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Bible Dictionaries
Plague
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
or deber , "destruction." Any sudden, severe, and dangerous disease. Μaweth ," death," i.e. deadly disease; so "the black death" of the middle ages. Νega' , "a stroke" from God, as leprosy (Leviticus 13). Μageephah , qeteb , "pestilence" (Psalms 91:6), "that walketh in darkness," i.e. mysterious, sudden, severe, especially in the night, in the absence of the light and heat of the sun. Rosheph , "flame," i.e. burning fever; compare Habakkuk 3:5 margin (See EGYPT and EXODUS on the ten plagues.)
A close connection exists between the ordinary physical visitations of Egypt and those whereby Pharaoh was constrained to let Israel go. It attests the sacred author's accurate acquaintance with the phenomena of the land which was the scene of his history. "The supernatural presents in Scripture generally no violent opposition to the natural, but rather unites in a friendly alliance with it" (Hengstenberg). A special reason why in this case the natural background of the miracles should appear was in order to show that Jehovah was God of Egypt as much as of Israel, and rules "in the midst of the earth" (Exodus 8:22)
By exhibiting Jehovah through Moses at will bringing on with unusual intensity, and withdrawing in answer to intercession at once and completely, the well known Egyptian periodical scourges which their superstition attributed to false gods, Jehovah was proved more effectively to be supreme than He could have been by inflicting some new and strange visitation. The plagues were upon Egypt's idols, the Nile water, the air, the frog, the cow, the beetle, etc., as Jehovah saith (Exodus 12:12), "against all the gods of Egypt will I execute judgment" (Exodus 18:11; Exodus 15:11; Numbers 33:4). Ten is significant of completeness, the full flood of God's wrath upon the God-opposed world power. The magicians initiate no plague; in producing the same plague by their enchantments (which seem real, as demoniacal powers have exerted themselves in each crisis of the kingdom of God) as Moses by God's word, they only increase the visitation upon themselves. The plagues as they progress prove:
(1) Jehovah's infinite power over Egypt's deified powers of nature. The first stroke affects the very source of the nation's life, the Nile; then the soil (the dust producing the plague); then the irrigating canals breeding flies.
(2) The difference marked between Israel and Egypt; the cattle, the crops, the furnaces (wherein Israel was worn with bondage) represent all the industrial resources of the nation. The stroke on the firstborn was the crowning one, altogether supernatural, whereas the others were intensifications of existing scourges. The firstborn, usually selected for worship, is now the object of the stroke. The difference marked all along from the third plague was most marked in that on the firstborn (Exodus 11:7). The plague was national, the firstborn representing Egypt: Isaiah 43:3, "I gave Egypt for thy ransom."
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Fausset, Andrew R. Entry for 'Plague'. Fausset's Bible Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/fbd/p/plague.html. 1949.
