A Waterfall Near Sodo, southcentral Ethiopia, flows into shallow Lake Abaya, one of the Rift Valley lakes. Suspended sediments account for the red color of both river and lake. CC Flickr /David Stanley[1]
The Ten Plagues and Egyptian Ecology
Could the story have its basis in natural phenomena?
Published: January 9, 2015
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Last Updated: September 7, 2026
This piece has been adapted by the author and the editors of TABS from, Ziony Zevit, “Three Ways to Look at the Ten Plagues,” Bible Review, June 1990. That article had its origins in, Ziony Zevit, “The Priestly Redaction and Interpretation of the Plague Narrative in Exodus,” Jewish Quarterly Review 67 (1976) 193-211.
Greta Hort, “The Plagues of Egypt,” Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 69 (1957), pp. 84–103; 70 (1958), pp. 48–59. This is a very important and very sophisticated study that is most humble in drawing its conclusions.
The Nile flows from south to north, emptying its waters into the Mediterranean. Upper Egypt refers to the southern region from which the Nile flows, Lower Egypt to the northern region to which it flows.
Pierre Montet, L’Egypte et la Bible (Neuchatel: Paris, 1959), pp. 97–98.
For more on this, see Marc Brettler’s TABS essay, “Some Biblical Perspectives on the Haggadah,” in the section titled, “The Ten Plagues.” A different count of plagues in Psalm 78: 44-51 can generate a more complicated order: blood, flies, frogs, locusts, hail destroying vegetation, hail destroying animals, pestilence destroying humans, death of the first born.
Natural disasters would be perceived as forms of divine communication. Compare Amos 4:6–12.
