Yay God for answered prayers. I was feeling kinda down and out for a while, prayed the last few days for the desire to get back into it, and then tonight a conversation with a good friend was VERY refreshing.

So….
nugget of the day: Plagues are a direct affront to Egyptian’s Gods. Each of the plagues basically showed up an Egyptian God, and proved how not-much-of-a-god they actually were.

I’m not sure about the accuracy of this site, but in a nutshell:

“For I will go through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike down 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 the Lord.” (Exodus 12:12)

Pre-plague: snake
cobra or “urae” was symbol of rulers. It’s on their fun hat the pharoahs wear, and on their coffins. For Moses’ snake to eat the magicians’ snake was kinda like saying my pharoah’s bigger than your pharoah… so there!

Nile Water Turned to Blood
Hapi was spirit god of the flood, that replenished the land each year. “The Nile water was the transformed life-blood of Osiris. The fact that the Nile turned to blood, which was abominable to Egyptians, was a direct affront to one of their chief gods.”

Frogs
“The frog-headed goddess, Hekt (52, 62), played a part in “creation.” Hers was one of the oldest fertility cults in Egypt. But she could not control the fertility of a these frogs!” My friend also said that apparently since frogs were sacred, they weren’t allowed to kill them, either. How ironic. :)

Gnats
Hm.. this website calls it lice, and has no egyptian God comparison. My bible has ‘gnats’… but no commentary.

Flies
May also be beetles, in which case Khephera, the scarab beetle, God of the resurrection.

Livestock Disease
This website has it as Murrain or Anthrax… not sure of either of these, but obviously it’s an attack on the cattle… and Hathor, the cow-headed love goddess. Apparently, according to this website, the symbol of the bull was the symbol of pharaoh himself.

Boils
Against the god of healing, Im-Hotep

Hail
“The sky goddess Nut was “the mother of the sun-god Ra. She was especially culpable in this plague in that she was supposed to protect the land from destructions which came down from heaven.”

Locusts
The locust-headed god was Senehem. The locusts were so thick that they blotted out the sun (god, Ra)

Darkness
Sun God Amon-Ra, the principle deity of all the egyptian gods.

Death To Firstborns
The last plague was not only against the supreme god of Egypt, Pharaoh himself, but also against the future pharaoh, his son, the very next god (Horus) of Egypt. He was to die on the same level as animals (not as a god), for the prophecy was that the firstborn of man and cattle would die.

(there’s nothing so infuriating as having your God-king put on a level equal with your stinky cows!)