“Now the LORD had said to Moses, ‘I will bring one more plague on Pharaoh and on Egypt. After that, he will let you go from here, and when he does, he will drive you out completely.'” (Exodus 11:1)
Recently an Egyptian columnist, Ahmad al-Gamal, called on his government to sue Israel for the ten Passover plagues that came upon the nation as a result of Pharaoh refusing to let the people of Israel go.
The Plague of Flies, by James Tissot
Al-Gamal is promoting his own version of history, blaming the Ten Plagues of God on “curses that the Jews’ ancient forefathers (cast) on our ancient forefathers.”
“What is written in the Torah proves that it was Pharaoh who oppressed the Children of Israel, rather than the Egyptian people,” Al-Gamal writes, saying the ancient Egyptians “did not deserve to pay for the mistake that Egypt’s ruler at the time, Pharaoh, committed.” (The Blaze)
While al-Gamal outlines the plagues as hardships for the Egyptians—whether locusts or frogs, water turning into blood, or death of the firstborn—he neglects to notice that each plague specifically targets a god of ancient Egypt.
In other words, God did more than deliver the Ancient Israelites from Egyptian bondage. He also delivered the Egyptians from spiritual bondage by dethroning the nation’s deities and showing them to be frauds.
Even so, in the process of that liberation, people suffered. Because of that, during the reading of the Haggadah at the Passover Seder (ritual meal), wine is poured out of the cup to demonstrate that Jewish rejoicing is not perfect at Passover because other people suffered in the process of the deliverance from Egypt.
“Don’t rejoice when your enemies fall; don’t be happy when they stumble.” (Proverbs 24:17)
The Egyptians worshiped a variety of deities, including Amun-Ra, a chief deity that also came to be worshiped outside of Egypt and perhaps in ancient Greece as Zeus.
