Welcome to the Judaism community on Codidact!
Will you help us build our community of learners? Drop into our study hall, ask questions, help others with answers to their questions, share a d'var torah if you're so inclined, invite your friends, and join us in building this community together. Not an ask-the-rabbi service, just people at all levels learning together.
Why does the command to bring locusts (only) include consequences?
For various of the ten plagues, God tells Moses or Aaron to do something to bring the plague on Egypt:
Take your wand and tip your hand over the waters of Egypt… and they will be blood. Blood will be in the entire land of Egypt, even in the wood and stone. (Ex. 7:19)
Tip your hand with your wand over the rivers… and bring the frogs on the land of Egypt. (8:1)
Tip your wand and hit the dust of the earth, and it will be lice in all the land of Egypt. (8:12)
Take handfuls of furnace soot, and Moses should throw it heavenward… and it will be dust on all the land of Egypt, becoming bubbling blooming boils on man and beast. (9:8–9)
Tip your hand to the heavens and there will be hail in all the land of Egypt, on man, beast, and all the grasses of the fields…. (9:22)
Tip your hand to the heavens and there will be darkness in all the land of Egypt, tangible darkness. (10:21)
It doesn't say "and the blood will cause…" or "the hail will damage crops" or "the boils will be painful". The negative effects of the phenomenon are not mentioned — only the phenomenon itself. The exception is the plague of locusts:
Tip your hand over the land of Egypt for locusts, which will then come over the land of Egypt and eat all the grass of the land, whatever the hail left.
Why this one exception?
0 answers
1 comment thread