Questions on Moses vs Pharaoh

[DianaCC]

1. 
   *]Why did Moses turn his staff into a snake rather than into something else, and why did his snake eat up the other two? Was it because snakes meant something in Egyptian culture? What were those little snakes the pharaohs wore on their foreheads?
   *]What’s the problem with strawless bricks? Modern bricks have no straw.
   *]Why those particular plagues? Did the Egyptians worship frogs, flies, locusts, and so on? I thought they worshiped dung beetles (scarabs).

 

[NotWorthy]

1. 
   *]Why did Moses turn his staff into a snake rather than into something else, and why did his snake eat up the other two? Was it because snakes meant something in Egyptian culture? What were those little snakes the pharaohs wore on their foreheads?
   *]What’s the problem with strawless bricks? Modern bricks have no straw.
   *]Why those particular plagues? Did the Egyptians worship frogs, flies, locusts, and so on? I thought they worshiped dung beetles (scarabs).

1. 
   I’m not sure about the snakes, although Moses knew that his snake would be more powerful than the Egyptian snakes… maybe that was a common trick that Moses knew the Egyptians could employ and then beat them at their own game.
   
   I believe the strawless bricks help create the permanence and hardness that was necessary to build back then. The material was clay, water, and straw. If I recall correctly, the Hebrews were made to gather their own straw, which would make their work harder.
   
   Many things were worshiped by the Egyptians… frogs, the Nile, the sun. Of particular note was the Egyptians worshiped the very animals the Israelites were going to sacrifice - bulls, lambs, and goats. That’s why Moses asked Pharaoh to let the Israelites go three days into the dessert to sacrifice and worship God. The Egyptians would find the Israelites sacrifices to be sacrilegious.
   
   I also find it interesting the Pharaoh’s name is never mentioned. He’s one of the few characters in the Torah who never was named. You see, God did not know Pharaoh, and it was clear that Pharaoh did not know God, as he stated several times.

 

[midori]

It’s been posited that a lot of the ten plagues were symbolic attacks against some of the prominent Egyptian deities.

So with the snake, you called to mind yourself the uraeus that sits on Pharaoh’s crown. It was the symbol of the cobra goddess Wadjet, and symbolized Lower (Northern) Egypt. (Nekhbet the vulture goddess symbolized Upper (Southern) Egypt, and also was represented on the pharaonic crown. Together, they symbolized the pharaoh’s rule over the Two Lands, Upper and Lower Egypt.) So basically, for Moses’ snake to win over Pharaoh’s magicians’ snakes, it was showing his power was superior to the power of Pharaoh.

re: strawless bricks, perhaps you might think of something more like adobe. Straw is the binder. Making bricks with nothing to bind them together is pretty futile.

re: Frogs, Hekt was a frog-headed fertility goddess.

re: Flies, I don’t know enough about Hebrew to make a guess here. I have heard it put forth that the word in Hebrew is 'arob, “insect”, and we’re not sure what species they talk about. But yes, the most famous Egyptian insect god is the scarab beetle-headed Kepera, who was a solar god.

A quick look around can pull up a number of articles. Biblical archaeologists/historians love writing their thoughts down about the Exodus story, and there’s plenty of resources to see the theories addressed in much more detail than I could offer.

 

[DianaCC]

It’s been posited that a lot of the ten plagues were symbolic attacks against some of the prominent Egyptian deities.

That explains the three days of darkness because of Ra the sun god.

 

[byeveryword]

1. 
   *]Why did Moses turn his staff into a snake rather than into something else, and why did his snake eat up the other two? Was it because snakes meant something in Egyptian culture? What were those little snakes the pharaohs wore on their foreheads?
   *]What’s the problem with strawless bricks? Modern bricks have no straw.
   *]Why those particular plagues? Did the Egyptians worship frogs, flies, locusts, and so on? I thought they worshiped dung beetles (scarabs).

1. 
   I think that the three signs that Moses gave to Pharoah may have been symbolic pictures of the future Messiah…
   
   The staff of Moses represents the staff spoken of in the Shepherd Psalm. Jesus Christ is the staff of God who as Hosea says, 'has swallowed up death in victory…and as Paul says in his letter to the the Corinthians, “and the sting of death is sin,… but thanks be to God who has given us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” The bronze serpent fashioned by Moses and placed on a pole is a representation of Jesus Christ who bore our sins on the cross. Every Israelite who was stung by serpents in the wilderness were commanded to look upon the bronze serpent and those who did were healed of the serpent’s sting.
   
