Since I've already dealt with this in a previous post, and the story is familiar to most people, I'll keep this short. What I'd like to focus on here is God's motive for the killings.
God starts planning the mass murder in Chapter 3 of Exodus, and he doesn't stop talking about it until he kills every Egyptian firstborn child (and animal!) in Exodus 12.
So why did God do it?
Well, it seems that he did it mostly just to show off.
To show off his signs and wonders:
I will stretch out my hand, and smite Egypt with all my wonders. Exodus 3:20
I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt ... And the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD. Exodus 7:5-7
Go in unto Pharaoh: for I have hardened his heart, and the heart of his servants, that I might shew these my signs before him: Exodus 10:1
And the LORD said unto Moses, Pharaoh shall not hearken unto you; that my wonders may be multiplied in the land of Egypt. Exodus 11:9
To show what he can do:
Now shalt thou see what I will do to Pharaoh. Exodus 6:1
To show that there is nobody else on earth quite like him:
For I will at this time send all my plagues upon thine heart, and upon thy servants, and upon thy people; that thou mayest know that there is none like me in all the earth. Exodus 9:14
To make himself famous (so that everyone will know his name):
That my name may be declared throughout all the earth. Exodus 9:16
To give us a story to tell our children and grandchildren:
That thou mayest tell in the ears of thy son, and of thy son's son, what things I have wrought in Egypt. Exodus 10:2
To show that the whole earth belongs to him:
That thou mayest know how that the earth is the LORD's. Exodus 9:29
To prove that he is God:
In this thou shalt know that I am the LORD. Exodus 7:17
That ye may know how that I am the LORD. Exodus 10:2
To show that he likes Israelites more than Egyptians:
That ye may know how that the LORD doth put a difference between the Egyptians and Israel. Exodus 11:7
And to punish the Egyptian Gods:
Against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment. Exodus 12:12
Well, I guess those motives are about as good as any for a mass murder.
In any case, God is clearly proud of this one. And it's no wonder. It wasn't all that easy to pull off, even for God.
God had to harden the Pharaoh's heart eight times (Exodus 4:21; 7:3, 13; 9:12; 10:1, 20, 27; 11:10) to make it all work out as planned.
Some hearts are hard for even the Bible god to harden.
Notes:
- I originally set the number of victims at 500,000, from a conservative estimate of the Egyptian population at the time the Exodus was supposed to have occurred. But in this case, as was pointed out in the comments, the number can be derived directly from the Bible.
According to Exodus 12:37 there were 600,000 Hebrew men that left Egypt. So the total number of Israelites must have been several million, when women and children are included. If there were several million Israelite slaves, there must have been many more Egyptians. Let's say there were twice as many. That would make 6 million Egyptians. If one-sixth of them were first born sons, a million Egyptians were killed by God (or the angel sent by God to do his dirty work for him).
- This killing is highlighted in the Green Bible. I think that's because God killed all the firstborn Egyptian animals, too. Animals are important to God; he wouldn't have killed them otherwise.
Posts
11 comments:
You very much underestimate the population of Egypt.
The number of Exodusing jew males above age 20 is given: 600,000. From this we can eszomate the whole jewish exodusing population being 3,000,000 person.
Consider that the Pharao went after them to CATH them and lead them back. So they needed a (much) bigger army then the jews.
So from these estimatons I'd say the egyptian population was around 25,000,000 before the 10th plague.
You may be right, twilight.
But it's hard to take the Bible's 600,000 Israelite male number (Exodus 12:37) seriously.
I think I'd rather stick with the lower number from Wikipedia (unless someone can find a better estimate).
But wait, if you can't trust the bible census figures, what part of it can you trust ?!
Good point, tbis.
I suppose I should use the Bible's numbers when counting God's killings. If the Bible says there were several million Israelite slaves, then there must have been ten times as many Egyptians. Which means God must have killed five million or so Egyptian children.
So which number should I use? 0.5 million or 5 million?
Why 5 million of course!
Its impolite to minimize Yahweh.
Here's something to ponder too which may increase the death toll: The plague is on ALL of the firstborn. That is to say, it does not seem that the plague would account for age. So if I was an Egyptian grandfather and was the firstborn of my dad, then I would die, my firstborn son would die, and his firstborn son would die as well during this plague.
OK, you've convinced me. I'll increase the estimate to one million.
According to the Bible, several million Israelites left Egypt in the Exodus. If so, then there must have been at least twice as many Egyptians. So if we use the Wikipedia's high estimate of 6 million Egyptians, and figure one-sixth of them were first-born sons, that would put the death toll at 1 million.
How does that sound? Would God be happy with that number?
I am sure He is all aglow. It is, after all, seven figures, and we know how fond God is of the number seven.
The Hebrew/Egyptian population estimate here assumes too much. Slave populations are often much larger than the ethnic ruling class. 600 chariots against a completely unarmed, slow-moving train of Israelites would be basically unstoppable until the horses got tired, and sounds like a reasonably sized "police action" force to quiet a rebellion that never actually happened the previous 8 times.
Not really, robyrt.
Using a chariot for crowd control in the ancient world would be roughly equivalent to trying to use a tank now. You may well be able to keep frightened and cowed people freaked out with one, but you'd be heavily limited in its capabilities. There's a big problem, too, that if the goal is to get them to come back using a light offensive weapon in the role of captor wouldn't work so well.
Up until the Persians came out with the scythed chariot the weapon was used as a mobile, semi-stable arrow platform. There weren't really chariot duels and the chariots didn't wade in to the middle of enemy formations.
What would actually happen if a force of chariots engaged a column of 3 million people who could basically move in any direction is a slow tide of panic. People would see the chariots coming and begin running in all directions. The rear of the line would push in to the center invoking a further panic, which would then spread to the front. Those who weren't felled by an arrow, set upon by the infantry, or simply run over when they stepped in the path of a chariot would end up scattered all the hell over the place. Any chance of them being captured as a group would then be completely gone.
Of course if you have to march any length with the newly re-imprisoned folks in your charge you run in to a whole new problem. Any sufficiently large and determined group can simply overwhelm their captors if the weight of numbers is on their side. If we're talking one soldier for every few thousand captives, the tactical situation changes really fast. A local attempt to take down a sentry followed by calling for reinforcements from other soldiers followed by still more people taking advantage of local superiority in numbers would quickly cascade in to an unwinnable situation for the Egyptians.
I have a thought of the numbers estimated, and came to a very stroy-wise conclousion: 1 egyptian firstborn was sacrifiesed for each hebrew person! That'd give a very unique and "undertandable" (in a usual folcloric-tale way) meaning of the story, as it is really about the pashka.
So as we can estimate the jews' number arund 3 million the smited egyptians would be also 3 million!
Post a Comment