The Phoenicians and the Origins Of Writing and the Bible

The Phoenicians were an ancient civilization located in modern-day Lebanon, north of Israel, which are credited with achievements fundamental to the advance of God’s purposes in the world. They were the first to conquer the seas and develop a complex network of maritime trade in North Africa, Spain, Italy, and Greece. They invented glass, a luxury purple dye (which was worth three times the value of gold); but their most significant accomplishment was the development of the alphabet and the widespread use of papyrus, which became indispensable for the formation of the Bible and the spread of literacy. In this article we will look at the remarkable way God protected and used this very tiny group of people to have an outsized influence.

Who Were the Phoenicians?

In Genesis 10 we learn the origins of the Phoenicians with Sidon, whose was father was Canaan.

Canaan was the father of Sidon his firstborn, and of the Hittites, Jebusites, Amorites, Girgashites, Hivites, Arkites, Sinites, Arvadites, Zemarites and Hamathites. Later the Canaanite clans scattered and the borders of Canaan reached from Sidon toward Gerar as far as Gaza, and then toward Sodom, Gomorrah…

Genesis 10:15-18

Sidon, one of the key cities of the Phoenicians along with Tyre and Byblos, was apparently named after the first born of Canaan, according to the passage above. The Phoenicians never ruled as one nation, but rather identified as a common culture or people. In fact, they never called themselves Phoenicians. This name was given to them by the Greeks with whom they traded. The root word for “Phoenician” is the Greek phoinikē, meaning “red,” which could refer to the luxury dye produced in the region. Though it was clear that the Phoenicians were Canaanites and their cities were in the borders of Israel, the Jews did not attempt to conquer them when they invaded. Joshua 11:8 describes the Israelites chasing Canaanite armies “all the way to Greater Sidon.”

So Joshua and his whole army came against them suddenly at the Waters of Merom and attacked them, and the Lord gave them into the hand of Israel. They defeated them and pursued them all the way to Greater Sidon, to Misrephoth Maim, and to the Valley of Mizpah on the east, until no survivors were left.

Joshua 11:7-8

This stopping at Greater Sidon can be seen as an act of God’s grace as we will see later.

About four hundred years later, during the reign of David (ca.1000 BC), he expanded Israel’s frontiers to include Philistia, Ammon, Edom, and the Syrians; but there was one region that David did not touch–just like his predecessor Joshua–Phoenicia. Far from going to war, David and the Phoenicians formed a strong alliance which led to King Hiram of Tyre providing cedarwood, carpenters and masons to build David’s palace.

Now Hiram king of Tyre sent envoys to David, along with cedar logs and carpenters and stonemasons, and they built a palace for David.

2 Samuel 5:11

The friendship between Israel and Phoenicia continued after David’s death. 1 Kings 5 shows that King Hiram sent a delegation to congratulate King Solomon on his coronation. We also know that Solomon hired the Tyrians to send cedarwood for construction of the temple in Jerusalem.

Solomon sent this message to Hiram king of Tyre: “Send me cedar logs as you did for my father David when you sent him cedar to build a palace to live in. Now I am about to build a temple for the Name of the Lord my God and to dedicate it to him…“

2 Chronicles 2:3-4

The reigns of David and Solomon represent the pinnacle of Israelite-Phoenician relations. Following the death of these two kings, relations between their peoples remained cordial until the time of the dispersion of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. by the Babylonians.

Why God Spared the Phoenicians

The Gift of Writing

Before the Israelites entered the Canaanite territories, the Phoenicians emerged as a people group about 1800 BC. They occupied a narrow strip of coast because stronger kingdoms surrounded them which forced them to become urban and seafaring merchants. This was necessary for survival because of cedar forests to the east and inhospitable territory to the north and south. Their only option for economic survival was to exploit the sea to the west. They became the first world class ship builders and mariners, who engaged in trade in North Africa, Southern Europe and the coastal Levant (modern Israel and Lebanon). This was aided by the abundant cedar trees which grew so close to home that were especially prized for boat building. These cedar trees were highly durable, easy to shape, and resistant to deterioration in seawater. A remarkably preserved 2,000-year-old vessel was found submerged in the Sea of Galilee was made partially from these cedars. Because of the high volume of trade, their business dealings required an increasing number of contracts, record keeping, and documentation. They needed a way to write and transmit information with greater efficiency and found it necessary to utilize and develop a 22 letter alphabet.¹

