Ten Plagues of Egypt? No, Eight Plagues and Four Warnings!

Where Does the Idea of 10 Plagues Originate?

The number “ten” describing the plagues in Egypt does not appear in Exodus nor anywhere else in the Bible. In fact, the lists of plagues in the two chapters of Psalms (78 and 105) that retell the story in poetry are not identical to the list in Exodus or to each other; they seem to describe a smaller number of plagues, perhaps seven.^[1]

The earliest source to mention the number ten is the 2^nd cent. B.C.E. Jubilees:

^{Jub 48:7} And everything happened according to your word, ten great and cruel judgments came on the land of Egypt so that you might execute vengeance upon it for Israel.^[2]

Philo (ca. 20 B.C.E–ca. 50 C.E.) also makes a passing reference in his On the Life of Moses (1.16): “ten punishments were inflicted on the land.” In contrast, Josephus (37 C.E.–ca. 100) makes no reference to ten plagues.^[3]

The Mishnah makes reference to “ten plagues” once, in the context of a list of other biblical “tens”:

^{משנה אבות ה:ד}...עשר מכות הביא הקדוש ברוך הוא על המצריים במצרים ועשרה על הים.

^{m. Avot 5:4} God brought ten plagues on the Egyptians in Egypt, and another ten at the [Red] Sea.

עשרה נסיונות נסו אבותינו את המקום ברוך הוא במדבר שנאמר (במדבר יד:כב) "וינסו אותי זה עשר פעמים ולא שמעו בקולי."

Our ancestors tested God ten times in the wilderness, as it is written (Num 14:22), “They tested Me these ten times and did not hearken to My voice.”

The Mishnah doesn’t necessarily have a specific list of ten plagues in Egypt; the other “tens” that it mentions are not enumerated in the Bible.^[4] And, despite the prooftext from Numbers for the “ten” times that the Israelites tested God, this number is presumably just an expression, meaning “many times.”^[5]

The term “ten plagues” appears nowhere in the Talmud, but it does appear in the Tannaitic Mekhilta of R. Ishmael (Beshalach, on Exod 14:31),^[6] which is the source of the passage quoted in the Haggadah, that offers different numbers for the sets of plagues:

• 10 plagues in Egypt and 50 at the Sea—R. Yossi HaGelili’s position;
• 40 plagues in Egypt and 200 at the Sea—R. Eliezer’s position;
• 50 plagues in Egypt and 250 at the Sea—R. Akiva’s position.^[7]

Listing the Ten Plagues: The Haggadah

The first time we get a list of the ten plagues by name is in the Passover Haggadah’s midrashic interpretation of a verse in Deuteronomy:

^{דברים כו:ח} וַיּוֹצִאֵנוּ יְיָ מִמִצְרַיִם בְּיָד חֲזָקָה וּבִזְרֹעַ נְטוּיָה וּבְמֹרָא גָּדֹל וּבְאֹתוֹת וּבְמֹפְתִים.

^{Deut 26:8} YHWH freed us from Egypt by a mighty hand, by an outstretched arm and awesome power, and by signs and portents.

The Haggadah first interprets each phrase as a reference to various elements of the exodus story, only two of which are plagues. It then offers a second interpretation, that each of the five phrases refers to two plagues—the first three phrases use two words and the last two are plural nouns—thus equaling ten:

^{הגדה של פסח} דָבָר אַחֵר: "בְּיָד חֲזָקָה" - שְׁתַּיִם, "וּבִזְרֹעַ נְטוּיָה" - שְׁתַּיִם, "וּבְמֹרָא גָּדֹל" - שְׁתַּיִם, "וּבְאֹתוֹת" - שְׁתַּיִם, "וּבְמֹפְתִים" - שְׁתַּיִם.

^{Passover Haggadah} Another interpretation: “by a mighty hand”—two; “by an outstretched arm”—two; “and awesome power”—two, “and by signs”—two; “and by portents”—two.

Then it lists, following one of the opinions mentioned above from the Mekhilta, the ten plagues:

אֵלּוּ עֶשֶׂר מַכּוֹת שֶׁהֵבִיא הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא עַל הַמִּצְרִים בְּמִצְרַיִם, וְאֵלוּ הֵן: דָּם, צְפֵרְדֵּעַ, כִּנִים, עָרוֹב, דֶּבֶר, שְׁחִין, בָּרד, אַרְבֶּה, חשֶׁךְ, מַכַּת בְּכוֹרוֹת.