   So, Jesus Christ says in the gospel of John, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosever believes in him, will not perish, but have everlasting life.”
   
   Another sign to Pharoah was Moses being told to put his hand in his bosom and remove it and it became leprous, and then Moses was commanded to place his hand in his bosom and remove it and his hand was whole again.
   
   I think this may represent ‘the hand of God’, our Lord Jesus Christ, who came forth from the bosom of His Father and was made like us in the weakness of our flesh. When Jesus Christ ascended to his heavenly Father after his death and resurrection, he will return from the bosom of his Father in his glorified body for all of us to see.

 

[ESMDHokie77]

1. 
   *]Why did Moses turn his staff into a snake rather than into something else, and why did his snake eat up the other two? Was it because snakes meant something in Egyptian culture? What were those little snakes the pharaohs wore on their foreheads?
   *]What’s the problem with strawless bricks? Modern bricks have no straw.
   *]Why those particular plagues? Did the Egyptians worship frogs, flies, locusts, and so on? I thought they worshiped dung beetles (scarabs).

1. 1. God turned the staff into a snake, not Moses!
   Interesting comments so far, I would like to add that God willed these signs and plagues because they would be quite relevant to those who saw them and suffered under them.

 

[Kouyate42]

1. 
   *]Why did Moses turn his staff into a snake rather than into something else, and why did his snake eat up the other two? Was it because snakes meant something in Egyptian culture? What were those little snakes the pharaohs wore on their foreheads?

1. 
   Snakes were a powerful symbol to the Egyptians and can be found in paintings, in the hieroglyphic writing system and even as jewelry. They were associated with various gods, including Apep, an underworld god who tried to stop Amun-Ra crossing the sky and rising again.
   

   *]What’s the problem with strawless bricks? Modern bricks have no straw.

   Strawless bricks wouldn’t hold together. They needed the straw to bind them and the gases the straw produced helped in drying the bricks.
   

   *]Why those particular plagues? Did the Egyptians worship frogs, flies, locusts, and so on? I thought they worshiped dung beetles (scarabs).

   Each plague corresponded with an Egyptian god or goddess that the Egyptians believed controlled that particular thing. In doing so, God proved that their religion was false and only He had power.
   
   Here’s a link with a full list corresponding the 10 plagues to the appropriate Egyptian god-
   dabhand.org/Ten%20Plagues.htm
   
   The curses end with the death of the first-born, who were believed to be under the protection of Amun-Ra, the most important in the Egyptian pantheon of gods. In doing this last plague, the Egyptians were left in no certain doubt that the God of Israel reigned supreme.

 

[patrick457]

*]Why did Moses turn his staff into a snake rather than into something else, and why did his snake eat up the other two? Was it because snakes meant something in Egyptian culture?

Minor trivia: despite the portrayals in The Ten Commandments (1956) and The Prince of Egypt (1998), it was actually Aaron’s staff that turned into a ‘serpent’ (though see my further comments below for another possibility). In fact, if you read through Exodus, it was actually Aaron who acts at Moses’ bidding, who in turn receives commands from God. The only plagues where God does things Himself and both Moses and Aaron do not actively do anything are the flies (8:20-30), the livestock (9:1-7), and the death of the firstborn (12:29-32).

Turning the Nile to blood? That had Moses commanding Aaron (7:14-25). Frogs? Aaron stretched out his hand at Moses’ instructions (8:1-15). Gnats? Aaron struck the dust with his staff (8:16-19). Boils? Apparently both Moses and Aaron take the handfuls of soot (9:8-12). Moses only takes over in the latter half, during the plagues of hail (9:13-34), locusts (10:1-20) and darkness (10:21-29), where he is the one commanded to stretch out his staff (9:22-23; 10:12-13, 21-22).

Then the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, “When Pharaoh says to you, ‘Prove yourselves by working a miracle,’ then you shall say to Aaron, ‘Take your staff and cast it down before Pharaoh, that it may become a serpent.’” So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did just as the LORD commanded. Aaron cast down his staff before Pharaoh and his servants, and it became a serpent. Then Pharaoh summoned the wise men and the sorcerers, and they, the magicians of Egypt, also did the same by their secret arts. For each man cast down his staff, and they became serpents. But Aaron’s staff swallowed up their staffs. Still Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he would not listen to them, as the LORD had said.