The Phoenician 22 letter alphabet represented a major advance over pictograph writing, where pictures communicate ideas or objects as in hieroglyphs and cuneiform. Pictograph writing could have up to 700 symbols, and only a very few (often religious priests) could effectively understand and utilize it. This meant that the vast majority of people were illiterate without any possibility of reading or writing limiting the flow of information. With the invention and spread of the alphabet, ordinary people, such as traders, could learn to read and write by memorizing a small number of symbols which represented sounds. This meant a far larger percentage of the population could transmit information that was recorded. This increased literacy revolutionized many aspects of life. Among those who were part of this revolution were the Jews because their Hebrew language (which the Old Testament was written in) came from this Phoenician alphabet.

The Origins of the Bible

During 330-64 BC, Byblos became famous as a center for importing and exporting papyrus, a plant grown along the Nile River of Egypt. This papyrus was formed into an early form of paper which was easier to write on. Because papyrus was one of the key articles of trade, the Greeks took the name of the city of Byblos as their word for book (biblos) which we get our name for Bible. In the fifth century A.D., Greek Church Fathers used the word “biblios” to refer to the sixty-six books of the Bible. The English word “Bible” is derived from the Greek name of the city and means “the (papyrus) book”.

Lessons

God has worked out his plan for all nations. Without the Phoenicians the Jews would not have had the Hebrew language for which the Old Testament is written. Without the Phoenicians the Jews would not have had the resources for building the Temple. Through Israel God’s distinctive plan of salvation was given to the nations, but the nations have had the privilege to contribute to that plan.

God advances his plan for the blessing of the world. Through the Phoenicians our world took the next steps toward freedom in realizing the potential of its God ordained image and destiny. Here are some of the ways:

The world became more connected through trade which allowed for the expansion of knowledge.
Literacy spread.
The seeds of democracy were sown as some of Phoenician territories would later become Greek city states.
There were advances in architecture as even the temple would be influenced by Phoenician design.

End Note

¹It is important to know that a Semitic people living in Egypt may have invented the alphabet, but the Phoenicians developed it and caused it to have widespread use in the Mediterranean world.)

Did God Command Genocide?

The modern era is filled with examples of genocide, the effort to wipe out an entire people group. There are Armenia, Cambodia, Sudan, Rwanda and Darfur. These are tragedies which are worthy of our sorrow and grief. And yet, some ask if the God of the Bible is really any better when He commanded the Israelites to wipe out all the Canaanites.

However, in the cities of the nations the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. Completely destroy them—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—as the Lord your God has commanded you.

Deuteronomy 20:16-17

How do we understand God’s commandment to “completely destroy?” How could this be remotely compatible with the God who is loving and compassionate to all people? Admittedly, this is a challenging issue and question. To understand, it is necessary to frame this command in four perspectives.

Perspective # 1: The Canaanites had persisted in centuries of unthinkable acts of evil.

The Canaanite culture had a high degree of depravity and barbarism. The foremost act of depravity was infant sacrifice. Harvard Old Testament scholar and archaeologist, G. Earnest Wright explains, “Worship of these gods [Canaanite gods] carried with it some of the most demoralizing practices then in existence. Among them were child sacrifice, a practice long since discarded in Egypt and Babylonia…” Old Testament scholar Gordon Wenham writes, “Molech [a Canaanite god] sacrifices were offered especially in connection with vows and solemn promises, and children were sacrificed as the harshest and most binding pledge of the sanctity of a promise.”

The scriptural testimony affirms this:

Do not give any of your children to be sacrificed to Molek, for you must not profane the name of your God. I am the Lord…Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, because this is how the nations that I am going to drive out before you became defiled. Even the land was defiled; so I punished it for its sin, and the land vomited out its inhabitants. But you must keep my decrees and my laws. The native-born and the foreigners residing among you must not do any of these detestable things, for all these things were done by the people who lived in the land before you, and the land became defiled.

