Pharaoh's magicians were a talented bunch.
They could turn rods into snakes, the Nile into blood, and bury Egypt in frogs. But there are some things that only a god can do.
Like make lice, for example.
The magicians could match all of God's tricks until he made lice. That one they just couldn't do. So they gave up, saying, "This is the finger of God."
So now you know what the finger of God looks like.
Drunk With Blood Audiobook
10. The seventh plague of Egypt: Hail
In the first of the famous ten plagues of Egypt, God forced Egyptians to drink blood (human blood according to the apocryphal book of Wisdom), and only blood, for seven days. Since it is not possible to survive for long when only drinking blood, I estimated that one-half of the Egyptians (1.5 million) died in the first plague.
But God was only getting started. Here are the next five plagues:
Frogs. (8.1-7)
Lice. (8.16-19)
Flies (8.21-24)
All cattle in Egypt die. (9.3-6)
Festering boils on man and beast. (9.9-10)
The Bible doesn't say whether anyone died from these plagues. Frogs, lice, flies, dead animals as far as you can see, and boils covering every person and animal in Egypt. These things were probably unpleasant. But did it kill anyone? There's just no way of knowing.
But the Bible is clear about the seventh plague: hail.
Upon every man and beast which shall be found in the field … the hail shall come down upon them, and they shall die. ... So there was hail, and fire mingled with the hail, very grievous ... And the hail smote throughout all the land of Egypt all that was in the field, both man and beast. Exodus 9:19-25So God killed everybody in Egypt who was out and about that day with fire and hail (except Israelites).
Only in the land of Goshen, where the children of Israel were, was there no hail. 9:26But how many people would that have been?
Here's one that I especially like.
DEAR REV. GRAHAM: How do you know if it's the devil who is tempting you to do something, or if God is just testing you to see if you'll do what's right? I try to make the right choices, but I'm not sure I always know what to do. --J.T.H.And here's the "important" part of Reverend Graham's answer.
Dear J.T.H.: The most important thing for you to remember is that God never tempts us to do anything wrong.
Yet according to the Bible, God tempted Abraham to kill his son.
God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him ... Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering. Genesis 22:1-2
Which means, I guess, that Billy Graham thinks it isn't wrong for a father to kill his son and offer him as a burnt offering to God. (God would never tempt anyone to do anything wrong.)
| Killing Event | Verse | Estimated number killed | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Noah's Flood | Genesis 7:23 | 20,000,000? |
| 2 | Sodom and Gomorrah | Genesis 19:24 | 1,000? |
| 3 | Lot's wife | Genesis 19:26 | 1 |
| 4 | Er who was "wicked in the sight of the Lord" | Genesis 38:7, 1 Chronicles 2:3 | 1 |
| 5 | Onan for spilling his seed | Genesis 38:10 | 1 |
| 6 | A 7 year, world-wide famine | Genesis 41:25-54 | 70,000 ? |
So in Genesis, there were 6 killing events, with 3 named victims, and an estimated total of 30 million or so.
But there are a few things that I've left off the list that I should mention, since they provide more evidence of God's murderous nature.
And they journeyed: and the terror of God was upon the cities that were round about them, and they did not pursue after the sons of Jacob. Genesis 35:5
So "the terror of God" was on entire cities?
It would be nice to have more details here. How did God terrorize the people in these cities? Did he fly planes into buildings or what?
I suppose God could have terrorized people without killing anyone. So I won't add this to the list of people killed by God.
But then, we already knew that God is a murderer. Now we know that he is a terrorist, too. (Or he would be if he existed.)