These are the ten plagues that the Blessed Holy One brought upon the Egyptians in Egypt, and these are they: blood, frogs, lice, swarms of insects/wild animals, pestilence, boils, hail, locust, darkness, smiting the firstborns.

רַבִּי יְהוּדָה הָיָה נוֹתֵן בָּהֶם סִימָנִים דְּצַ״ךְ עֲדַ״שׁ בְּאַחַ״ב.

Rabbi Yehudah provided a mnemonic [based on the first letter of the name of each plague]: DeTZaH, ‘aDaSH Be’aHaV.[8]

This midrash appears in medieval collections of midrashim, but not in any collection from classical rabbinic times.^[9]

Is the Order of the Plagues Meaningful?

Lekah Tov, a mostly midrashic Bible commentary from the late 11^th or early 12^th century compiled by R. Tobias ben Eliezer of Byzantium, suggested that the plagues are organized in a meaningful pattern. If we divide the first nine plagues into units of three, warnings are always provided for the first two plagues of each unit, but not for the third, which lacks a warning:

^{לקח טוב שמות ח:יג} ודע כי מכת הכנים בלא התראה הביאה הקב״ה עליהם, וכן השחין והחשך... חשבתי בלבי לומר על אלו השלשה למה הן בלא התראה, כי על השנים היה מתרה בו, ועל השלישי לא היה מתרה בו, כסימנו של ר׳ יהודה דצ״ך עד״ש באח״ב,

^{Lekah Tov Exod 8:13} Know that the Blessed Holy One brought lice [plague number 3] on them [the Egyptians] without warning, and so also the plague of boils [number 6] and of darkness [number 9]…. I wondered why specifically these three came without a warning; God warned for two plagues but not for the third [in each unit of three]. This pattern is reflected in Rabbi Yehudah’s mnemonic, DeTZaH, ‘aDaSH Be’aHaV.^[10]

R. Tobias then adds a Talmudic-style explanation, namely, repeat offenders are treated more harshly:

והיינו דתנן מי שלקה ושנה, בית דין כונסין אותו לכיפה, ומאכילין אותו שעורין עד שכריסו נבקעת

This conforms to the principle taught in the Mishnah (Sanhedrin 9:5), “If a person was flogged [as punishment for a sin] and then repeats that same sin, the court places him in a vaulted chamber and feeds him barley until his stomach ruptures.”

Accordingly, after Pharaoh ignored two plagues, thus sinning, he was treated more harshly and not even given a warning before the third.^[11] This logic is debatable: If after two plagues that he ignored Pharaoh deserved to be treated more harshly, and was punished with a third plague which he again ignored, why then give him a warning about the fourth plague? And why does the third in each unit of three appear to be less severe than the two plagues that preceded it?

Rashbam (Rabbi Samuel ben Meir; c. 1080-c. 1160), who was acquainted with Lekah Tov,^[12] also notes the lack of warning for every third plague pattern,^[13] but unlike R. Tobias, Rashbam simply points it out without attributing any particular significance to the pattern.^[14]

Many other commentators built on the pattern, further refining the structure of the ten plagues, and sometimes finding educational messages in the order. For instance, dealing with the specific problem of plagues without warnings, Nahmanides/Ramban (Rabbi Moses ben Nahman, ca. 1195–ca. 1270) writes that God/Moses didn’t bother to warn Pharaoh about plagues that were merely a nuisance:

^{רמב"ן שמות ח:טו} ...לא התרה בו, כי אין הקב"ה מתרה בפרעה רק במכות אשר בהן מיתה לאדם...

^{Ramban Exod 8:15} …[Moses] didn’t warn him (Pharaoh), since the Blessed Holy One only warned Pharaoh about plagues that endanger human life…

Nahmanides then struggles to explain why frogs, for example, present a mortal danger.

There Was a Warning for Every Plague!

The early medieval Midrash Tanḥuma denies that any plague was performed without warning:

^{מדרש תנחומה וארא יד} והקדוש ברוך הוא היה מתרה בו בפרעה הרשע על כל מכה ומכה.

^{Tanhuma Va-era 14} The Blessed Holy One warned evil Pharaoh about each and every plague.

This was also the view of Gersonides/Ralbag (Rabbi Levi ben Gershon, 1288–1344),^[15] to whom Don Isaac Abarbanel (1437–1509) responds^[16] by reiterating the pattern:

^{אברבנאל שמות ח:יב} וכבר ביארתי למעלה שאין הדעת הזה נכון כי הנה תמצא בסדר המכות תמיד שתים בהתראה ואחת מבלי התראה אחריהן ואיך יהיה זה תמיד מבלי סבה

^{Abarbanel Exod 8:12} I’ve already explained above that this view is incorrect, for we find that in the presentation of the plagues it is always two with a warning and one without a warning after them, and how can this always be without any reason?