Leviticus 18:21, 24-27

You must not worship the Lord your God in their way, because in worshiping their gods, they do all kinds of detestable things the Lord hates. They even burn their sons and daughters in the fire as sacrifices to their gods.

Deuteronomy 12:31

When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not learn to imitate the detestable ways of the nations there. Let no one be found among you who sacrifices their son or daughter in the fire… Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord; because of these same detestable practices the Lord your God will drive out those nations before you. You must be blameless before the Lord your God.

Deuteronomy 18:9-10, 12-13

Apologist Clay Jones explains how children were sacrificed to Molech:

Molech was a Canaanite underworld deity represented as an upright, bull-headed idol with human body in whose belly a fire was stoked and in whose outstretched arms a child was placed that would be burned to death…. And it was not just infants; children as old as four were sacrificed….A bronze image of Kronos was set up among them, stretching out its cupped hands above a bronze cauldron, which would burn the child. As the flame burning the child surrounded the body, the limbs would shrivel up and the mouth would appear to grin as if laughing, until it was shrunk enough to slip into the cauldron.

In Canaan there were, also, rampant acts of incest, rape and bestiality.

Perspective # 2: The judgment was not an ethnic cleaning but an ethical cleansing.

Referencing this as a genocide is inaccurate on several levels. At the most basic of them is that the term “genocide” is a compound word consisting of the words “race” (gene) and “killing” (cide). But this was not an ethnic cleansing in any way. First, the Canaanites and Israelites were closely related. Jonathan Laden, writing for the Biblical Archaeological Society, explains this intriguing discovery:

After examining the DNA of 93 bodies recovered from archaeological sites around the southern Levant, the land of Canaan in the Bible, researchers have concluded that modern populations of the region are descendants of the ancient Canaanites. Most modern Jewish groups and the Arabic-speaking groups from the region show at least half of their ancestry as Canaanite.

Second, God warned that the exact same judgement would come upon the Jews if they engaged in the same practices as the Canaanites.

And if you defile the land, it will vomit you out as it vomited out the nations that were before you.

Leviticus 18:28

Third, God spared non-Israelites who turned to him. The rescue of Rahab and her family shows that this judgment was not an ethnic cleansing. Moreover, when the Israelites renewed their covenant with God, we read that foreigners and native-born (Canaanites) were there:

All the Israelites, with their elders, officials and judges, were standing on both sides of the ark of the covenant of the Lord, facing the Levitical priests who carried it. Both the foreigners living among them and the native-born were there. Half of the people stood in front of Mount Gerizim and half of them in front of Mount Ebal, as Moses the servant of the Lord had formerly commanded when he gave instructions to bless the people of Israel.

Joshua 8:33

It is clear that if a Canaanite turned to God they were spared.

Perspective # 3: The Canaanites rejected peace and wanted war.

God waits patiently for people to turn to him, and he is slow to anger. This is shown to be core to God’s character.

And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.”

Exodus 34:6-7

God’s patience and forgiveness is affirmed through the entirety of scripture. In fact, God allowed the Israelites to suffer greatly in slavery for 400 years so that the Canaanites could have an opportunity to change. He didn’t judge them immediately because the sins of the Canaanites did not reach the “full measure.” The full measure means they went beyond the point of no return.

Then the Lord said to him, “Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there…In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.”

Genesis 15:13, 16

Before the Israelites entered Canaan, they had seen the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19:1-29) giving them clear evidence of what God can do. When the Hebrews were on the border of Canaan, the spies who were sent in heard this testimony from Rahab, showing there was an awareness of the power of God:

Before the spies lay down for the night, she went up on the roof and said to them, “I know that the Lord has given you this land and that a great fear of you has fallen on us, so that all who live in this country are melting in fear because of you. We have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to Sihon and Og, the two kings of the Amorites east of the Jordan, whom you completely destroyed. When we heard of it, our hearts melted in fear and everyone’s courage failed because of you, for the Lord your God is God in heaven above and on the earth below.“

Joshua 2:8-11

Before this, they had the ability to change, but at this point they were unwilling. Understanding the power of God, they refused to surrender.

