Exodus 8:2,7 “And if thou refuse to let [them] go, behold, I will smite all thy borders with frogs: (7) And the magicians did so with their enchantments, and brought up frogs upon the land of Egypt.”

I have always wondered about this matter of the plague of frogs brought upon Egypt.  Why frogs?  Did it symbolize something?  I mean frogs are harmless creatures, they tend to keep to themselves, they give off a joyful chirping sound and they eat flies and other insects so an abundance of them would be beneficial.

I remember as a child and going up to Wisconsin with my family to my uncle’s cabin off a lake. for vacations. Frogs were plentiful and I delighted in catching them and keeping them (for the duration of our stay at the cabin) as sort of pets.  What was so bad about frogs?  It is obvious that this plague is beyond our world of experience. It had to be really horrible because Pharaoh agreed to let the people go but when the frogs were gone he recanted.

Then we  read further where the Egyptian magicians also conjured up frogs.  So what did God prove by sending a plaque of frogs?  It seems like a wasted effort on God’s part.  Almost like the Egyptian magicians got the better of God in this plague. Which by the way, if the frogs were already covering all the ground when the magicians produced their frogs, how do you know they were not just using Moses’s frogs to make it look like theirs.

First let me give you a little historical and cultural background.  The Egyptians worshipped the goddess Heqt which was a symbol of life and fertility.  She was depicted as a woman with a frogs head.   Her name comes from the Middle Egyptian word  Haqatat.  Her Greek counterpart was Hecate.  She was the wife of Khnum who was the god of the source of the Nile.  If you recall the prior plague was to turn the waters of the Nile into blood.  Khnum was thought to be the creator of the bodies of children  which he made at a potter’s wheel from clay and then placed them in their mother’s womb. He was known as the Lord of created things from himself.   He was the guardian of the source of the Nile.  That may be the reason why Moses’s mother floated him down the Nile river as a baby. The queen might have thought her god Khnum sent the child down.

Any ruler, emperor, king or even president serves one primary purpose and that is to protect their people or constituents.  The Pharaoh derived his power by being able to predict when the Nile River would overflow.  If they planted too soon before the overflow of the Nile then their seeds or the young plants would wash and there would be a famine.  The Pharaoh had to predict the exact time of the overflow of the Nile to ensure a good crop and harvest. This is why he had star gazers on staff.  The people saw the Pharaoh as one who had a personal relationship with Heqt.  He was sort of a demigod.  So for Moses to pollute the waters of the Nile, the source of life itself to the Egyptians which was controlled by their goddess Heqt and then to have the frogs multiple or reproduce was a real insult to the goddess Heqt showing that God Jehovah was really the author of all creation and life.  The multiplication and reproduction of the frogs to cover everything  on the land and in the homes was a clear declaration that their goddess Heqt was a fraud.  Yet, the Egyptian priests of Heqt were able to produce frogs so what difference did it make?

I read something interesting in the Midrash Rabbah this morning which shed some light on this age old question.  According to the Midrash Rabbah Egypt was in a bloody border dispute with Ethiopia.  Note what Scripture says: I will smite all thy borders with frogs: The word smite is nagaph which means to strike a blow, to shut down and to render a judgment.  God would cover the entire land of Egypt with frogs up to the borders but they would not become illegal immigrants in Ethiopia.  In other words God would not only declare the goddess Heqt as a fraud, but would end a bloody border dispute as well.  God Himself would show that the Egyptians were violating Ethiopian space because no frogs would come upon the Ethiopians.  Note what the Egyptians accomplished: “they brought up frogs upon the land of Egypt.” They brought – ‘alah frogs upon the land of Egypt.  The word ‘alah means to go up, come up to rise as in a natural way.  They simply produced the frogs, where God smote nagaph – rendered a judgement with His frogs. He declared Himself the real creator of life, declared Heqt a fraud and established the boundary of Egypt all in one swoop.

There is a little more here.  The word for frog in Hebrew as it is found in the text is interesting. It is hatsepharede’im.  The first letter is an article, it is the frogs.  So what is so special about these frogs than any other frogs coming down the pike?  I am not sure why the definite article is added to this word but I suspect it has something to do with associating this with the religious beliefs of Egypt and God shattering their faith in this pagan goddess.

The word for frog is also a compound word.  The first word is tsaphar which is the word for leaping. It also means to cover and in extra Biblical literature we find it is used for the covering or hiding of a diadem or the royal dignity and authority.   The second word is yada’ which is an intimacy in knowing.   I believe this to be a play on words.  God sent these tsapharede’im to mock, insult and make fun of  not only the goddess Heqt but Pharaoh himself.

I find this interesting because we just read that God sent frogs on the land.  This sounds like a sort of haphazard response to Pharaoh’s rejection.  But God does not do things haphazardly.  He has a deep purpose in what He does.  He is the master of poetic justice.  He has a way of taking your private little gods, job, relationships, money, power and turning it something that looks entirely foolish. In a sense God told Pharaoh: “You like your goddess, your goddess of frogs, then here you are you can have enough of your so called goddess to chock on and make your life miserable.”