Plagues of Egypt

The Plagues of Egypt (]

Popular culture

* The 1956 film "The Ten Commandments" depicts the plagues of Blood, Hail, Darkness, and Death of the Firstborn, and alludes to Frogs, Boils and Flies, but omits those of Lice, Death of Cattle, and Locusts. The film also omits the funnel-cloud they followed out of Egypt, and it creates a funnel-cloud of fire before nightfall whereas The Book of Exodus says it had been fire all night long out of Egypt, and now as they passed through the Red Sea on this second night it was fire again illuminating forward upon the Israelites as it pushed them forward, but this time as dark cloud to the west for the Egyptians who looked up at it as they followed not realizing they were on sea bed. In the morning, the dawn light overpowered the look of fire, restoring it to only a cloud. William Whiston (translator of Josephus) claimed a comet caused this. And we must also note the rise and set of the full moon in the clear sky over the Israelites as a source of light.
* The Ten Plagues of Egypt were dramatized by the heavy metal group Metallica in their song "Creeping Death", on their 1984 release "Ride the Lightning". Late bassist Cliff Burton came up with the title of the song while watching the 1956 Biblical epic "The Ten Commandments", specifically when the Angel of Death moved among Egyptians, killing the firstborn in each family. The plagues were also dramatized (albeit diverging somewhat from the canonical list) as part of a modern horror film in The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971).
*The band Lars Frederiksen and the Bastards have the song "Ten Plagues of Egypt" on their first self titled album.
* "The Reaping", starring Hilary Swank, released in 2007, depicts the Ten Plagues in modern Louisiana, brought upon a town of satanic cultists, and gives a natural explanation to the occurrences.
* In the 1999 release of "The Mummy", Imhotep brings about several of the plagues as he seeks to be fully resurrected. The most notable are the locusts, flies and gnats, water (and apparently whiskey) turning to blood, boils and sores, the hailstorm of fire and an eclipse, but not in the order listed in the holy books. As the character of Imhotep is shown to have died during the early reign of Ramesses II, the film implies that the Plagues of Egypt occurred during or before the reign of Seti I.
* In the 1998 animated film "The Prince of Egypt", which told the story of Moses leading the Hebrews out of Egypt, all ten plagues are shown in some form, but the lice and fleas are seemingly replaced by beetles, ants and crickets.
* In the 1999 film "Magnolia" by Paul Thomas Anderson, Exodus 8:2 and the plague of frogs is referenced frequently.
* In Charles R. Pellegrino's novel "Dust", many of the Ten Plagues are given a scientific basis as part of the 33-million-year cycle of extinction events on Earth.
* The song "Pray for Plagues" by the band Bring Me The Horizon references the first and tenth plagues extensively.

ee also

*Exodus
*Moses
*Passover
*Passover Seder
*Aaron's rod
*Ipuwer Papyrus

References