Often the banks of the Nile were full of frogs.This time,millions of the slimy beasts crept out of their marshy homes and hopped all over the land.They entered the houses and tumbled into the newly dug wells,and made everybody most uncomfortable.Pharaoh saw the floor of his palace turned into one swarming green mass of live frogs.He hesitated.He asked Moses to take the frogs away.As soon as they were gone,so he promised,the Jews would be allowed to leave Egypt.But when the frogs had all died at the command of Moses,Pharaoh forgot all about his given word.The Jews were as badly off as before.
Then came the next plague.
Clouds of large,disgusting flies began to buzz all over the country.They carried disease far and wide.The food of the Egyptians was being spoiled.People were beginning to die.
Pharaoh tried to compromise.He suggested to Moses that the Jews be permitted to go to the desert for a short while to sacrifice to their own God after their own fashion.If they promised to come back when the sacrifice had come to an end,they could take a short holiday.
Moses made an end to the pestilent visitation of the flies,and Pharaoh,glad to be rid of this nightmare,disregarded his promise as soon as the last fly had been shooed out of his dining-room.
Then came the next plague.
All the cattle of the Egyptians fell sick with a mysterious and deadly disease.Soon there was a dearth of fresh meat.
Still Pharaoh refused.
Then came the next plague.
The bodies of all men and women were covered with terrible sores,and no physician knew how to cure them.
Then came the next plague.
A hail storm destroyed the harvest that stood in the fields.
Then came the next plague.
Lightning struck the barns where the flax and the seed grain for the next year had been stored.
Then came the next plague.
A cloudburst of grasshoppers broke over the poor country.Within a single day all the trees and shrubs stood bare.Not a leaf was left.
By now,Pharaoh was thoroughly frightened.He asked that Moses come to see him.He offered to let the Jews go,provided they leave their children behind as hostages.
But Moses refused.His people,so he announced,must go with all their sons and daughters.Otherwise,they would stay.
Then came the next plague.
A terrible sandstorm came up from the desert.For three days,the rays of the sun were obscured by the dust.The land of Egypt lay in complete darkness.
Pharaoh asked Moses to hasten to the palace.“I will let your people go,”he swore,“but they must leave me their flocks.”
“My people shall go,together with their children and their flocks and all their household goods,”Moses said,and departed.
Then came the next plague.
The oldest child of every family that dwelled in the valley of the Nile died.
The Jews escaped this dreadful fate.They had been warned.On the door-sills of their houses they had painted a small red mark,made with the blood of a young lamb.When the Angel of Death (at the bidding of Jehovah)went through the unhappy country,he had stricken the sons and daughters of the Egyptians.But wherever he found the sign of the lamb's blood,he had “passed over”the house that harboured a descendant of Abraham.
Then at last,Pharaoh understood that he had been defeated by a power stronger than himself.No longer did he refuse to let the Jews depart.On the contrary,he begged Moses to take his people away as soon as possible that there might be an end to these terrible visitations.
That evening,the tribes Reuben and Levi and Judah and Simeon and Issachar and Zebulun and Dan and Naphtali and Gad and Asher and Ephraim and Manasseh ate their last meal in the land of Egypt.When night came,they and their flocks were well on their way to the old home on the banks of the river Jordan.
But Pharaoh,thoroughly enraged by the death of his oldest son,once more repented of his given word.He and his army followed the fugitives to bring them back and avenge the sudden death of so many innocent children.
Near the coast of the Red Sea,they caught sight of the Jewish caravan.But a cloud (which Moses believed to be Jehovah himself)hid the camp of the Jews from the eyes of the Egyptian soldiers.
Early in the morning,at the command of Moses,the waters of the sea were divided and the tribes passed from one shore to the other without losing a single man.
Then the cloud lifted and Pharaoh saw his enemies ascending the steep banks of the other shore.At the head of his army,he plunged into the shallow sea.But the waters returned as suddenly as they had departed before.With a great splashing of waves,the King and all his generals and all his captains and all his common soldiers were drowned.
No one returned to tell the tale.
The Jews now entered the desert.They were free,but during forty long years,they were to be wanderers in the wilderness.