Perspective # 4: Joshua didn’t engage in cruel and unusual practices.

This is the only offensive war that God ever commanded. All other wars in which Israel engaged were defensive. With that said there are three ways we can put this war in context.

Exaggerated Language: God’s command to “utterly destroy” is likely hyperbolic or exaggerated language. To utterly destroy means a comprehensive victory. Paul Copan uses the analogy of a modern sports fan saying that his team “slaughtered” or “killed” their opponents, which is not to be taken literally.

For example, Joshua 10:20 reads:

So Joshua and the Israelites defeated them completely, but a few survivors managed to reach their fortified cities.

God warned the Israelites not to intermarry with the Canaanites. But why would God command this if all of the Canaanites were “utterly destroyed?”

But if you turn away and ally yourselves with the survivors of these nations that remain among you and if you intermarry with them and associate with them, then you may be sure that the Lord your God will no longer drive out these nations before you.

Joshua 23:12-13

Surely these warnings would be useless unless the Canaanites were not utterly destroyed. This exaggerated language applies when it states that women and children are to be killed. There is not record of the destruction of women and children.

Removal not extermination: Some scholars point out that the goal was to drive out the Canaanites. If any fled, their lives would be spared; only those who remained would be killed. Notice the “drive them out” language:

Little by little I will drive them out before you, until you have increased enough to take possession of the land.

Exodus 23:30

As for all the inhabitants of the mountain regions from Lebanon to Misrephoth Maim, that is, all the Sidonians, I myself will drive them out before the Israelites. Be sure to allocate this land to Israel for an inheritance, as I have instructed you…

Joshua 13:6

Theologian and philosopher, William Lane Craig clarifies:

The Canaanite tribal kingdoms which occupied the land were to be destroyed as nation states, not as individuals. The judgment of God upon these tribal groups, which had become so incredibly debauched by that time, is that they were being divested of their land. Canaan was being given over to Israel…If the Canaanite tribes, seeing the armies of Israel, had simply chosen to flee, no one would have been killed at all. There was no command to pursue and hunt down the Canaanite peoples.

Restricted fighting: Old Testament scholar Richard Hess argues that the killing in the book of Joshua was restricted to military battles which did not involve civilians. While the accounts of the conquest of Jericho and Ai appear to involve the defeat of a settled city full of civilians, Hess shows how each part of this description could be interpreted in other ways. There is no archaeological evidence of civilian populations at Jericho or Ai. Given what we know about Canaanite life in the Bronze Age, Jericho and Ai were military strongholds.

Conclusion

This was in NO WAY a genocide. That label is a gross misrepresentation. This war was conducted in such a way that gave the Canaanites every chance to turn or flee. It was a war of last resort. God has never commanded a war like this before or since. It was done for the purposes to stop the spread of horrible evils and advance salvation to the world.

Was God Evil For Killing Egypt’s First Born?

The charge is frequently levelled against God for wrong doing or evil because of the killing of Egypt’s first born at the Passover. The first born, it is alleged, were not in charge of the evils done in Egypt–Pharaoh was. The accusations continue claiming that the killing of the first born in Egypt makes God a killing vindictive hypocrite who commands us not to murder but turns around and does what He asks us not to do. This question is not just isolated to the Passover. It is related to a much broader issue: what authority does God have to take human life, even the lives of children rather than the perpetrators of the evil?

In this article we will contend that God was not vengeful or vindictive but displayed a higher passion for justice and overall love for humanity. To understand this we will look at the three frameworks of:

God’s Prerogatives
God’s Authority
God’s Omniscience

These three frameworks will be examined in light of the historical and cultural realities of Egypt and the Passover.

Can God Take Any Human Life?

Framework # 1: God has different prerogatives. It seems reasonable to hold God to the same standard of morality He holds us to. “Whatever we can’t do, God shouldn’t be allowed to do either,” we argue. But as the creator, sustainer and redeemer of humanity, God has different aims and objectives from us which shape His decisions and actions. Think about how the police have an authority to use force and coercion under certain circumstances which the every day citizen does not. God functions on an entirely different scope and scale of priorities than we do as humans. So, in governing the universe and carrying out His plan, God may rightfully choose to take life in which it would be wrong for humans to do.

