The Devastation of Darkness: Disability in Exodus 10:2123, 27, and Intensification in the

Plagues
Author(s): Candida R. Moss and Jeffrey Stackert
Reviewed work(s):
Source: The Journal of Religion, Vol. 92, No. 3 (July 2012), pp. 362-372
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/665042 .
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The Devastation of Darkness: Disability in

Exodus 10:2123, 27, and Intensication
in the Plagues*
Candida R. Moss / University of Notre Dame
Jeffrey Stackert / University of Chicago

Say to a blind man, youre free, open the door that was separating
him from the world, Go, you are free, we tell him once more, and
he does not go, he has remained motionless there in the middle
of the road, he and the others, they are terried, they do not know
where to go, the fact is that there is no comparison between living
in a rational labyrinth, which is, by denition, a mental asylum and
venturing forth, without a guiding hand or a dog-leash, into the
demented labyrinth of the city, where memory will serve no
purpose, for it will merely be able to recall the images of places
but not the paths whereby we might get there. ( Jos Saramago,
Blindness)1

In his Nobel Prizewinning novel, Blindness, Jos Saramago imagines in

chilling detail the devastating effects of a pandemic of blindness on both
the individuals aficted and the larger society that they compose. What
begins as an aberration quickly devolves into widespread horror, dismay,
and atrocity as fear and confusion unravel even the most basic social norms.
At rst blush, Saramagos description of a citizenry run amok has little in
common with the Priestly (P) description of the plague of darkness in
Exodus and thus little probative value for understanding this biblical episode. Yet Saramagos searing portrayal of mass disability imagines well the
appalling implications of a world inexplicably struck blind, with no sense of
whether this scourge would ever be lifted. In this sense, there are important
elements of Saramagos tale that are anticipated by and thus also illuminate
* We would like to thank the journals anonymous referees for their helpful suggestions and
critiques. Any infelicities, of course, are our responsibility alone.
1
Jos Saramago, Blindness, trans. Giovanni Pontiero (New York: Harcourt, 1998), 217.
2012 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.
0022-4189/2012/9203-0002$10.00

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The Devastation of Darkness

Exod 10:2123, 27, the notably laconic description of a supernatural darkness imposed upon the Egyptians.
Many scholars have puzzled over the seemingly mild impact of the darkness plague, especially when it is compared with the other Exodus plague
episodes.2 Unlike boils, which cause impairment, or pestilence, hail, and
locusts, which produce agricultural devastation, darkness merely casts a
shadow (however intense) over the land of Egypt, with no explicitly destructive effect. The apparently minor consequence of darkness stands in relief
amid what many identify as the consistent intensication of harm in the
succession of the Exodus plagues, an intensication that culminates in the
death of the Egyptian rstborns. The deviation from this pattern represented by the darkness episode has left interpreters to explain an apparent
fault in the plague sequence.
In this article, we will argue that, though lacking elaboration, the effects of
the darkness wonder described in Exod 10:23a connote an imposition of
blindness and lameness upon the Egyptians. These impairments, conventionally paired in biblical literature, are here put to narrative use with
powerful effect. With such an understanding of the darkness episode, the
intensication pattern that others have suggested for the plagues is set on
solid footing, both at the level of the Priestly source of which it is a part and
in the compiled, canonical text.
PATTERNING AND INTENSIFICATION IN THE EGYPTIAN PLAGUES

With the exception of Exod 11:13, which belong to the Elohistic (E)
source, the plague account in Exodus may be divided entirely between the
Yahwistic ( J) and Priestly (P) sources. To J belong blood (Exod 7:1418,
20b, 2325), frogs (7:2629, 8:411a), swarm (8:1628), pestilence (9:17),
hail (9:1321, 23ab, 24ab, 2630, 3334), locusts (10:111 [minus 5b,
which is redactional], 13ab, 14a15a, 1619, 2426, 2829, 11:48),
and rstborn (12:21a, 27b, 2934). To P belong the introduction (Exod
6:213; 7:17) and the crocodile (7:813), blood (7:1920a; 21b22), frogs
(8:13, 11b), lice (8:1215), boils (9:812), hail (9:2223a, 24a, 25, 3132,
35), locusts (10:1213a, 14a, 15ab, 20), and darkness (10:2123, 27)
wonders. P also includes a conclusion (11:910). Strictly speaking, Ps
rstborn account in Exodus 12 does not belong to its narrative of the signs
and wonders in Egypt.3
2
See below for discussion of various interpretive attempts to heighten the impact of the
darkness wonder.
3
For delineation of this source division and discussion of it, see Erhard Blum, Studien zur
Komposition des Pentateuch, Beihefte zur Zeitschrift fr die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 189
(Berlin: de Gruyter, 1990), 24748; Jeffrey Stackert, Why Does the Plague of Darkness Last for
Three Days? Source Ascription and Literary Motif in Exodus 10:2123, 27, Vetus Testamentum 61
(2011): 65776.

363

The Journal of Religion

Scholars have identied several different and, at times, mutually exclusive
patterns in the succession of plagues in Exodus both in the texts nal form
and in the sources that stand behind it.4 As in the case of the Flood account
in Gen 6:59:17,5 exegetes have viewed the Exodus plagues narrative as a
particularly good exemplar for observing the sophistication and artistry of
4
For analyses of the Exodus plague narrative apart from the commentaries, see, e.g., Dennis J.
McCarthy, Plagues and Sea of Reeds: Exodus 514, Journal of Biblical Literature 85 (1966):
13758; Moshe Greenberg, The Redaction of the Plague Narrative in Exodus, in Near
Eastern Studies in Honor of William Foxwell Albright, ed. Hans Goedicke (Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1971), 24352; Ziony Zevit, The Priestly Redaction and Interpretation of the Plague Narrative in Exodus, Jewish Quarterly Review 66 (1976): 193211; JeanLouis Ska, Les plaies dEgypte dans le recit sacerdotal (Pg), Biblica 60 (1979): 2335; Robert
R. Wilson, The Hardening of Pharaohs Heart, