For the second plague, Moses allegedly conjured vast quantities of frogs that swarmed into people's homes — even finding their way into the Egyptians' beds, ovens and cookware. As it happens, the phenomenon of " raining frogs " has been reported multiple times throughout history and in a range of locations around the world. A report published July 12, in Scientific American described "a shower of frogs which darkened the air and covered the ground for a long distance," following a recent rainstorm.
The account was one of dozens of similar anecdotes collected in "The Book of the Damned" , though its somewhat skeptical author suggested that the frogs may have simply dropped from trees. And in May in Greece, thousands of frogs emerged from a lake in the northern part of the country, likely in search of food, and disrupted traffic for days, CBS News reported.
The third plague, lice, could mean either lice, fleas or gnats based on the Hebrew word Keenim. If a toxic algal bloom led to the first plague, and a pile of dead frogs followed, it's not surprising that a swarm of insects of some sort would have followed.
That's because frogs typically eat insects; without them, the fly population could have exploded, Stephan Pflugmacher, a climatologist Leibniz Institute for Water Ecology and Inland Fisheries in Berlin, said in a television special about the plagues that aired on the National Geographic Channel in Interestingly, both body lice and fleas can theoretically transmit the bacteria Yersinia pestis, which causes bubonic plague, according to a study published in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.
If so, then an infestation with lice could have set the stage for the later plagues, such as boils, a review of plague science found. Scientists have also argued that the sickness that killed the beasts of the field for Egyptians in later plagues might have been Bluetongue or African horse sickness, both of which can be spread by insects from this plague, according to a Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine.
Once again, the Hebrew word for the fourth plague, arov, is ambiguous. It roughly translates to a "mixture," and over the years, rabbis had interpreted that word to mean either wild animals, hornets or mosquitoes, or even wolf-like beasts that prowl in the night, according to biblical commentary found in the Exodus Rabbah ; Tanchuma, Va'eira Most commonly, people interpret the text to mean wild animals such as venomous snakes or scorpions, or even lions or bears.
However, according to a study published in the journal Caduceus , which attempts to explain the plagues as epidemiological problems caused by an initial climate disturbance, J. Marr and C. Malloy argue that the fourth plague represents a swarm of flies such as the stable fly Stomoxys calcitrans. Bites from these flies could have led to the boils that occurred later on in the story, according to that study.
The fifth plague called down on Egypt was a mysterious and highly contagious disease that swiftly killed off the Egyptians' livestock. This biblical scourge is reminiscent of a real plague known as rinderpest, an infectious and lethal viral disease that decimated populations of cattle and other ruminants across Africa and Europe from the 18th through the late 19th centuries. God ordered Aaron to touch the River Nile with his staff - and the waters were turned to blood.
The fish in the river died and the Egyptians couldn't drink the foul water. In the picture, Egyptians are digging around the river for a spring. But all they found was a spring of blood. The pharaoh, his servants, the Egyptians and even their animals developed painful boils all over their bodies. There were even boils on the Pharaoh's feet! A physician attended the Pharaoh's court but he could not cure them. God rained hail, fire and thunder upon Egypt and the hail struck down all the crops in the fields and shattered every tree.
In the picture, the hail stones red and white dots are falling on a tree, as a shepherd and his goats shelter underneath. Hail storms were unusual in arid regions such as Egypt and were therefore extremely frightening. Then he would produce a series of plagues with escalating severity that culminated with the death of every firstborn Egyptian male. Though Moses asked Pharaoh before each plague for his people's freedom, he continued to refuse.
Ultimately, it took all 10 plagues to convince the unnamed Pharaoh to free all of Egypt's enslaved Hebrews, who then started their exodus back to Canaan. The drama of the plagues and their role in the liberation of the Jewish people are remembered during the Jewish holiday of Pesach, or Passover.
Hollywood's treatment of the Plagues as portrayed in movies such as Cecil B. DeMille's "The Ten Commandments" is decidedly different from the way that Jewish families regard them during the celebration of Passover.
DeMille's Pharaoh was an out-and-out bad guy, but the Torah teaches that God was the one who made him so intransigent. The Plagues were less about punishing the Egyptians than showing the Hebrews—who were not yet Jews since they had not received the Ten Commandments—how mighty their God was.
At the seder, the ritual meal accompanying Passover, it is customary to recite the 10 plagues and flick a drop of wine from each cup as each plague is enumerated. This is done to remember the suffering of the Egyptians and to diminish in some way the happiness of a liberation that cost so many innocent lives. The historicity of anything in ancient texts is dicey. The Pharaoh in the story is thought to be Ramses II. When Aaron's staff hit the Nile River, the water became blood, and the first plague began.
The water, even in wood and stone jars, was undrinkable, fish died, and the air was filled with a horrid stench. Like some of the other plagues, Pharaoh's magicians were able to replicate this phenomenon. The second plague brought an influx of millions of frogs. They came from every water source around and inundated the Egyptian people and everything around them. This feat was also duplicated by the Egyptian magicians.
Aaron's staff was used again in the third plague. This time he struck the earth and gnats flew up from the dust. The infestation took over every man and animal around.
The Egyptians could not recreate this one with their magic, saying instead, "This is the finger of God. The fourth plague affected only the lands of Egypt and not those where the Hebrews lived in Goshen. The swarm of flies was unbearable, and this time Pharaoh agreed to allow the people to go into the desert, with restrictions, to make sacrifices to God. Again, affecting only the herds of the Egyptians, the fifth plague sent a deadly disease through the animals they relied on.
It destroyed the livestock and flocks, but those of the Hebrews remained untouched. To bring on the sixth plague, God told Moses and Aaron to toss ashes into the air. This resulted in horrendous and painful boils appearing on every Egyptian and their livestock. The pain was so excruciating that when the Egyptian sorcerers tried to stand in front of Moses, they could not.
In Exodus , Moses conveyed a personal message to Pharaoh from God. It said that he had purposely brought the plagues upon him and Egypt "to shew in thee my power; and that my name may be declared throughout all the earth.
0コメント