Parshat Beshalach4 min read

Pharaoh's Magicians Failed at the Lice and Collapsed at the Boils

Balaam's sons copied the blood and the frogs. Dust would not become lice for them. When the boils came they could not even stand in the hall.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. Serpents on the Marble
  2. Blood They Could Copy
  3. Dust That Would Not Live
  4. They Could Not Stand

Pharaoh kept lions at the palace gates. When Moses and Aaron walked up with the first demand, the lions should have stopped them. Instead they put their heads down and fawned like dogs and stood aside.

Pharaoh's Magicians Failed at the Lice and Collapsed at the Boils Click for full size

Pharaoh called his magicians. At their head was Balaam, who would later be hired to curse Israel in the wilderness. He had brought his sons Jannes and Jambres with him. Balaam heard about the lions and did not panic.

"Just magicians," he said. "We can match them."

Serpents on the Marble

Aaron threw down his rod in the throne room. It became a serpent on the marble. The magicians threw down their rods. Their rods became serpents too. For a breath the floor held a tie.

Then Aaron's serpent turned and ate the others. The magicians' rods were gone. The fact sat in the room with everyone. Pharaoh chose to read it as a draw and refused to let the Hebrews go.

Blood They Could Copy

The Nile turned red and stank. Moses stood back from this one. The river had saved his life as an infant, and he would not strike the water that had carried him. Aaron stretched out his hand. The court magicians produced blood from water too, enough for Pharaoh to say the effect could be repeated and therefore proved nothing. He went home to the palace. The plague ran seven days.

The frogs followed. Moses raised his staff over the rivers and streams and they boiled up with frogs, frogs in the houses, in the kneading bowls, in the beds. The magicians produced frogs as well. They added to the problem without solving it, which was all the confirmation Pharaoh needed.

"Not yet," he said.

Dust That Would Not Live

The third plague was lice. Aaron stretched his staff over the dust of the earth, and every grain of dust in Egypt became a louse, covering man and animal (Exodus 8:13). Jannes and Jambres stood over their fires and their burnings and tried to do the same thing.

Nothing happened.

They tried again. The dust stayed dust. The lice kept multiplying, and the magicians could not produce a single one. Their arts could move a thing larger than a grain of barley. A louse is smaller than that. They could flood a room with frogs by finding more frogs. They could not make dust live.

They turned to Pharaoh. "This is not by the power of Moses and Aaron," they said. "This is a plague sent from before the Lord" (Exodus 8:15). They named it the finger of God. Pharaoh's own astrologers had bent. Pharaoh's heart did not. He would not hearken to them, and the contest in the hall was already over, even if he would not leave his chair.

They Could Not Stand

The plagues went on. Wild beasts. The cattle. Then the sixth: boils. Moses took ashes from a furnace and scattered them into the air. Burning sores broke out on every person and every animal in Egypt (Exodus 9:10).

The magicians were covered like everyone else. They could not stand before Moses (Exodus 9:11). Their bodies failed in the same hour their craft had failed at the lice. What the third plague had done to their hands, the sixth did to their legs. They left the hall. They did not come back.

Pharaoh watched them go and hardened his heart further. The lions at the gate had already chosen a side. The men who had promised to match Moses could not even stay on their feet in front of him, and still the king sat.

EgyptMagicGinzbergMagiciansAaronExodusMiraclesDivine JusticeProphecy
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From the tradition

Sources

5 sources

The texts behind this telling. Some cards carry a translation of the source; others are our own retelling of it, and each card says which. Every card links out to the original.

Legends of the Jews 4:249Legends of the Jews

Retold in our words. Read the original at the link below.The Legends of the Jews by Louis Ginzberg (1909) · Public Domain

The Legends of the Jews, that monumental work by Louis Ginzberg, gives us some fascinating insights. Ginzberg compiles centuries of Jewish tradition to paint a richer picture than readers often get from a simple reading of the biblical text.

Take, for instance, the episode with the miracle of the rod. Remember that? Moses and Aaron perform this amazing feat, turning a staff into a serpent. But Pharaoh, instead of being awestruck, digs in his heels even more. Why?

