.

Nearly all Christians know that the blood of the lamb is later used to symbolize the sacrificial death of Jesus on the cross for us. In the last supper, which was a Passover meal, Jesus talked about His blood being poured out for us (Luke 22:20). The book of Revelation portrays Jesus as the lamb who was slain since the foundation of the world (Rev 5:6).

So if these sorts of texts guide our understanding of the tenth plague, we must not look to the death and destruction of the firstborn sons of Egypt as a proper indication of God’s activity in this event, but rather, we must look to the blood of the lamb. The lamb slain for protection, deliverance, and redemption is where we see Jesus in the events of the first Passover.

And in fact, the symbolism could not be more clear when we remember that the Israelites would have understood the death of the firstborn sons of Egypt as proper revenge for the death of their own sons at the hands of the Egyptians 80 years earlier. When we remember this, and read about the crucifixion of Jesus in light of the first Passover, the contrast between the God who delivers and the destroyer who kills could not be more clear.

The way to see Jesus in the text of the tenth plague is not so much in what Jesus did, but in what Jesus did not do.

For example, when Moses was born, all the sons of Israel were killed by Pharaoh’s army. So, when Moses comes into prophetic power over Egypt, God is shown to be exacting revenge against Egypt by putting to death all the firstborn sons of Egypt.

When Jesus is born, something similar happens. Herod commands that all the boys two years old and younger in the region of Bethlehem be put to death. If one is thinking that Jesus is fulfilling Moses and following in the footsteps of Israel (as the opening chapters of the Gospel of Matthew indicate), we would expect that Jesus, once He enters into His prophetic power over the Roman Empire, does something similar as what was done in the tenth plague. We would expect Jesus to put to death all the firstborn sons of the Romans. But Jesus does the exact opposite.

Rather than kill the firstborn sons of His enemies, Jesus, the only begotten Son of God, lets Himself be killed by His enemies.

Rather than exact revenge upon His enemies for what they had done 33 years earlier, Jesus allows the crime to be repeated again upon Himself. He does not put His enemies to death, but dies in the place of His enemies.

Rather than take steps to protect Himself from the angel of death, He goes willingly to the slaughter so that His blood can protect His enemies.

In this way, the crucifixion of Jesus is a shocking reversal and fulfillment of the tenth plague. Through the crucifixion of Jesus, we learn what God is really like.

God is not a baby-killing deity, who seeks to exact revenge on His enemies for a crime many decades old, but is a self-sacrificial, enemy-loving God, who would rather die for His enemies than see His enemies die.

So when we read about the tenth plague in light of Jesus on the cross, we can see that God is not to be found in the destroying angel who slaughters babies out of revenge or because of the sins of a proud and self-righteous ruler.

Instead, God is to be found in the self-sacrificial death of a lamb, who pours out His blood for others, so that death and destruction, when it comes, passes over the house and cannot touch those who live within. When Jesus reveals the God of the tenth plague to us, it is not a God of death, fear, and destruction, but a God of deliverance, hope, protection, and redemption.

How can a God who says "Love your enemies" (Matthew 5:44) be the same God who instructs His people in the Old Testament to kill their enemies?

These are the sorts of questions we discuss and (try to) answer in my online discipleship group. Members of the group can also take ALL of my online courses (Valued at over $1000) at no charge. Learn more here: Join the RedeemingGod.com Discipleship Group I can't wait to hear what you have to say, and how we can help you better understand God and learn to live like Him in this world!

Who Killed the Firstborn Sons of Egypt?

By Jeremy Myers

69 Comments

Yesterday I introduced the idea that the ten plagues were primarily a way for God to reveal His power over and against the impotence of the Egyptian deities. In this post, we want to consider the tenth plague in more detail, and specifically consider the question about who killed the firstborn sons of Egypt.

The Tenth Plague

First of all, it is helpful to remember that the tenth plague is not the first plague. That is, no matter how we understand the events of the tenth plague, it is critical to remember that God did not start with this plague of death, but rather, this plague followed nine specific warnings and clear demonstrations of power.

God did not just send Moses to Pharaoh and without any warning, have the firstborn sons of Egypt struck dead. No, there was a whole series of events that led up to this terrible disaster in Egypt.

Furthermore, it should also be noted that the tenth plague was not God’s idea, nor was it the idea of Moses. The destruction of the firstborn sons of Egypt was something that the previous Pharaoh had visited upon the people of Israel 80 years earlier when the Egyptian army killed all the newborn sons of Israel two years old and younger (Exodus 1:16). This is an example of sin cannibalizing itself, so that the sins of the fathers fall upon later generations.

But beyond even this, after the ninth plague, Pharaoh told Moses that if Moses came before him again Pharaoh would kill him (Exodus 10:28). In a way, then, it was Pharaoh who had given the ultimatum of “win or die.” Pharaoh had lost every confrontation against the God of Israel, and so now Pharaoh decreed that the contest was over and even though he had lost, he would still not let God’s people go. The only way forward, then, was to finally and ultimately break Pharaoh’s pride.

Did God Kill the Firstborn Sons of Egypt?

In Exodus 11–12, the text indicates that God decided to kill all the first-born sons of Egypt. This is explicitly stated in various locations, such as in Exodus 11:1 where God decrees that He will bring one more plague against Egypt.

In the following verses, God states that He Himself will go into the midst of Egypt to slay the firstborn sons (Exodus 11:4-5). God later says that it is He who will kill the firstborn in the land (Exodus 12:12). To protect themselves, the Israelites are to put the blood of a lamb on the doorposts of their house so that when death comes, it passes over their house and goes on to those homes which are not protected by blood (Exodus 12:23).

Yet something strange happens in the text.

