Why did God send the plagues to Egypt? This post is a meditation on the plagues of Egypt and is really involved.

To understand what was going on, this was a war of gods, the many gods of Egypt and Jehovah, the God of Israel. In a war of gods, the winner is the god or (gods) that has the most power. Mankind worship him. The Egyptian gods lost, Jehovah won.

The Egyptians were a people obsessed with cleanliness

You can see how obsessed they were by how they kept their bodies, many washings and shavings. This was a spiritual activity of worship for them. If they were dirty, or had insects or vermin on them, they could not enter their temples to worship their gods. God struck them in their religion, and as such, they were locked out of worshiping their gods in this war between their gods and Jehovah.

The Battle was in Worshiping their God or gods on each side

While the God of Israel, Jehovah, locked the Egyptians out of access and worship to their gods, Pharaoh and his people could not do the same to the Israelites. The entire matter was “letting them go to worship” their God, Jehovah. Jehovah turned the tables on them.

As the war progressed, the cost of the war on the Egyptians finally got too expensive for them, and Pharaoh gave in. Shortly thereafter, he repented of having given in and sent his armies after them to destroy them in the desert. With their backs to the Red Sea, they had nowhere to go. Unfortunately for the Egyptians, they had impotent gods, and they were dealing with the God of the universe, so they lost big time.

Why did God send the plagues to Egypt?

See specific plagues