1. Fresh Look at the Old Testament
Class 4
2/8/09

2. Class 4 2/8/09
Joseph
Moses
10 Plagues

3. The Story of Joseph What we learned in Sunday School as kids…
Coat of many colors 37:3
Has a dreams 37:5-9
Brothers sell him to traders headed to Egypt 37:18-28
CEO of Potiphar Inc. 39:1-6
Lies of Potiphar’s wife 39:7-18
Imprisonment/Dreams of Butler & Baker Ch 40
Interprets Pharoah’s Dream Ch 41
Joseph is reunited with his family in Egypt Ch

4. Antitype of Jesus Sent by his Father Took families to Egypt
Joseph Jesus
Sent by his Father
Took families to Egypt
Sinned Against/Despised
Stripped of his cloak
Sold for a Price
Was Mourned for
Has compassion for the penitent
Is found alive
Gen 37: John 3:16
38:36 Mt 2:13-14
37: Mt 27:1 Jn 1:11 Mk 15:31-32
37:23 Mt27:28, 35
37:28 Mt 26:15
37:35 Mk 16:10
42:24 45:15 Lk 23:34 Jn 11:33-36
45:24-28 Mk 16 Lk 24

5. Moses What do we know about Moses Born in Egypt in perilous times
Hundreds of years after time of Joseph
Grew up in Pharoah’s House
Spoke with God at Burning Bush
Led Isrealites out of Egypt
Saw God
Received from God -10 Commandments

6. Moses & Christ Acts 3:22-23 Luke 24:44
(22) Moses indeed said, A prophet shall the Lord God raise up unto you from among your brethren, like unto me. To him shall ye hearken in all things whatsoever he shall speak unto you. (23) And it shall be, that every soul that shall not hearken to that prophet, shall be utterly destroyed from among the people.
Luke 24:44
And he said unto them, These are my words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must needs be fulfilled, which are written in the law of Moses, and the prophets, and the psalms, concerning me.

7. 10 Plagues Water Changed To Blood Frogs Lice Swarms Livestock Diseased
Boils
Hail
Locusts
Darkness
Death Of The Firstborn

8. Why the Plagues?
Ex 3:19-20
Ex 7:4-5
Ex 12:12

9. Why the Plagues? Ex 3:19-20 Ex 7:4-5 Ex 12:12
And I know that the king of Egypt will not give you leave to go, no, not by a mighty hand. (20) And I will put forth my hand, and smite Egypt with all my wonders which I will do in the midst thereof: and after that he will let you go.
Ex 7:4-5
Ex 12:12

10. Why the Plagues? Ex 3:19-20 Ex 7:4-5 Ex 12:12
And I know that the king of Egypt will not give you leave to go, no, not by a mighty hand. (20) And I will put forth my hand, and smite Egypt with all my wonders which I will do in the midst thereof: and after that he will let you go.
Ex 7:4-5
But Pharaoh will not hearken unto you, and I will lay my hand upon Egypt, and bring forth my hosts, my people the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great judgments. (5) And the Egyptians shall know that I am Jehovah, when I stretch forth my hand upon Egypt, and bring out the children of Israel from among them.
Ex 12:12
For I will go through the land of Egypt in that night, and will smite all the first-born in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am Jehovah.

11. Egyptian Society Polytheistic Pharoah At least 80 gods
was considered a god - the son of Amon-Ra
his ruling was a divine right and even his birth was thought to be divine

12. Water Changed To Blood Ex 7:14-25
The Nile was the heart of Egypt used for Commerce/trade/farming
All water was changed not just the Nile
The Nile river considered the lifeline of Egypt and the center of many of its religious ideas. The Egyptians considered the Nile sacred. Many of their gods were associated either directly or indirectly with this river and its productivity.

13. Water Changed To Blood Ex 7:14-25
An affront to many of the greatest gods of Egypt.
Khnum: guardian of the Nile River
Usually represented as a human being with a ram's head
Hapi: the "spirit of the Nile"
Regarded as the maker and molder of everything
Father of Ra
Osiris: the god of the underworld
the Egyptians believed the Nile was his bloodstream.
Tauret: the hippopotamus goddess of the river.
Nu: the god of life in the Nile?

14. Frogs Ex 8:1-15
The frog was considered the manifestation of the goddess Heqt
the wife of the creator of the world and the goddess of birth
believed to assist women in childbirth
irony that the frogs invaded pharaoh's bedroom and jumped on his bed
Frogs were so sacred in Egypt that even the involuntary slaughter of one was often punished with death
Pharaoh acknowledges that Jehovah as the author of this plague

15. Lice Ex 8:16-19 An Affront to Geb, the great god of the earth.
Egyptians gave offerings to Geb for the bounty of the soil yet it was from "the dust of the soil" that this plague originated
Egyptian Preist
Had to be pure to perform religious rituals
Normally would shave their head every day and wear only one tunic to be sure to be free of Lice
The land was so infected with "lice," the priest of Egypt could not even enter their temples to beseech their gods to help them due to their own impurity!

