Plagues
Author(s): Candida R. Moss and Jeffrey Stackert
Reviewed work(s):
Source: The Journal of Religion, Vol. 92, No. 3 (July 2012), pp. 362-372
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/665042 .
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Say to a blind man, youre free, open the door that was separating
him from the world, Go, you are free, we tell him once more, and
he does not go, he has remained motionless there in the middle
of the road, he and the others, they are terried, they do not know
where to go, the fact is that there is no comparison between living
in a rational labyrinth, which is, by denition, a mental asylum and
venturing forth, without a guiding hand or a dog-leash, into the
demented labyrinth of the city, where memory will serve no
purpose, for it will merely be able to recall the images of places
but not the paths whereby we might get there. ( Jos Saramago,
Blindness)1
362
With the exception of Exod 11:13, which belong to the Elohistic (E)
source, the plague account in Exodus may be divided entirely between the
Yahwistic ( J) and Priestly (P) sources. To J belong blood (Exod 7:1418,
20b, 2325), frogs (7:2629, 8:411a), swarm (8:1628), pestilence (9:17),
hail (9:1321, 23ab, 24ab, 2630, 3334), locusts (10:111 [minus 5b,
which is redactional], 13ab, 14a15a, 1619, 2426, 2829, 11:48),
and rstborn (12:21a, 27b, 2934). To P belong the introduction (Exod
6:213; 7:17) and the crocodile (7:813), blood (7:1920a; 21b22), frogs
(8:13, 11b), lice (8:1215), boils (9:812), hail (9:2223a, 24a, 25, 3132,
35), locusts (10:1213a, 14a, 15ab, 20), and darkness (10:2123, 27)
wonders. P also includes a conclusion (11:910). Strictly speaking, Ps
rstborn account in Exodus 12 does not belong to its narrative of the signs
and wonders in Egypt.3
2
See below for discussion of various interpretive attempts to heighten the impact of the
darkness wonder.
3
For delineation of this source division and discussion of it, see Erhard Blum, Studien zur
Komposition des Pentateuch, Beihefte zur Zeitschrift fr die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 189
(Berlin: de Gruyter, 1990), 24748; Jeffrey Stackert, Why Does the Plague of Darkness Last for
Three Days? Source Ascription and Literary Motif in Exodus 10:2123, 27, Vetus Testamentum 61
(2011): 65776.
363
364
365
Tanh. Bo 3. In their efforts to increase its severity, modern interpreters oftentimes offer a
naturalistic
origin for the darkness (e.g., a sandstorm that would impede both sight and
breathing). See, e.g., August W. Knobel and August Dillmann, Die Bcher Exodus und Leviticus,
Kurzgefasstes exegetisches Handbuch zum Alten Testament (Leipzig: Hirzel, 1880), 9495;
Loewenstamm, Evolution, 99 (following Josephus, Ant. II: 14, 5, although Josephus goes further
to claim that the darkness prevented the Egyptians from breathing and thus killed them);
Umberto Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Exodus, trans. Israel Abrahams ( Jerusalem:
Magnes, 1967), 129.
11
For treatments of the plagues in Psalms 78 and 105, see B. Margulis, Plagues Tradition in
Ps 105, Biblica 50 (1969): 49196; Samuel Loewenstamm, Evolution, 18488 (a revision of The
Number of Plagues in Psalm 105, Biblica 52 [1971]: 3438); Th. Booij, The Role of Darkness
in Ps cv 28, Vetus Testamentum 39 (1989): 20914; Archie C. C. Lee, Genesis 1 and the Plagues
Tradition in Psalm cv, Vetus Testamentum 40 (1990): 25763, and The Context and Function of
the Plagues Tradition in Psalm 78, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 48 (1990): 8389;
W. Dennis Tucker Jr., Revisiting the Plagues in Psalm cv, Vetus Testamentum 55 (2005): 40111;
Brettler, The Poet as Historian.
