What Were The Ten Plagues in Egypt?

Before we unpack the deeper meaning of the Ten Plagues, let’s quickly recap what they were. When Pharaoh refused to free the Israelites, God promised to unleash plagues upon the Egyptians, and unleash, He did. By the time all was said and done, God smote Egypt with a total of 10 plagues.

The 10 Plagues

1. Blood (דםָ) God turned the Nile River, sacred to the Egyptians, into blood, along with all the water in Egypt.
2. Frogs (צפְרֵדְעֵ) Out of the same waters God just turned into blood, came and endless number of frogs which swarmed to every corner of Egypt, even the bedrooms.
3. Lice (כִּנִים) Lice crawled from the earth and unleashed misery on man and animal, alike.
4. Animals (עָרוֹב) Wild animals swarmed the land of Egypt destroying everything in their path.
5. Pestilence (דבֶרֶ) A deadly disease struck all the livestock of Egypt.
6. Boils (שְׁחִין) Boils so terrible that Pharaoh’s priests couldn’t even stand before Moses.
7. Hail (בָּרָד) Hail and “fire” poured down from the heavens, destroying anything left out in the fields. According to Rabbinic Tradition, the fire was miraculously contained inside icy balls of hail.
8. Locust (אַרְבֶּה) A swarm of locusts, so thick it blacked out the the sky, blew in from the east, and consumed what little vegetation was left in Egypt. 
9. Darkness (חשֶׁךְ) Three days of absolute, paralyzing darkness for the Egyptians. 
10. Firstborns (מַכַּת בְּכוֹרוֹת) Every first born son of Egypt would die, from the firstborn of the prisoner to the firstborn of Pharaoh. 

A Deeper Meaning of the Plagues

So those are the facts of what these plagues were. But what was the deeper meaning behind them? There are two major questions we have to ask when thinking about the deeper significance of these plagues. The first is:

Why Did God Need TEN Plagues?

Think about it. If the Master of the Universe simply wanted to free the Israelites from their slavery in Egypt, couldn’t He have done that in a much simpler way? Why bother with plagues at all? If the Almighty is capable of doing anything He wants, why not free the Israelites in the simplest, cleanest way possible and sneak them out covertly in the middle of the night, without using a single plague? 

He wanted to punish the Egyptians, you are probably thinking. I think we can all agree that the Egyptians deserved a retribution for what they did. If the plagues were really all about punishment, though, surely God could have saved Himself some time and punished with one really terrible plague.  What do I mean? Just imagine sitting in a courtroom while the judge is sentencing a criminal to his punishment. “I hereby sentence you to 15 years in prison,” the judge begins. But then he keeps going. “... And 200 hours of community service. Plus, when you get out of prison you will be on house arrest for 10 more years.” It’s starting to feel a little superfluous, isn’t it? But the judge isn’t done. “... On top of that, I am fining you $8000, making you walk around in a shirt that says “I was bad,” flogging you 40 times…” The judge keeps adding punishment after punishment, and you start to wonder what is this guy doing? Can he not think of one punishment that is good enough? Is he just having trouble making up his mind? If God was simply punishing the Egyptians, why not just give them one, really terrible plague?

All this makes you wonder what the purpose of these plagues really was? If this is bothering you as much as it is me, I highly suggest you take a look at Rabbi Fohrman’s video Why God Sent All Ten Plagues where he explains what God was really doing in sending all these plagues against the Egyptians.

Beyond that overarching question of why God sent so many plagues, we can also zoom in to each plague and ask:

What Was the Symbolism of Each Plague

Why did God send each particular plague and not something else? Why blood, frogs and lice? Why not a nile full of spoiled milk, raining knives and indigestion? 

Here are a few resources explaining the deeper meaning of some of the plagues:

Blood

This incredible series of videos actually begins with a precursor to the plague of blood. You see, all the way back before the plagues had even started God gave Moses a few small-scale miracles to perform before the Israelite elder and convince them God had sent him. The first of these mini-miracles was to take a little water from the nile and poor it out onto the ground where it would turn into blood. The later plague of blood was really just a large-scale version of this. In this series Rabbi David Fohrman explains the message intended in both of these water-into-blood miracles, not for Egypt, but for the Israelites themselves. Take a look here: Moses’s Miracles

Frogs

Frogs seem to be the kids’ favorite plague: plastic frogs at the seder table… songs about all the funny places Pharaoh found the frogs… It’s all good fun. But I find it hard to imagine that the Almighty just picked this plague for a good giggle. We have to assume there was a deeper meaning to this plague, right? 

In this podcast, Rabbi Fohrman and Imu Shalev notice something peculiar about the way this plague is described that turned out to be the key to understanding this plague on a much deeper level. Listen now: The Meaning of The First Two Plagues

Locust

The word arbeh (אַרְבֶּה) means locust. But that exact same word actually has a completely different meaning, many chapters ago, when God uses it in a promise He makes to Abraham. Is it a coincidence, or could that promise have something to do with this plagues that God sent the Egyptians 400 years later? Better yet, could it explain what this plague was all about?

Listen to this podcast all about that: The Meaning of the Eighth Plague of Locusts

Firstborn

The truth is, this God actually says exactly why he was going to kill the Egyptian firstborn. It was a measure-for-measure punishment. Egypt refused to let God’s first born (Israel) go, so He would strike their first born.

וְאָמַרְתָּ אֶל־פַּרְעֹה כֹּה אָמַר יְהוָה בְּנִי בְכֹרִי יִשְׂרָאֵל׃ וָאֹמַר אֵלֶיךָ שַׁלַּח אֶת־בְּנִי וְיַעַבְדֵנִי וַתְּמָאֵן לְשַׁלְּחוֹ הִנֵּה אָנֹכִי הֹרֵג אֶת־בִּנְךָ בְּכֹרֶךָ׃

Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says יהוה: Israel is My first-born son. I have said to you, “Let My son go, that he may worship Me,” yet you refuse to let him go. Now I will slay your first-born son.’” 

(Exodus 4:22-23)

But there are lots of other questions to ask about this plague. For instance, look at the language God uses to introduce the plague:

וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֶל־מֹשֶׁה עוֹד נֶגַע אֶחָד אָבִיא עַל־פַּרְעֹה וְעַל־מִצְרַיִם…

And יהוה said to Moses, “I will bring but one more plague upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt… 

(Exodus (11:1)

Now, you're probably expecting to hear what that plague is. But that’s not what God says. Instead He seems to get all distracted by telling the Israelites how to get rich on the way out Egypt:

דַּבֶּר־נָא בְּאָזְנֵי הָעָם וְיִשְׁאֲלוּ אִישׁ מֵאֵת רֵעֵהוּ וְאִשָּׁה מֵאֵת רְעוּתָהּ כְּלֵי־כֶסֶף וּכְלֵי זָהָב׃

Tell the people to borrow, each man from his neighbor and each woman from hers, objects of silver and gold.” 

(Exodus 11:2)

In the following video, Rabbi Fohrman answers this question, along with several other questions about this plague, and ultimately reveals a much deeper meaning behind the final plague of the exodus.