16. Swarms Ex 8:20-32
"of flies" is not original it was added by translators
Many think multiple types of insects
Scarab Bettles (a dung beetle )
The scarab beetle pushes a round ball of dung in front of it.
One of the ways Egyptians pictured Amon-Ra, king of the gods, as a scarab pushing the sun across the sky
The dog-fly
an insect more annoying than gnats, that fasten themselves to the body. Especially Dogs
Dogs were worshiped by Egyptians
Anubis: god associated with afterlife was manifested as a dog.

17. The god Anubis manifested as a Dog

18. Livestock Diseased Ex 9:1-7
Horses and cattle were sacred
The god Apis was represented as a bull
Apis Bull
The Apis bull was the living image of the god Ptah. He was also associated with Ra, from whom he borrowed the disk he wore between his horns.
When the Apis bull died, priests would travel through every pasture in Egypt looking for his replacement
The Apis bull supposedly had the power of prophecy. When the Apis bull died the land of Egypt mourned for him as they would for the loss of the monarch himself. After death, his body would be embalmed, and after the funeral rites were performed, the body would be placed in a granite sarcophagus.

19. Apis Bull

20. Boils Ex 9:8-12 This medical malady was also an affront to:
This plague was probably skin anthrax, a black abscess that develops into a pustule. This plague affected the knees, legs, and soles of the feet (cf. Deut. 28:35).
This explains why Pharaoh's "magicians could not stand before Moses because of the boils, for the boils were on the magicians and on all the Egyptians" (Exo. 9:11).
This medical malady was also an affront to:
Imhotep: the god of medicine -- this alone must have led to great despair in the land.
Serapis: the deity in charge of healing
Thoth: the ibis-headed god of intelligence and medical learning.

21. Hail Ex 9:13-35
The seventh plague was so the Egyptians would "know that there is none like Me in all the earth" Ex 9:14)
Jehovah was going to cause "very heavy hail to rain down, such as has not been in Egypt since its founding until now" Ex 9:16
This would have been a very unusual occurrence, for the region around Cairo normally receives only two inches of rain per year.
This would have been an affront to:
Nut, the sky goddess
Shu, the wind god?
Horus, the hawk-headed sky god of Upper Egypt?
Isis and Seth protectors of the crops

22. Locusts Ex 10:1-20
the Lord would bring locusts to Egypt the following day, "and they shall cover the face of the earth, so that no one will be able to see the earth; and they shall eat the residue of what is left, which remains to you from the hail, and they shall eat every tree which grows up for you out of the field" Ex 10:5
Hyperbole
Locusts can destroy an entire villages/town’s food supply in a matter of minutes, and history can supply us with numerous examples of such.
Locusts were described as an army by Joel.
Again the gods of Egypt were silent.
Where was Nepri, the god of grain?
Where was Ermutet, the goddess of childbirth and crops?
Isis is silent once again.
Thermuthis: the goddess of fertility and the harvest was speechless.
Seth: another god of crops, was also mute.

25. Darkness Ex 10:21-29
This plague of darkness was a huge insult to Egypt's religion and entire culture.
Amon-Ra the greatest of gods was the sun god
Ptah, the creator of the moon, the sun and the earth?
Atum, a sun god
Tem, the god of the sunset?
Shu, the god of sunlight and air?

26. Death Of The Firstborn Ex 11:1-12:30
This plague was directed against "all of the gods of Egypt “Ex 12:12 and would show the total inability of the gods of Egypt to protect their subjects. In the face of unparalleled tragedy, "all of the gods of Egypt" were silent.
Where was Selket, the guardian of life?
Where was Renenutet, the cobra-goddess and guardian of Pharaoh?
Ex12:30 …there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where there was not one dead.
The Dream Stela of Thutmosis IV

27. The Dream Stela of Thutmosis IV
The Dream Stela of Thutmosis IV Story of 2nd born son of Pharaoh rising to the throne

28. 18th Dynasty of Egyptian Pharaohs (Dates BC)

29. Suggested Timeline of Plagues
"June: the Nile becomes stagnant and red with microscopic organisms. July: Frogs abound after the inundation of the Nile. Hot summer and damp autumn months: Lice, flies, murrain and boils. January: Hail and rain. (This date fixed by the effect on the crops mentioned). February: Appearance of locusts in early spring, over the green crops. March: Darkness from great sandstorms. April: Death of the firstborn, dated by the Passover celebration" (Davis, p. 93).

30. The majority of the data about the plagues in this presentation was found on the website: