Insects Played An Important Role In The Biblical Exodus

Ellen Lloyd - AncientPages.com - The Bible is filled with fascinating stories. In the Holy Book, we can read about people with unusual powers, mysterious objects, strange events, ancient lost cities, and prophecies we cannot fully understand yet.

This time we focus our attention on the strange behavior of animals and insects during the Exodus in the Bible.

Credit: Jim Padgett - CC BY-SA 3.0

In the Holy Book, there are several animals mentioned that act in unusual ways and these creatures are often involved in miracles, but they can also cause death. Insects played a role in the plagues of the Exodus.

Moses who spoke in the name of God threatened a series of plagues that would fall on the people of Egypt if the Pharaoh did not set the Israelites free. During the first plague, the water turned into blood. The fish died, and the Egyptians could not drink the foul water.

Plague If The Frogs

The second plague brought an influx of millions of frogs. The frogs came from every water source around them and inundated the Egyptian people and everything around them.

Exodus 8:2 And if thou refuse to let them go, behold, I will smite all thy borders with frogs:

8:3 And the river shall bring forth frogs abundantly, which shall go up and come into thine house, and into thy bedchamber, and upon thy bed, and into the house of thy servants, and upon thy people, and into thine ovens, and into thy kneading troughs:

8:4 And the frogs shall come up both on thee, and upon thy people, and upon all thy servants.

The Plague Of Lice

The plague of lice - Credit: Wikipedia, Philip De Vere

When Pharaoh refused to yield to God's command following the first two plagues, God ordered Moses to have Aaron “strike the dust of the land, so that it may become lice throughout Egypt.

Exodus 8:16 And the Lord said unto Moses, Say unto Aaron, Stretch out thy rod, and smite the dust of the land, that it may become lice throughout all the land of Egypt.

The exact identity of the insects referred to as lice are uncertain, but most scholars translate the word as gnats, mosquitoes, fleas, sand flies maggots, and gadflies. What is known from the Bible is that the frogs invaded the hoes of the Egyptians and the lice invaded their bodies.

The Plague Of Swarms Of Flies

Since the Pharaoh refused to listen to God and the three plagues did not frighten him, Moses was told to go to the river and repeat God’s demand. The people of Israel must be set free or a “swarm of flies” will be sent to cover the King and his servants, the people and their houses, even “the ground on which they stand.”

Exodus 8:23 I will put a division between My people and your people. Tomorrow this sign will occur.

8:24 Then the LORD did so. And there came great swarms of insects into the house of Pharaoh and the houses of his servants and the land was laid waste because of the swarms of insects in all the land of Egypt. (Exodus 8:23-24)

In the book Exodus, Maxie D. Dunnam writes that “there are two different views of looking at particular aspects of this plague. Some scholars believe that this plague was designed to destroy the trust of the people in Beelzebub.

Beelzebub was the fly God – reverenced as the protector of Egypt from visitation by the swarms of flies that commonly infested the land. The people had depended upon Beelzebub to be their guard against ravenous flies, but this plague convinced them of the impotence of Beelzebub, causing them to look elsewhere for relief.

The plague of locust swarms. Credit: Jim Padgett - CC BY-SA 3.0

Others believe that the “swarms” are not flies, but of the sacred scarab, a beetle which was an emblem of the Sun and of the abiding life of the soul. Innumerable monuments, mummy chests, amulets, and charms in ancient Egypt bore the effigy of this reversed symbol. But now it became a symbol of death rather than the symbol of life.”

The Plague Of Locusts

During the eighth plague, Locust swarms descend on Egypt and the insects ate every green plant they could find.

The Book of Exodus describes the plague of locusts as “very previous”, adding: “They covered the face of the whole earth so that the land was darkened; and they did eat every herb of the land, and all the fruit of the trees which the hail had left: and there remained not any green thing in the trees, or in the herbs of the field, through all the land of Egypt.”

The plagues seemed to affect "all the land of Egypt", but the children of Israel were unaffected.

Obviously, animals and insects played an important role in the plagues of the Exodus.

Written by Ellen Lloyd – AncientPages.com

Updated on July 2, 2021

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