The Egyptians were very big on snakes, you see. Snakes were literally everywhere in ancient Egypt, including the desert sands, in old walls, in fields, by the Nile and in its swamps, on threshing floors, in houses and in livestock enclosures and pastures, and poisonous snakes posed a threat to humans and domestic animals alike. Hence, the Egyptians had somewhat of a love/hate relationship with snakes. So for them, the serpent is at once a good (cf. the goddess Wadjet) and a bad symbol (cf. the sun god Re’s sibling and enemy, the serpent Apep).

As an aside, I have another trivia for you. The word usually translated in this context, tannin, is a different word from that used in Exodus 4:3 when Moses’ staff turned into a nachash (the word for ‘snake’).

BTW, there’s a suggestion that the word tannin here should be understood as referring to, not to a snake (nachash; cf. Exodus 4:3), but to another creature such as a crocodile, since the word tannin refers to a larger reptile (in some texts large river or sea or land creatures!) The Greek also makes this distinction: Moses’ staff turns into an ophis (snake) but Aaron’s turns into a drakōn!

Crocodiles are actually both deeply feared and worshipped (cf. the god Sobek) in the nation so dependent on the Nile River, regarded simultaneously as a voracious devourer (think for example of Ammit of Egyptian mythology, who has a body that was part lion and part hippopotamus, with the head of a crocodile) and a warder of evil in ancient Egyptian thought, so the imagery might be quite fitting. Imagine: Aaron throws his rod, which turns into this crocodile which eats up all the staves of the diviners of Egypt!

http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/6595/stavesv.jpg

 

[patrick457]

What were those little snakes the pharaohs wore on their foreheads?

That is usually called the uraeus. It was a symbol of Wadjet, one of the earliest of Egyptian deities, who often was depicted as a cobra. She was said to be the patron and protector of Lower Egypt and upon unification with Upper Egypt, the joint protector and patron of all of Egypt with the goddess of Upper Egypt (Nekhbet, symbolized by a white vulture). Hence, her image was worn by the pharaohs as a head ornament, first as the body of Wadjet atop the head or as a crown encircling the head, always remaining in effect part of their crown, indicating her protection and as a claim over the land. The pharaoh was recognized only by wearing the uraeus, which conveyed legitimacy to the ruler. There is evidence for this tradition even in the Old Kingdom during the third millennium B.C. Several goddesses associated with, or being considered aspects of Wadjet are depicted wearing the uraeus also.

At the time of the unification, the image of Nekhbet joined the image of Wadjet on the Uraeus that would encircle the crown of the pharaohs who ruled the unified Egypt. The importance of their separate cults kept them from becoming merged as with so many Egyptian deities. Together they were known as The Two Ladies, who became the joint protectors and patrons of the unified Egypt. You can see this in Tutankhamun’s famous golden mask: the image of a vulture’s head (Nekhbet) is placed beside a cobra (Wadjet) on the representation of Tut’s headdress.

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

*]What’s the problem with strawless bricks? Modern bricks have no straw.

Well, in the ancient world, straw was a vital component to bricks. You have to remember that back in those days, bricks were made of mud, which were baked in the sun. Straw served as a binder to stabilize the bricks and helped it dry evenly; without it, they would easily crumble.

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

The above picture shows the making of mud bricks in a modern-day Egypt and India, respectively. You can notice that they still make it the old-fashioned way, as people of old would have done it: a mixture of clay and water (a binder such as straw or dung would have been included) is molded in a wooden frame, and then the frame is removed quickly, with the brick left to dry in the sun.

 

[JohnsChumacher]

I am new to this. Would like an answer on the question does the church teach that the plagues were targeting the gods of egypt. Or is this just theory. How can we tell if these threads are answered by someone who knows?

 

[NotWorthy]

I am new to this. Would like an answer on the question does the church teach that the plagues were targeting the gods of egypt. Or is this just theory. How can we tell if these threads are answered by someone who knows?

There were many layers to the reasons for the plagues.

One of them definitely was that it was an attack on the Egyptian gods.

How do you know if someone knows what they are talking about? They can usually show you where the Catholic Church teaches that. In the catechism, or in books or what-not.