Framework # 2: God has a different scope of authority. As humans we are only allowed to take the lives of other people in limited circumstances (self-defense, capital punishment, just war). Those circumstances are rare. Outside of justified circumstances we are robbing someone of a life that is not ours to take. Sometimes when people take life that they shouldn’t, they are accused of “playing God.” God does not “play God” when He takes life because He is the author and sustainer of life, and He is not robbing what is His in the first place.

See now that I myself am he!
    There is no god besides me.
I put to death and I bring to life,
    I have wounded and I will heal,
    and no one can deliver out of my hand. (Deuteronomy 32:39)

Framework # 3: God has a higher level of knowledge. God is omniscient (He knows everything), so he knows when a group of people have become so wicked that it would be bad for them, and for their children, and for the rest of the world, to remain alive to keep sinning. This is a level of knowledge and understanding that only God has.

To understand how these three frameworks fit with the Passover, it is helpful to understand the 430 year history of slavery which the Jews experienced under Egypt until the Passover.

Putting the Passover In Perspective

The Jews, starting with Joseph and his brothers, are together in Egypt in 1887 B.C. After that generation passes, we are informed that the Jews would experience extreme oppression under the new pharaoh:

Then a new king, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt. “Look,” he said to his people, “the Israelites have become far too numerous for us. Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country.”So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh. (Exodus 1:8-11)

The forced labor which is referred to in this passage is a means of population control, the kind of labor so brutal that it resulted in a thinning of the population through death. Exodus 1:14 describes the Egyptians working the Israelites “ruthlessly.” Nonetheless, the Jews increased in number through the power of God. This compelled pharaoh to resort to infanticide.

The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah, “When you are helping the Hebrew women during childbirth on the delivery stool, if you see that the baby is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live.” (Exodus 1:15-16)

Moses is born during this chilling time:

Now a man of the tribe of Levi married a Levite woman, and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months. But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him. (Exodus 2:1-4)

Moses will amazingly get picked up and raised by Pharaoh’s daughter, growing up in the King of Egypt’s family. About 115 years pass from the time of the new pharaoh, who did not know Joseph, to the time Moses was 40 years old. Look at the conditions of the Jews in Egypt.

One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. Looking this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. (Exodus 2:11-12)

Because of Moses’ intervention, Moses fell into trouble with Pharaoh, and he was forced to flee from Egypt and ran to Midian. By the time Moses returns to deliver Egypt, the Jews have been relentlessly suffering in Egypt for about 150 years…150 years, think of it!

During that long period, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God. (Exodus 2:23)

The Number of Jews Killed

The killing off of Jews started before Moses was born and was in effect when he returned at 80 years of age. It would not be unreasonable to think that there were ongoing periods of infanticide through this time. In any year the killing of first born males would have resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands. After the Jews left Egypt, they counted the number of first born males. The total number of firstborn males a month old or more, listed by name, was 22,273. (Numbers 3:43) So, this number could be multiplied by four when you add the younger brothers. (Pharaoh went to kill all the males born, not just the first born.) Over a 150 year period, the death toll of infants and adults could be staggering, perhaps hundreds of thousands.

The Number of Egyptians Killed

It is very difficult to know the population of Egypt. An estimate given by archaeologist Karl Butzer calculated that the population of Egypt was around 2.5 to 3 million. The evidence of stelae and tombs from Dayr al-Madina shows that families with eight or ten children surviving into adulthood were not uncommon. This could place the population of first born males around 5,000. How do we arrive at this number?

Take 3,000,000 as the general Egyptian population ÷ 12 (number of people per family household) = 250,000 households.
Take 250,000 households x .08 (first born of each household) = 20,000.
Of these 20,000, it is likely that at least 3/4 could have become fathers and no longer qualified as first born. So, the number could be reasonably reduced to 5,000.

Though these numbers are unsure, it is sensible to understand that the loss of the Egyptian lives may have been as low as 3-5% (10,000) that of the Jews (hundreds of thousands).