366
This account presents several difculties, ranging from text-, form-, and
source-critical issues to general ambiguities in its narrated details. These
interpretive problems have prompted an array of mutually exclusive proposals for the compositional origin, meaning, and signicance of the darkness
episode in Exodus, up to and including claims for its late interpolation and
thus its fundamental disconnection from the plague narratives of the
sources combined in Exodus.12 Among the issues prompting scholars to
offer signicant tradition-historical and redactional solutions is the position
of darkness in the sequence of plagues, as previously noted. This is especially
the case in light of the alternative positioning of darkness in Psalm 105,
where it appears rst in the succession of Egyptian plagues rather than at its
end.13 (Psalm 78 includes no mention of darkness whatsoever.) The differences between the Exodus and Psalmic accounts suggest at a minimum a
complex tradition history for the darkness plague and, maximally, a displacement of the darkness episode among the Exodus plagues.14 The appeal
of the displacement argument is its ability both to preserve an intensifying
plague sequence and to harmonize the plagues in Exodus and Psalm 105, at
least with respect to darkness.
Whatever explanatory value they offer for the darkness episode, attempts
to reorder the plague sequence in Exodus gain most of their force from the
absence of a convincing explanation for the position of darkness among the
plagues in the canonical text or in P. Thus, if a plausible explanation for
the darkness episode can be offered that accords with its current position
among the Exodus plagues, intrusive attempts to relocate this unit can be
effectively set aside. We shall offer here one such explanation.
The key to understanding the plague and its role in the P narrative is the
description of the impact and duration of the miraculous, thick darkness
12
For discussion of the different scholarly views of the origin of the darkness episode, see
Stackert, Why Does the Plague of Darkness.
13
The early Jewish interpretive tradition attests additional variation in the sequence of the
plagues, particularly in relation to darkness. Drawing from, combining, and harmonizing the
Exodus and Psalmic accounts, 4Q422 includes darkness as the sixth of nine Egyptian plagues.
See Emanuel Tov, A Paraphrase of Exodus: 4Q422, in Solving Riddles and Untying Knots:
Biblical, Epigraphic, and Semitic Studies in Honor of Jonas C. Greeneld, ed. Ziony Zevit, Seymour
Gitin, and Michael Sokoloff (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1995), 35163. Other early
exegetes similarly reordered and revised the plagues tradition. See the discussion of Loewenstamm, Evolution, 10211.
14
The separation of v. 27 from vv. 2123 in the compiled text suggests that, if the argument
for relocation would be entertained at all, it must posit displacement of the darkness episode in
the P source and not in the compiled text.
367
368
369
370
The devastating effects of blindness and lameness upon the Egyptians in the
Exodus darkness account solves the problem of this plagues interruption of
28
In light of the arguments above, it is also worth noting that blindness in Deut 28:28
follows closely upon a threatened curse of the boils of Egypt (v. 27), an association that
provides additional evidence for understanding the Egyptian darkness wonder as an imposition
of blindness.
29
Note also Zech 12:4, which describes divine iniction of blindness upon horses, and Exod
4:11, which identifies the god as the origin of blindness.
30
See, e.g., Esarhaddons Succession Treaty, 40 (lines 42224): May ama, the light of
heaven and earth, not judge you justly. May he remove your eyesight. Walk about in darkness!
(Simo Parpola and Kazuko Watanabe, Assyrian Vassal Treaties and Loyalty Oaths, State Archives of
Assyria 2 [Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 1988]; http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saa
[accessed July 21, 2011]); the Hittite First Soldiers Oath, 10: Who takes part in evil against
the king and queen, may the oath of the deities seize him and . . . b[li]nd him like the blind
man (Billie Jean Collins, trans., Context of Scripture 1.66, p. 166b). In the New Testament, see
Matt 21:14; John 9:142.
31
Yet this innovation, if it is indeed one, is hardly surprising, for it accords well with Ps view
that all natural phenomena (including illness and disability) have a divine origin. Moreover, the
context of the plagues provides a framework for understanding the divine origin of the wonder.
For discussion of Ps conception of disability and its divine origin, see Joel S. Baden and Candida
R. Moss, The Origin and Interpretation of saraat in Leviticus 1314, Journal of Biblical Literature
371
372