In Ginzberg's retelling, when Moses and Aaron managed to enter Pharaoh's heavily guarded palace, lions and all!. Pharaoh immediately summoned his own magicians. At their head was none other than Balaam, a figure we know from other parts of the Torah, along with his two sons, Jannes and Jambres. These names, by the way, might sound familiar. Pharaoh tells them about this "extraordinary incident", how the lions, normally fierce guardians, had acted like domesticated dogs around Moses and Aaron, even fawning upon them. It's quite a scene!

So, what's Balaam's take? Does he recognize the divine power at play? Not exactly. He dismisses it! In his estimation, Moses and Aaron were just magicians, like him and his sons. Just another magic trick. Balaam's ego gets the best of him. He tells Pharaoh, essentially, "Don't worry, I can handle this. Let's have a magic-off! Egyptians versus Hebrews, who's the better magician?"

Imagine the scene: a royal showdown, a battle of wits and… well, magic. Pharaoh, desperate to maintain control, relying on what he thinks he understands. Balaam, confident in his own abilities, ready to prove his superiority. And Moses and Aaron, standing firm in their faith, ready to demonstrate the power of Adonai, the Lord.

What does this all tell us? Maybe that even in the face of the miraculous, human pride and the illusion of control can be powerful forces. Maybe that sometimes, we see what we want to see, rather than what's actually there. And maybe that even the most powerful rulers can be misled by those who claim to have all the answers.

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Legends of the Jews 4:250Legends of the Jews

Retold in our words. Read the original at the link below.The Legends of the Jews by Louis Ginzberg (1909) · Public Domain

Pharaoh, puffed up with his own power, demanded proof. "Who will believe you," he sneered, "when you claim to be God's ambassadors, if you can't even perform wonders that convince people?" It was a fair question, I suppose, but dripping with arrogance.

So, Aaron cast his rod to the ground, and as the Torah tells us (Exodus 7:10), it transformed into a serpent. A powerful sign. A clear demonstration of divine power?

Pharaoh just laughed. A loud, booming laugh that echoed through the halls of his palace. "What," he exclaimed, his voice dripping with sarcasm, "is this all your God can do?" He wasn't impressed. He saw it as a parlor trick, nothing more.

He then went on to compare Moses and Aaron to merchants bringing goods where they're already abundant. "It seems you do not know that I am an adept in all sorts of magic!" Pharaoh boasted. He wasn't just a king; he was a magician, a master of illusion. Or so he thought.

According to Ginzberg's retelling in Legends of the Jews, Pharaoh then called for little school children. Yes, children! And he commanded them to replicate the miracle performed by Aaron. And, incredibly, they did. Even Pharaoh's own wife, in some accounts, performed the same feat.

Now, remember Jannes and Jambres? They were the sons of Balaam, famous sorcerers in their own right. They stepped forward to mock Moses, saying, "Ye carry straw to Ephraim!" It's an ancient idiom, basically meaning "you're bringing something to a place where it's already plentiful; your skills are useless here."

Moses, never one to back down, retorted, "To the place of many vegetables, thither carry vegetables. But the underlying message is clear: even in a place that seems full, there's always room for something more, something better, something divine. As Rashi comments on (Exodus 7:10), "Even to a place where they are accustomed to performing magic, bring your magic, for the power of God is superior."

It's not just about magic tricks. It's about faith, power, and the clash between the human and the divine. Pharaoh, blinded by his own ego and surrounded by his court of imitators, couldn't see the true power at work. He saw only a simple trick, easily duplicated.

But Moses and Aaron? They knew they were carrying something far more profound than mere magic. They were carrying the promise of freedom, the word of God, and the potential for a nation to be born. And that, my friends, is a power that no amount of illusion can ever replicate.

What about us? How often do we dismiss something profound simply because it seems familiar or easily imitated? Maybe the real magic lies in looking beyond the surface, in recognizing the divine spark even in the most unexpected places.

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Legends of the Jews 4:307Legends of the Jews

Retold in our words. Read the original at the link below.The Legends of the Jews by Louis Ginzberg (1909) · Public Domain

Because true magic, the kind wielded by prophets and emanating from the Divine, is something else entirely. Consider the story of the Egyptian magicians and their fateful encounter with Moses.