Abarbanel offers his own extended explanation of what distinguishes each of the three units of three plagues:

^{אברבנאל שמות ח:יב} אבל האמת הוא מה שהודעתיך שהקדוש ברוך הוא הביא שלש מכות... וצוה שבראשונה מהם יתרה משה לפרעה בגלוי בפני כל שריו ועבדיו ואחר כך יתר' גם כן אליו לבדו בסתר וכן עשה משה רבינו במכת הדם והצפרדעים.

^{Abarbanel Exod 8:12} But the truth is what I explained to you that the Blessed Holy One brought three plagues... and commanded that for the first of them, Moses should warn Pharaoh publicly, in front of all his ministers and servants, and afterwards, he should warn him on his own, privately, and that is what Moses did for the plagues of blood and frogs.

ולפי שפרעה נדר לו שאם יסורו הצפרדעים ישלח את העם לזבוח לאלהיהם וכאשר ראה כי היתה הרוחה הכביד את לבו ולא רצה לשלחם לכן צוה השם למשה שיצוה לאהרן שילך לרחוב העיר מבלי שילך אל פרעה ולא שיתרה בו אלא שיפרסם להמון עמי הארץ שפרעה מלך מצרים שאון העביר את דברו (ירמיה מו:יז) ושקר באמונתו.

And since Pharaoh swore to him that once the frogs were removed he would send the people to offer sacrifices to their God, but once he saw that there was relief, he made his heart heavy and did not wish to send them off, therefore, God commanded Moses to command Aaron to go to the city’s street, without approaching Pharaoh or warning him, but instead announcing to the populace at large that Pharaoh, King of Egypt, the braggart, went back on his word (Jer 46:17), and lied about what he had promised.

In contrast to Nahmanides, Abarbanel essentially ignores the specific plagues and focuses on the progression of one type of warning to another.

In modern times, many still see significance in the division of the plagues into three units of three. For example, Nahum Sarna writes that the plague narrative in Exodus has “a sophisticated and symmetric literary structure, with a pattern of three groups, each comprising three plagues.”^[17] Of course, the nature of the pattern is strongly colored by how the plagues are counted.

Are There Really Ten Plagues?

Even if the term or the concept of “ten plagues” came relatively late into traditional Jewish parlance, by the Middle Ages almost no one questioned it. One exception was Rabbi Joseph ibn Kaspi (1279–1340)—a commentator who often resisted standard interpretations.^[18] He notes:

^{אבן כספי שמות יא:י} ואין אני מחייב שיהיו עשר מכות כמו שמנו קצת מהקדמונים, כי אין אני מדקדק אם היו עשרה או פחות או יתר, כי אין בתורה זכרון מספר מוגבל להם.

^{Ibn Kaspi Exod 11:10} I don’t see it as necessary to say there were precisely ten plagues, as some of the ancients said. From my perspective, a precise number of ten, or more, or less are all possible. The Torah never mentions a specific number.^[19]

The possibility of counting differently allows for a different understanding of the pattern of the plague narrative. And indeed, Naftali Herz (Hartwig) Wessely (1725–1805) suggested a very different one, based on his counting of the plagues as twelve instead of ten.^[20]

Naftali Herz Wessely: A Maskil

Born in Hamburg, Wessely received his religious education at the yeshivah of Rabbi Yonatan Eybeschutz (1690–1764), who influenced him greatly. Wessely was a maskil, a proponent of Jewish Enlightenment who read literature and scientific works in a number of European languages.

He was most famous for writing an essay entitled Divrei Shalom Ve’emet (Words of Peace and Truth^[21]), encouraging Jews to take advantage of Joseph I’s Edict of Toleration for the Jews of Lower Austria (1782) and to give their children an education that included studying the German language and various other “core curriculum” subjects including history, geography and mathematics.

Wessely joined Moses Mendelssohn’s circle (1729–1786) and wrote the first-rate Hebrew commentary on Leviticus that appears alongside Mendelssohn’s German translation in Mendelssohn’s Be’ur,^[22] as well as an independent commentary on Genesis he called Imre Shefer (Beautiful Words^[23]).

