The Arrows of Death God Warned Would Fall on Egypt

Midrash Aggadah Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 7:4 View source

Curated by The Jewish Mythology Team · Published January 16, 2025

God tells Moses that Pharaoh will not listen, but that redemption will come anyway — by force. The Hebrew says God will lay His hand upon Egypt (Exodus 7:4). Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 7:4 sharpens the image: I will shoot among them the arrows of death, and inflict the plagues of My mighty hand upon Mizraim.

Arrows. The meturgeman reaches for the most precise weapon an ancient listener could picture — a divine archer firing death through the streets of Egypt. This is not undirected wrath. An arrow is aimed. The plagues that follow — blood, frogs, lice, wild beasts, pestilence, boils, hail, locusts, darkness, the death of the firstborn — are not chaos; they are ten arrows from a steady hand, each with its address written on it.

And the verse promises the outcome before the first arrow flies: I will bring out the sons of Israel free from among them. The redemption is already decided. Egypt's only question is how many arrows will fall before the door opens.

The takeaway is the theology of targeted justice. God does not punish wholesale; God writes names on every arrow. The oppressor is not a victim of cosmic randomness. He is a man warned ten times, in language he chose not to hear.

Themes

Divine justice Miracles Moses

Biblical References

Exodus 7:4

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