There seems to be a bit of a transition in Exodus 12:23. There is a peek behind the curtains to what was really happening when the death of the firstborn sons of Egypt occurred.

On the surface of the entire passage, it seems as if God is the one who is doing the killing.

While Exodus 12:12 “suggests that since the Egyptians’ sinfulness had gone too far, God personally executed their firstborn … the Bible contains some specific references to the plagues which hint of something very different occurring” (Campbell, Light through the Darkness, 58).

For example, Exodus 12:23 says that when God passed over the doors of the houses which had been marked with the blood of the Passover lamb, He would not allow the destroyer to enter into the house to kill the firstborn of that house.

So it was not God who struck down the firstborn sons of Egypt, but a being referred to as “the destroyer.”

If Exodus 12:23 provides some clarity with what was going on, it appears that God’s primary activity in the tenth plague was not in killing the firstborn sons of Egypt, but in protecting people from the destroyer that had come to kill all things.

In this way, the “passing over” of the Lord is not so much the action of God in skipping a house, but in covering the house with a hand of protection so that the destroyer could not enter that house to kill the firstborn son. Exodus 12:23 indicates that there were two beings involved in the death of the firstborn sons of Egypt: There was God, who put a hand of protection over certain houses, and there was the destroyer, who sought to destroy all, but who was thwarted from doing so by the protective hand of God over certain homes.

So just as with previous violent portrayals of God in the Bible, it seems that when the actual violence occurs, it is the destroyer who destroys, and God’s primary activity is in the arena of protection and deliverance.

Tomorrow we will look at how to understand the tenth plague in light of Jesus Christ dying on the cross. It seems that by His actions on the cross, Jesus affirms the idea that God was the deliverer in Exodus 12; not the destroyer. Until then, what questions, comments, and objections do you have to this approach?

How can a God who says "Love your enemies" (Matthew 5:44) be the same God who instructs His people in the Old Testament to kill their enemies?

Understanding the Ten Plagues

By Jeremy Myers

17 Comments

The ten plagues were the means by which the people of Israel gained freedom from slavery in Egypt.

While some scholars argue that the first nine plagues were non-violent, it is impossible to say that they were non-destructive. Even if it could be proved that no human died in any of the first nine plagues, it is nearly certain that countless fish, frogs, animals, and insects died over the course of these nine plagues. For example, it is quite unlikely that any fish survived the first plague—the turning of the water of the Nile into blood. The same goes for the disease on the cattle (the fifth plague), and the hail and fire of the seventh plague.

Nevertheless, as we seek to understand the violence of God in the Old Testament in light of Jesus Christ, it is the tenth plague that is of primary importance for this study, for it this plague which killed all the firstborn sons of Egypt.

The Ten Plagues and the Impotence of Egyptian Deities

However, before we consider the events of the tenth plague, it is important to recognize that all the ten plagues were at their core an attack on the powers of the Egyptian deities (cf. Gen 12:12).

The plagues were designed to show the impotence of the Egyptian idols, the supremacy of God’s power and the futility of resisting His declare will. The plagues also showed His mercy, being tailored to disrupt and humiliate the worship of their pagan deities without causing loss of human life until the final plague, which occurred only after God had exhausted every other option (Graeser, et. al, Don’t Blame God, 74).

The first plague, turning water into blood, revealed the impotence of Khnum, the guardian of the river, Hapi, the spirit of the Nile, and Osiris, whose blood was the Nile.
The second plague, the frogs, revealed the impotence of Hapi and Heket, who were symbolized by frogs and were related to Egyptian fertility rites.
The third plague, that of lice, revealed the impotence of Seb, the earth god.
The fourth plague, that of flies, revealed the impotence of Uatchit, the god of flies.
The fifth plague, the disease on cattle, revealed the impotence of Ptah, Mnevis, Hathor, and Amon, Egyptian gods associated with bulls and cows.
The sixth plague, the plague of boils, revealed the impotence of Sekhmet, the goddess of epidemics, and Imhotep, the god of healing.
The seventh plague, the hail mixed with fire, revealed the impotence of Nut, the sky goddess, Isis and Seth, Egyptian agricultural deities, and Shu, the god of the atmosphere, weather, and sky.
The eighth plague, the swarms of locusts, revealed the impotence of Serapia, the deity who was to protect Egypt from locusts.
The ninth plague, that of darkness, revealed the impotence of Re, Amon-re, Aten, Atum, and Horus, all of who were related to the sun.
Finally, the tenth plague, the death of the firstborn sons of Egypt, revealed the impotence of Pharaoh himself, who was worshiped as a deity in Egypt.

Note: For a great chart on these Egyptian deities and their relation to the Ten Plagues, see Barnes’ Bible Charts on the Plagues.

Tomorrow we will begin to look at how to read and understand the tenth plague in light of Jesus Christ. Until then, have you heard this perspective about the ten plagues revealing the impotence of the Egyptian deities? What are your thoughts about it?

How can a God who says "Love your enemies" (Matthew 5:44) be the same God who instructs His people in the Old Testament to kill their enemies?

The God of the Exodus is a God of Violence

1. 400 Years of … Absence

2. Leave Your Wife and Child

3. Freedom through Warfare

4. Any war you can do, God can do better

5. God will have His bloody revenge!

6. When it comes to a killing contest … God wins!

Closing Questions about the Exodus

The Death of Jesus in the Tenth Plague

The Destroyer Killed the Firstborn Sons of Egypt

The Death of Jesus on the Cross Reveals God’s Role in the Passover

Who Killed the Firstborn Sons of Egypt?

The Tenth Plague

Did God Kill the Firstborn Sons of Egypt?

Understanding the Ten Plagues

The Ten Plagues and the Impotence of Egyptian Deities

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