The Magi and the Gnats - Part 2
Our First Question: Why would the Magi want to duplicate the plagues?
Posted
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
by
Sam Yeiter
Categories:
Old Testament
This installment of The Magi and the Gnats deals with my first question: Why would the magi want to duplicate the plagues. This seems obvious, perhaps, but this post also takes a look at magic and religion, and may offer you an insight you've not considered before....
Key Questions
This work was born out of the question: Why were the Egyptian magi (henceforth, simply magi) unable to duplicate the third plague? Before addressing this question, however, there are two others that must be examined. The first is: Why would the magi want to duplicate the plagues? The second is: Were the magi actually duplicating the plagues, or were they clever, yet fraudulent hoaxes designed to make them appear to duplicate the plagues? Having addressed these, we will return to the driving question, and attempt to reach, through further inquiry, some conclusions.
The question of why the magi would want to duplicate the plagues, or at least appear to do so, is not answered by the text. Adding to this curiosity is the fact that the magi are never seen to attempt to remove or prevent the plagues, a strategy that would be expected in a battle. Obviously, the absence of such efforts does not mean they were not attempted. In fact, Moses’ words to the Pharaoh in 8:9 could be understood to indicate that the magi had tried and failed, “The honor is yours to tell me: when shall I entreat for you and your servants and your people, that the frogs be destroyed from you and your houses, that they may be left only in the Nile?”
Yamauchi offers an interesting suggestion that may inform our understanding of the larger story. He states, “Though magic and religion are not mutually exclusive categories, they have generally been understood to represent two different attitudes. Put simply, in religion one prays to the gods; in magic one commands the gods.” This distinction may be helpful in our discussion of this text. He goes on to indicate that the magi in Exodus are working what is here defined as magic, and then makes the startling statement, “The Egyptian magician threatened the gods by virtue of his magical power.” He does not defend this, and thus we cannot make a reliable base off of which we may speculate; the foundation itself seems speculative. The interesting feature of this, however, is how it might affect the dynamics of the encounter between Yahweh and the gods of Egypt, and between Moses and the magi, their human vessels. If Yamauchi is correct in this statement, then we see two sets of powers both assaulting the nation of Egypt, and this would explain why the magi never seem to openly combat the plagues, but rather join in them. The primary problem with his assertion as applied to our narrative is that Exodus seems to make this very clearly a battle between God and evil, with the magi representing, or at least defending, Pharaoh. It seems contrary to the feel of Exodus to suggest that the magi are intending to damage Egypt by contributing to the plagues upon them.
Why then did the magi seek to duplicate the plagues? Most likely this was for the purpose of appearing powerful before Pharaoh. Bush refers to it as “the shame of desisting.” A nuanced alternative might be that they sought to duplicate the plagues in order to allay the fears of Pharaoh regarding this assault of his power. If his own magi are capable of the magic Moses and Aaron have, then they remain equals. If the distinction between magic and religion above cited from Yamauchi is accepted, then we have a most interesting picture at this point. Moses and Aaron are not only superb magicians, from the Egyptian perspective, but are also excellent priests, for the gods that are being manipulated to perform magic are also receptive to Moses’ prayers requesting that the plagues be removed. In a sense, Moses and Aaron are the most powerful of all possible wonder-workers, masters of both magic and religion. This sets them against not only the magi, but against Pharaoh himself, being the high priest of Egypt. He, being a god-man, should have had adequate religious connections to duplicate or remove the plagues, but is obviously unable to do so, and thus at the very outset of the plague narrative, Moses is shown to be superior to magi and Pharaoh alike.
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