📖 Biblical Definition
The Ten Plagues were the escalating series of judgments God brought upon Egypt to deliver Israel and to display His supremacy over the gods of the land (Exodus 7-12): water to blood, frogs, lice, flies, livestock pestilence, boils, hail, locusts, darkness, and the death of the firstborn. Each plague targeted a specific Egyptian deity — Hapi the Nile-god, Heqet the frog-goddess, Geb the earth-god, Ra the sun-god, and finally Pharaoh himself, considered a son of the gods. The LORD said "against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the LORD" (Exodus 12:12). The tenth plague was answered by the Passover lamb’s blood on the lintel and doorposts — and Israel marched out free.
📜 Webster 1828 Definition
Plagues of Egypt — the ten judgments by which God broke Egypt and delivered Israel.
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Blood, frogs, lice, flies, livestock, boils, hail, locusts, darkness, and death of the firstborn — ten strokes, each humiliating a god of Egypt (the Nile, Hapi; the sun, Ra; Pharaoh himself as a deity). The tenth required the blood of a lamb on Israelite doorposts.
📖 Key Scripture
Exodus 7:5 — "The Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD, when I stretch forth mine hand upon Egypt."
Exodus 12:12 — "Against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the LORD."
Exodus 12:13 — "When I see the blood, I will pass over you."
Exodus 9:16 — "For this cause have I raised thee up, for to shew in thee my power; and that my name may be declared throughout all the earth."
⚠️ Modern Corruption
The plagues are reframed as natural disasters in cascading sequence, denying the targeted theological judgment.
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Naturalistic readings explain the plagues as a chain of ecological events — algae blooms, frog migrations, locust swarms — triggered by a Nile flood. The supernatural particularity (no flies in Goshen, light in Israelite homes during darkness) is dismissed.
Scripture frames the plagues as polemic theology: each one strikes a god of Egypt and proves Yahweh alone is God. The climax is not deliverance only but worship — that Egypt and Israel alike might know the name of the LORD.
🔗 Greek & Hebrew Roots
Makkah (blow) and yada (know) carry the narrative.
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H4347 — makkah — blow, plague, stroke
H3045 — yada — to know — that they may know I am the LORD
H6547 — Pharaoh — Pharaoh — great house
Usage
"Each plague unseated a god of Egypt by name."
"Pharaoh hardened his heart until God hardened it for him."
"The blood of a lamb on the door turned the destroyer aside."