The Twelve Miracles

Wessely sees in Exodus twelve miraculous acts performed by God in Egypt, four that we would call warnings, and eight that we would call plagues. He divides these twelve divine actions into four units of three, where the first miraculous act in each unit (listed below in italics) is a mere nuisance or warning shot, followed by two actual plagues. Each set is a different category and reflects increasing severity:

I. Nile— Aaron’s staff turns into a tanin,^[24] which throughout the Bible is a creature that lives in water. It thus portends the two “real” plagues connected to the Nile that followed:

1. Tanin (Exod 7:8–13)
2. Blood (Exod 7:14–25)
3. Frogs (Exod 7:26–8:11)

II. Animals—The nuisance plague of lice portends two “real” plagues related to other living beings:

4. Lice (Exod 8:12–15)
5. ʿArov (Exod 8:16–20)^[25]
6. Pestilence (Exod 9:1–7)

III. Food—When Moses and Aaron throw handfuls of soot from the kiln toward the heavens, it turns into boils when it comes down (9:8—10). This portends the two plagues that descend from above and attack Egypt’s food supply:

7. Boils (Exod 9:8–12)
8. Hail (Exod 9:13–35)
9. Locust (Exod 10:1–20)

IV. Death—The ominous plague of darkness, often a symbol for death, foreshadows the deadly plagues that follow:

10. Darkness (Exod 10:21–23)
11. Death of Firstborns (Exod 11:4–8 and 12:29–36)
12. Drowning in the Red Sea (Exod 14:26–31)

Explaining the Count in the Plague Psalms

Wessely’s theory explains the allegedly defective list of eight plagues found in Psalm 78.^[26] The only “plagues” missing there are the ones that Wessely calls warnings (tanin, lice, boils and darkness); the “real plagues,” including drowning in the Red Sea, are all mentioned there.^[27]

In short, the plagues narrative in Exodus does appear to have a well-constructed literary pattern, but it might be best understood following Wessely’s suggestion of twelve plagues. We need only liberate ourselves from thinking that the plagues numbered ten.

Appendix

Shadal (Samuel David Luzzatto) Publicizes Wessely’s Model

^{שד"ל שמות ז:יז} ראיתי להזכיר כאן שטת ר׳ נפתלי הירץ וויזל בענין מכות מצרים: כל המכות שהביא הקב״ה על המצרים נחלקות לד׳ סדרים, בכל סדר שלש מכות, ואלו הן: הסדר הראשון תנין דם צפרדע, השני כנים ערוב דבר, השלישי שחין ברד ארבה, הרביעי חשך מכת בכורות וקריעת ים סוף;

^{Shadal Exod 7:17} I think it fitting to cite here the opinion of R. Naphtali Herz Wessely regarding the plagues of Egypt: All the plagues that God brought upon the Egyptians can be divided into four classes of three plagues each, as follows. The first class consists of the tanin, blood, and frogs; the second – lice, mixture [of beasts or insects], and fatality [dever, i.e., pestilence]; the third – boils, hail, and locusts; and the fourth – darkness, striking of the firstborn, and splitting of the Red Sea.

וארבעה סדרים אלה הם כנגד ארבעה משפטים הרעים הנזכרים ביחזקאל י״ד שבהן ה׳ דן את עולמו, והן דֶבר, חֶרב, רעב, חיה רעה; והנה כל א׳ מהסדרים האלה התחיל במופת אחד שהיה מכה קלה ובא להתרות בם שאם לא ישובו יַכֵם אח״כ במכות גדולות ממנה, והתוכחות הללו תנין, כנים, שחין וחשך ואלה הם הנקראים אותות ומופתים, כי עם היותם מופתים ומעשה נס הנה היו לאותות ולסימנים על המכות הבאות אחריהם; ובכל המכות הקדים התראה, ובאלה (תנין, כנים, שחין, וחשך) לא התרה בהן, לפי שאינן מכות, אלא תוכחות והתראות על מה שיבוא אחריהן; זו שטת רנ״ה וייזל

These four classes correspond to the “four sore judgments,” mentioned in Ezekiel 14, by which God judges the world, namely, pestilence (dever), the sword, famine, and evil beasts. Each of these classes begins with a wonder that constitutes a minor plague and serves as a warning that if the Egyptians do not repent, He will strike them afterwards with greater plagues. These chastisements are the tanin, lice, boils, and darkness, and these are the ones referred to as “miracles and portents,” for through their miraculous nature, they serve as signs of the plagues to follow. Each of the plagues is preceded by a warning, but not these four, since they are not plagues per se but rather chastisements and warnings of what is to come. This is Wessely’s opinion.^[28]