Important Distinctions Between God and Egypt

God gave the Egyptians a way out ten different times.	The Israelites were given zero ways out.
The death would have been at night while the first born were sleeping.	The Israelite babies were thrown in the river to drown. The adults were killed in slave labor.
God’s action was a one-time event, which stopped the continuing killing by Pharaoh (and any further damages to his people)	Pharaoh’s program went on for decades.
God’s action did not cause evil to occur in the Jewish hearts.	Pharaoh’s program involved massive human agency–all Egyptians–with untold effects on the hearts of the Egyptians with state-sponsored hatred of the Hebrews.
God’s actions caused the loss of several thousand.	Pharaoh’s program caused the loss of hundreds of thousands.

Questions

Couldn’t God have freed the Jews without such destruction to Egypt? The answer would be yes. But the reason for the destruction was not just to free the Jews, but to overturn an oppressive system of power and exploitation. The plagues of Egypt represented as seen by this chart:

Nile to blood	Hapi (also called Apis), the bull god, god of the Nile; Isis, goddess of the Nile; Khnum, ram god, guardian of the Nile
Frogs	Heqet, goddess of birth, with a frog head
Gnats	Set, god of the desert storms
Flies	Re, a sun god; Uatchit, possibly represented by the fly
Death of livestock	Hathor, goddess with a cow head; Apis, the bull god, symbol of fertility
Boils	Sekhmet, goddess with power over disease; Sunu, the pestilence god; Isis, healing goddess
Hail	Nut, the sky goddess; Osiris, god of the crops and fertility; Set, god of the desert storms
Locusts	Nut, the sky goddess; Osiris, god of the crops and fertility
Darkness	Re, the sun god; Horus, a sun god; Nut, a sky goddess; Hathor, a sky goddess
Death of firstborn	Min, god of reproduction; Heqet, goddess who attended women at childbirth; Isis, goddess who protected children; Pharaoh’s firstborn son considered a god

https://zondervanacademic.com/blog/what-the-bible-tells-us-about-the-10-plagues-of-egypt

Through the ten plagues God was demonstrating His supremacy above the deities (which probably represented evil spirits) of Israel’s oppressors. What is of such critical importance is that through these judgements God is establishing the foundation of His supremacy as YHWH (Exodus 3:14). Referring to the tenth plague, God said:

“On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn of both people and animals, and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord.” (Exodus 12:12)

This was all necessary for Israel to understand the supremacy and uniqueness of God and to destroy the foundations of an oppressive system.

Did God really need to kill the first born? Rabbi Ari Kahn provides this answer:

In order to fully understand this plague we must appreciate the hierarchy within Egyptian civilization. It was a society ruled by primogeniture [The first born]. The first-born had absolute power within the family unit. Pharaoh was the first-born of the first-born of the first-born. It was from this birthright that he exercised power. The attack against the first-born was therefore a powerful polemic against the entire culture of Egypt. The eldest ruled the younger siblings. This is why having slaves was so important to the Egyptians. This gave the lower classes someone else to control and dominate.

The evidence of the Exodus story indicates that it was only at this judgement of the first born that the Egyptians were willing to release the Hebrews, perhaps because that was their greatest source of cultural and religious pride.

Couldn’t God have just destroyed pharaoh and not the children? The challenge is that the corruption and oppression ran through society. It was passed down through different pharaohs. The king of Egypt during the Passover was different than the one who ordered the killing of the Hebrew males. (Exodus 2:23) All of society participated in the abuse and destruction of the Israelites. Pharaoh was the ultimate figurehead and representation of a systematic evil that ran through all of society.

Conclusion

Let’s look at the prerogatives, authority and knowledge of God in light of the Exodus story.

God’s prerogatives: God was establishing the foundation of His uniqueness and glory over all other “gods” and systems of oppression and evil.

God’s authority: The judgements of the Passover were all within the rights of God because of the overall good which He needs to accomplish and the establishment of justice on the earth.

God’s omniscience: God would have known the greater oppression which would have spread and come upon the earth if Egypt’s power had not been weakened with the judgement of the Passover.