Exodus 7b-8a: Creation & the Plagues
The narrative of the plagues is quite familiar to many people that have been around church for some time. Many people can even recite the ten plagues in order (or sing a song that lists them all!). The familiar can sometimes get boring, so I have sought to remedy this perceived problem by giving some new perspective each week on the plagues. We have discussed the gods of Egypt and their relationship to the plagues, and this week we also looked at the structure of the plagues and briefly touched on some of the creational themes in the narrative. It is this latter element that I would like to develop a bit more here, as the sermon could only pack in so much.
First, I briefly reminded us of the creational echoes we have already heard in other parts of Exodus – the opening verses (the Israelites were fruitful and multiplied and filled the earth), the birth of Moses (“she saw him – that he was good”), etc. This Sunday I pointed out that Creation itself is being used against Pharaoh to show him who is truly in control (Yahweh is!). There are a number of other elements in the Plagues narratives that point to this creational theme.
Ziony Zevit (what a name!), author of the article “Three Ways to Look at the Ten Plagues” (Originally appeared in Bible Review (June 1990): 16-23, 42 – but I found a copy online with a quick Google search), points to several other links between the Plagues and Creation. He notes that the 10 Plagues correspond to the 10 divine utterances in Genesis 1 (anytime the text says, “And God said…” – 1:3, 6, 9, 11, 14, 20, 24, 26, 28, 29). Ari Mark Cartun (“ ‘Who Knows Ten?’ The Structural and Symbolic Use of Numbers in the Ten Plagues: Exodus 7:14-13:16” in Union Seminary Quarterly Review 45 (1991): 65-119) also points this out, noting that each of the ten plagues narratives begin with “And God/Yahweh/He said” (pg. 79).
There are other verbal echoes of the Creation narrative. Take Exodus 7:19 for example: And the LORD said to Moses, “Say to Aaron, ‘Take your staff and stretch out your hand over the waters of Egypt, over their rivers, their canals, and their ponds, and all their pools of water, so that they may become blood, and there shall be blood throughout all the land of Egypt, even in vessels of wood and in vessels of stone.’” (ESV)
The phrase translated “pools of water” uses two words that also appear side-by-side in Genesis 1:10 (God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. See Enns, Exodus, 203). Exodus 7:19 further pulls from Genesis 1 when it says, “that they may become blood, and there shall be blood.” This is an echo of the much-repeated phrase, “Let there be [light, an expanse, etc.], and there was [light, an expanse, etc.].” To put it another way, the Plagues Narrative sounds like Genesis 1.
We can add much more. The creational ideal is for humankind to have dominion over the animals (see Gen 1:28). In the Plagues Narrative, creation/the animals end up having dominion over the Egyptians (Enns 205). One commentator, William H. C. Propp, finds a great deal of lexical contact between Genesis 1 and the Plagues (including the words: serpent, water, fish, earth, swarm, be full, earth, dust, bring forth, man, animal; Exodus 1-18, 345-6. Note that there is much that I would certainly not recommend in Dr. Propp’s commentary due to his critical views in Exodus.).
Another commentator, Terence E. Fretheim (Exodus – another commentary I wouldn’t necessarily recommend because of his views on Open Theism), is particularly strong in pointing out the creational themes in Exodus as a whole. In the Plagues Narrative, he argues that it is a picture of Creation gone berserk and breaking through the bounds of its createdness (110). The plagues are “hypernatural” Creation – nature in excess (109).
I would also point out an observation that the plagues in Exodus differ considerably from the judgments that God warned Israel about in Lev 26 and Deut 28 (cf. Zevit as well on this). There is some overlap (curse on livestock, wild beasts turning against you – Lev 26:22), but as a whole the plagues on the Egyptians are of quite a different nature. There are likely several reasons for this: 1) The plagues of Lev and Deut are judgments against Israel’s disobedience, not Egypt’s; 2) The plagues of Egypt are directed against the Egyptian milieu of gods, which may explain their unique nature; 3) The plagues of Egypt reflect a creational purpose.
So why all the echoes of Genesis 1 and Creation? Why does God choose to use Creation against Pharaoh? I suspect is has something to do with the way the book of Exodus opens. We saw in Exodus 1:1-7 that Israel was fulfilling God’s creational and covenantal purposes for her: creational purposes in that she was being fruitful, multiplying and filling the earth; covenantal purposes in that God told Abraham his descendants would become a great nation and fulfill God’s creational mandates for mankind.
The first Pharaoh, who we saw in Exodus 1, willfully rebels against these creational and covenantal purposes. He attempts to reverse Israel’s blessed fruitful multiplication by diminishing her population. The second Pharaoh is no different. He isn’t keen on slimming the population, but on controlling it and keeping Israel from the land promised to her in the covenant.
So God gives Pharaoh what he deserves, in exactly the way he deserves. Pharaoh tries to counter Israel’s creational and covenantal progress, so God throws Creation itself back in his face in order to free His covenant people.
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