Shemot 10:21, HaShem said to Moshe, “Stretch out your hand toward the sky so that darkness spreads over Egypt—darkness that can be felt. 22 Moses stretched out his hand toward the sky, and total darkness covered all of Egypt for three days. 23. No one could see anyone else or move about for three days….
This week’s Parasha describes the last three plagues that struck Egypt and ended up twisting the arm of Pharaoh, who ultimately freed the Jews from Egypt. I would like to write today about the Ninth Plague, choshekh “darkness.” First, to understand the nature of this plague, and second, to examine the function of this and the previous eight plagues in the context of the story of the Exodus. If you are a Harry Potter fan, you might feel a little disappointed about the plagues. Moshe is not coming on a flying carpet to see Pharaoh. He is not transforming the Egyptian monarch into a frog. And is not bringing upon Egypt an invasion of seven-headed snakes. All the plagues are, seemingly, “natural phenomena”, events that could have occurred naturally in Egypt. Let’s analyze, for example, the plague of darkness. What type of phenomena caused this darkness? The Biblical text describes it as tangible, a darkness that can be felt. The text also implies that this state of darkness literally paralyzed Egypt: people could not see each other from a close distance, so no one left his home for three days. Whatever caused this darkness, the Tora is not describing here merely the absence of light. Rabbi Abraham Eben Ezra says that the Ninth Plague might have been produced by a very thick, intense fog coming from the Nile. Incidentally, I experienced this type of fog when I visited the forests of Monteverde in Costa Rica. Unlike the absence of light, the darkness produced by heavy fog is tangible, a zero visibility that you can physically feel and “touch.” Precisely as the biblical text describes this plague. This won’t be the case, for example, if darkness was a product of a solar eclipse.
MY FAVORITE CANDIDATE FOR DARKNESS
A few years ago, when I was living in Israel, I was driving my old light-blue Subaru car from Jerusalem to Dimona, and to shorten the way, I did not use the regular safe highway: I turned east, circumventing Mount Hebron and some Arab villages in somewhat desert areas. And then, I got caught in a sandstorm. It was noon, but I could not see a thing, not a foot ahead of me. I slowed down, and then I turned on the car’s lights. Serious mistake! Far from illuminating the route, my car’s lights were reflected in the “sandstorm”, and it dazzled me directly in the eyes. So to be able to see anything, I had to turn off the light! I had to stop my car in the middle of nowhere. B”H the storm was short, and I don’t think it was as severe as the one in Egypt… But it helped me understand better that light is useless for this type of darkness and that thick, tangible darkness could disrupt normal life and paralyze people. Sand storms and dust storms are prevalent in the Middle East and other areas of the world. This awesome video shows a dust storm that affected Oklahoma and other areas in 1935. This footage is priceless because it mentions this climate event as a “plague” (I don’t think there is any deliberate allusion to Egypt or the Bible here). It also mentions that it felt like midnight, with zero visibility, in the brightness of the day. Thirdly, same as in Egypt, people could not move; they had to crawl to seek shelter. All this corresponds verbatim to the Biblical text description of the plague of darkness.
THE TORA vs. LORD VOLDEMORT
The Tora tells us explicitly the reason for the Makkot. וידעו מצרים כי-אני ה ‘ בנטתי את-ידי על-מצרים והוצאתי את-בני-ישראל, מתוכם. “So the Egyptians would know that I’m HaShem”. But this still begs the question of precisely what the Egyptians needed to know. That HaShem can perform magic better than the Egyptian wizards? In my opinion, the ultimate goal of the plagues was for the Egyptians –and for the Jews– is the evidence that HaShem is the Creator and that He alone is in control of nature. How so?
Nature unleashes its power indiscriminately and without warning. But the plagues of Egypt were different. They were not natural events but rather the handiwork of a higher power; the true God is in complete control of nature. He, through the agency of Moses, decided when each plague would begin and how long it would last. The plagues were also intelligently designed, each serving a specific purpose. For example, the plague of locusts was designed to destroy all the green leaves in Egypt, while the previous plague of hail left them untouched. Nature is blind: an earthquake won’t spare children or innocent people. Nature does not have the capacity to make moral selections. What makes the plagues different and unique (and Divine) is that they were visibly under God’s control. God, thru the agency of Moshe, decided when the plague would start and how long it would last. And what sets the plagues apart from nature even more, is that they affected only the Egyptians and not the Israelites. This is explicitly mentioned in several plagues, such as the pestilence that struck the Egyptian animals and the darkness that did not affect the Israelites’ place of residence. This level of precision and selectivity can only be achieved by a Creator who is deliberately engineering these special effects.
Unlike natural forces, represented by the Egyptian gods, the Creator “selects”, making a plague affecting one sector of the population and not the other. Thus, the God of Israel demonstrates that he can direct his power and affect only a specific target, something that blind nature cannot do. This selective power is more present in the Tenth and last plague than in any other plague. The last plague affected the firstborn. Now, there is nothing physical or biological in an individual’s body by which a scientist can determine that this person was born first or second from his mother. Only the Creator, and nothing in Nature, can identify who was born first. Second, God ordered the Hebrews to mark their homes with blood, and then, God would spare those homes against the lethal plague. This selective effect of a plague cannot be attributed to magic or the work of any natural phenomena.
The plagues of Egypt were not random acts of nature but rather the finely tuned instruments of a Creator who was using them to accomplish His plan.
See this article about a monster dust storm in Australia, 2020
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jan/20/huge-dust-storms-hit-central-new-south-wales
See also this. Oklahoma, 1935
