What is the literal meaning of the Ten Plagues?

[Jim_Baur]

I am most curious, are the plagues in their literal form?

In other words, are the Ten Plagues written in figurative language?

If they are, what is the literal meaning of the figures?

Thanks!

 

[Joe_5859]

I see no reason not to believe that the plagues actually happened. But that doesn’t mean they don’t have many layers of meaning.

In Scott Hahn’s “Understanding the Scriptures” (p. 134-135), he points out that the first 9 plagues are grouped in three groups of three. “In each cycle, the first two plagues come after a warning, and the third with no warning to Pharaoh at all.” I’m not sure what the significance of that is, but it is interesting.

I believe I saw Hahn make the parallel elsewhere between the ten plagues and the Egyptian gods. Each plague targeted one of those gods, culminating in the death of the first born (for which Pharoah’s first born would have been considered a god).

Initially, Moses simply asks for Pharaoh to let the Israelites go into the desert to make sacrifices to God. These sacrifices were “abominable” to the Egyptians because they were to sacrifice the animals that the Egyptians worshipped.

The 10 Plagues (and, indeed, the whole Exodus story) is about freeing the Israelites from attachment to other gods. God is trying to show them that He alone is God; he wants to root out the idolatry from their hearts. Note that this did not happen overnight (if it ever happened!). The Israelites had been in Egypt for 400 years, after all. God was teaching them to disavoiw themselves of these Egyptians gods through the plagues and through the animal sacrifices He was requiring of them.

 

[Jim_Baur]

Joe:

Thanks from telling me about Hahn.

I think I read that book; I will have to look and see when I return home. I know that I have read five or six of his books.

Concerning the Ten Plagues: I know and believe that they literally happened.

I am trying to discern if they use figurative language. If they are using figurative language, then one needs to try to comprehend the literal meaning of the figure.

An example: cut off your hand and cut out your eyes. This is a figure, I believe. The literal is perhaps, stop doing wicked deeds and use your eyes of faith.

 

[crazzeto]

I think the literal meaning of the plauges is that they literally happend, and they literally lead to the freedom of the Israelites. I think there’s many layers of spiritual meaning on top of that, but I think to be properly understood, then it’s in the context of God bringing these ten plages upon Egypt which literally lead to the freedom of the hebrews.

I think any other interpretation becomes theologically difficult to get around, since for instance the Eucharist is deeply deeply deeply rooted in the passover, which is a celebration of the 10th plague passing over the Israelites.

 

[NHInsider]

Another reason to believe the plague accounts are based in literal historic events is that the plagues themselves are not things that could not have happened for natural reasons - God is the Creator, and can work through and in the natural world. The miraculous sign then would be the timing and effects of the individual plagues, which Pharoah could in fact have dismissed (as people so often dismiss miracles, whether Biblical or contemporary) as “coincidence” or event with “natural” explanations). After all, the court magicians were supposedly able to replicate some of the plagues with “tricks” (paging David Copperfield, can you explain this?)

As you are digging for “spiritual” meanings, don’t miss the parallels in Revelation . . . locusts, frogs, water turning to blood, etc. . . .