For the first five plagues that Moses brought upon Egypt, the magicians were right there, trying to mimic him, and, according to some accounts, even partially succeeding! The Nile turning to blood, frogs swarming everywhere, gnats and flies descending in clouds… and the royal magicians desperately trying to keep up, chanting incantations, waving their hands, attempting to replicate Moses's miracles.

Then came the sixth plague: boils.

Suddenly, the game changed. The magicians, who had been so confident, so eager to prove their power, found themselves unable to even stand before Moses. The text in Legends of the Jews tells us that "in this sixth plague they could not stand before Moses, and thenceforth they gave up the attempt to do as he did."

Why? What was so different about the boils?

Perhaps it was the sheer agony, the visible manifestation of divine displeasure. Or perhaps, as some suggest, it was a sign that their own magic was turning against them. After all, their craft had all along been harmful to themselves. They could conjure the plagues, but they couldn't undo them. They could mimic Moses by drawing their hands from their bosoms, white with leprosy, but here’s the crucial difference: their flesh remained leprous. It wasn't an illusion for them. This wasn't a trick they could simply reverse.

The repercussions of their actions lingered, a constant reminder of their hubris. According to Legends of the Jews, "until their dying day they were afflicted with the ills they produced."

This story is more than just a colorful anecdote from the Exodus narrative. It speaks to the very nature of true power. It highlights the difference between superficial imitation and genuine, transformative change. The magicians could mimic the symptoms, but they couldn't offer healing. Only Moses, acting as an emissary of God, possessed that ability.

Remember the difference between illusion and reality, between temporary trickery and the enduring power of divine intervention. And perhaps, consider the price of wielding power without wisdom, without compassion, without the ability to heal the wounds we inflict.

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Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 8:14Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus

Retold in our words. Read the original at the link below.The Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziel, trans. J. W. Etheridge, London, 1862 · Public Domain

The Egyptian astrologers had matched the first two plagues. Blood, yes. Frogs, yes. Lice, no. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 8:14) is blunt: The astrologers wrought with their burnings to bring forth the insects, but were not able.

Why did they fail here when they succeeded before? The tradition preserved in the Talmud and rehearsed by the meturgeman's contemporaries is that demons and magical forces can manipulate objects larger than a barley grain, but lice are smaller than that threshold. Magic has a floor. Below a certain size, only the Creator works.

Whether or not one accepts the technical explanation, the spiritual point is stunning. Empires can fake big miracles. They can stage the rivers, they can multiply frogs. What they cannot fake is the detail work, the tiny, intricate, living craftsmanship of creation itself. A single louse undoes Egypt's sorcerers because it requires the patience of a God who cares about microscopic life.

The Torah says the magicians finally confessed, this is the finger of God (Exodus 8:15). That confession was born not from a collapse of power, but from a collapse of pretense. The meturgeman's term their burnings, their ritual fires, simply would not ignite a louse.

The takeaway: the real test of divinity is not in the flashy miracle but in the small ones. A God who can make lice is a God who also made you.

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Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 8:15Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus

Retold in our words. Read the original at the link below.The Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziel, trans. J. W. Etheridge, London, 1862 · Public Domain

The astrologers finally crack. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 8:15) records their confession: This is not by the power or strength of Mosheh and Aharon; but this is a plague sent from before the Lord.

Every word of that sentence is a defeat for Egyptian religion. First, the magicians concede that Moses and Aharon are not the agents, they are merely messengers. Second, they name the source: the Lord, the God of the Hebrews whom Pharaoh had once dismissed as unknown. Third, they call the lice not sorcery but a plague, an act of sovereign judgment.

Yet. The design of Pharoh's heart was strengthened, and he would not hearken to them. Pharaoh's own advisors have converted, but Pharaoh himself has not. The advisors confess; the king refuses. The meturgeman uses the word taqif, strong, fortified, to describe a heart that has heard the truth and chosen to get harder.

This is the fork in the road that every listener faces. When wise people around you begin to admit that God is in charge, what do you do? The astrologers bent. Pharaoh did not. The plagues will continue because only one of the two listened.

The takeaway: a person can stand in a room full of repentance and still be the only one who refuses to repent. That stubbornness is also a choice, and it has a cost.

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