With this week’s Parshat Va’eira, the Torah begins to report the 10 plagues that Hashem inflicted on Egypt to convince Pharaoh to release the Israelites from bondage. In Parshat Bo, when Hashem first tells Moshe how He will go about killing the Egyptian first-born in the final and most devastating plague, He adds, “and upon all the Egyptian deities I will exact judgment” (Shemot 12:12).
Some commentators learn from this that each plague was an attack on the Egyptian deity associated with the subject of that plague (Zevit, “Three Ways to Look at the Ten Plagues” (Bible Review [June 1990]). These deities included ancient Egypt’s most important gods, notably the supreme Egyptian sun deity Ra, who was obscured by abject darkness in the ninth plague and proved unable to protect his people and their livestock from death in the last plague, and Seth, their storm god. This raises the question: How did Hashem select which Egyptian gods to attack and why?
Of course we cannot presume to know what Hashem’s strategic calculations were. But one gets the strong impression from the Torah text that the first and last plagues, and many in between, had something to do with a single, very important Egyptian deity. In fact, having uncovered her identity, we can better understand the order of the plagues and the message they delivered to the Egyptians about their misplaced faith in their deities. And also, the meaning of an obscure comment Pharaoh made to Moshe becomes clearer. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, it adds new significance to the Israelites’ willingness to smear the blood of the korban Pesach on their lintels and doorposts (Shemot 12:22-23).
Sekhmet was the lion-headed Egyptian goddess of war, plague and pestilence. She was the bloodthirsty, murderous mythic daughter of Ra and consort to Ptah, one of Egypt’s oldest and greatest deities. Two aspects of the Sekhmet mythology contribute to a better understanding of the Biblical ten plagues. First, in a segment of Egypt’s creation myth, Sekhmet slaughters disloyal Egyptians, and either their blood or the blood-like substance with which a remorseful Ra subdues Sekhmet flows into the Nile. Second, likely because of this mythical episode known as the “Destruction of Humanity,” the ancient Egyptians knew Sekhmet as the “Destroyer.”
This knowledge of Sekhmet lore suggests some very powerful associations with the 10 plagues. If the first plague replicated the Sekhmet myth by bloodying the Nile, Hashem’s intent may well have been to prompt the Egyptians to look to Sekhmet more than any other deity to protect them, heal them and wreak vengeance on the Israelites. This would have set the Egyptians up for agony and disillusionment in the 10th plague, when HaShem killed their firstborn and prevented the “Destroyer”—Sekhmet—from attacking Israelite houses whose doorposts and lintels have been smeared with blood. That act of Hashem, which He foretold to the Israelites and was likely made known to the Egyptians as well, was the ultimate repudiation of Sekhmet and, through her, of all the Egyptian deities. Simply put, He demonstrated that their belief and trust in their deities was misplaced.
Sekhmet mythology also helps explain another passage in the 10 plagues narrative. When Moshe and Aharon threatened Pharaoh with the locusts of the eighth plague, Pharaoh was at first willing to allow some Israelites to go to the desert to worship Hashem. But his response contains a statement that has intrigued commentators: re’u ki ra’ah neged p’neichem, which literally means “beware of the evil before you” (Shemot 10:10). Rashi cites an old midrash explaining, in effect, that Pharaoh was referring to a star deity called “Ra’ah,” who lived in the desert and was a symbol of bloodthirstiness and murder. In other words, Pharaoh was threatening the Israelites with death in the desert at the hands of his god. Rashi would not have known that the ancient Egyptians did not worship stars, but rather manifestations of natural forces such as the daily cycle of day and night, storms, wild animals, etc. The bloodthirsty, murderous Egyptian deity whose natural habitat was the desert was not a start. It was Sekhmet.
Finally, the Sekhmet connection may shed further light on the mindset of the Israelites when Hashem told them to smear the lamb’s blood on the exteriors of their homes. We can glean from statements in the Torah and elsewhere in Tanach that a significant segment of Israelites participated to one extent or another in Egyptian idolatry. They likely knew of Sekhmet’s bloodthirsty nature and feared it. If so, it is hard to imagine a more dramatic demonstration of their courage and faith in Hashem than daubing blood on their doorposts and lintels, thereby risking the wrath of Sekhmet! Perhaps their willingness to do so was a significant factor in favor of their redemption.
One postscript: Modern scholars of “historical criticism” assert that the Torah’s historical accounts are unfounded. Perhaps the virtually unmistakable elements of Sekhmet lore in the 10 plagues narrative can be added to the many reasons to be confident in the Torah’s historicity. It cuts in two ways against these scholars’ contention that the narrative is itself a myth and is the composite product of many human sources. First, the Sekhmet elements are interwoven in a sophisticated and consistent manner throughout the various documentary “sources” that the historical critics hypothesize. Second, it seems too much to presume that human “authors” had not only an intimate familiarity with relevant Sekhmet lore but also the ability to weave it so subtly into the narrative.
Ira Friedman is an independent researcher with a particular interest in the intersection between the Bible and ancient Egyptian history.
By Ira Friedman
