God, the Psychopathic Killer: The Tenth Plague: Part One

God is a cold-blooded, premeditated, serial killer. The Bible says so. With respect to that tenth plague inflicted upon ancient Egypt, death to the firstborn, there’s no wriggle room here. God did not delegate; no one else did the deed; it was no one else’s idea; God and God alone must bear 100% of the responsibility for His actions and the death of up to a fifth of the entire ancient Egyptian population. To add insult to injury, others celebrate those deaths via the Passover!  

Matthew 10:34 (King James Version) says “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.” If that’s God’s son saying that, then what must God’s foreign policy be?

Well, nowhere is God’s foreign policy more evident than that related in the Book of Exodus and forcing Egypt’s supreme ruler, the pharaoh, to “Let My People Go”. To accomplish that diplomatic trick, God inflicts those ten plagues on pharaoh’s helpless Egyptian people. Now while the first nine plagues might have natural causes, there is no way the last plague, the slaughter of the Egyptian firstborn (and their animals’ firstborn), can be put down to natural happenings. God is judge, jury and executioner. Our loving, compassionate, merciful, forgiving, etc. supreme deity, the Almighty, shows His true colours, no ifs, ands or buts about it. .  

I’d wager that any competent criminal psychologist or psychiatrist would conclude that God derives much sensual pleasure and satisfaction from mass murder and He always looks forward to the next time, since God’s done it often enough. However, let’s just examine that one specific case history, the tenth plague that was inflicted on ancient Egypt in the Biblical Book of Exodus.

The basic story is that God will go forth among the Egyptian peoples (who have done Him no wrong), and their livestock (who have certainly not sinned) and execute all those who were unfortunate to have been the firstborn (including livestock), except for any and all of whoever of His Chosen People (the Israelites) that leave out a sign that they should be passed over.

Here are the relevant chapters and verses, and some points of contention relating to them.

*Exodus 3:20 - And I will stretch out my hand, and smite Egypt with all my wonders which I will do in the midst thereof: and after that he will let you go.

*Exodus 11:4 - And Moses said, Thus saith the LORD, About midnight will I go out into the midst of Egypt.

*Exodus 11:5 - And all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the first born of Pharaoh that sitteth upon his throne, even unto the firstborn of the maidservant that is behind the mill; and all the firstborn of beasts.

*Exodus 11:7 - But against any of the children of Israel shall not a dog move his tongue, against man or beast: that ye may know how that the LORD doth put a difference between the Egyptians and Israel.

*Exodus 12:12 - For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the LORD.

*Exodus 12:29 - And it came to pass, that at midnight the LORD smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon; and all the firstborn of cattle.

*Exodus 13:15 - And it came to pass, when Pharaoh would hardly let us go, that the LORD slew all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both the firstborn of man, and the firstborn of beast.

Point One: There’s one immediate problem with this ‘firstborn’ extermination. What if prior to that smiting, your firstborn had already died? I mean way back then infant mortality in particular, and mortality rates in general would have been at higher rates for lower age groups, like for the infants, those of childhood ages, even young adults. God cannot smite your firstborn if your firstborn was already dead! Those authors who penned this nonsense should have taken a course in Logic 101. 

Point Two: That minor point aside, but as hinted immediately above, firstborn doesn’t just include babies, infants, toddlers, and children. Teenagers and adults, even those middle-aged and the elderly might be a firstborn. Nowhere in Exodus does it associate firstborn with a child or children! In fact, the odds are high that the pharaoh himself was a firstborn since succession of rulers tends to be the firstborn son of the previous pharaoh. I’m 64 years old, and I am a firstborn. Just as well I wasn’t an Egyptian citizen way back then! Take a typical family, say one with five kids. One of those kids will be a firstborn. If the entire Egyptian nation is composed of a one in five ratio of firstborn to later born; and if that one in five is the firstborn that God smites, well that’s a percentage of, well, 20% (give or take). Exterminate one fifth of any nation and I’ll guarantee the person(s) responsible won’t be an object of worship. Even Hitler didn’t exterminate 20% of those residing in Germany and those countries he invaded.  

Point Three: So if any modern leader, president, prime minister, chancellor, emperor, king or queen, dictated that all of the firstborn of his or her country were to be executed forthwith, can you imagine the outcry? Even if the resulting death toll would have been ‘only’ 15% or 10% or 5% that would have been the least of his/her worries. Such a person would exceed being on a par with the worst of the worst of terrestrial tyrants – from Hitler to Stalin to Pol Pot back to Genghis Khan or Attila the Hun. The nations of the world would unite quick-smart to act against such a person. Yet because this is God doing the smiting, well that’s okay. Except, in the Old American West He would have likely been lynched by a mob from the highest branch of the tallest oak tree or else tarred and feathered, and drawn and quartered if not buried alive in an ant hill.

Point Four: What’s God got against the beasts like cattle? Add animal cruelty to God’s sins.

Point Five: It certainly wasn’t the Egyptian people that were responsible for pissing off God, just the political powers-that-be (that unnamed pharaoh). Most certainly the Egyptian beasts of burden weren’t responsible, yet it’s the firstborn of people and beasts that were smitten – that’s the act of a psychopath.

Point Six: A far more rational God, a far less sadistic deity, could have caused a hell of a lot less death and suffering of the innocents by just torturing pharaoh into His objective “Let My People Go”. It would have been easier all around. God used a sledgehammer to crack a peanut. God’s an idiot, which would be funny except you wouldn’t expect the Egyptians to be laughing!

To be continued…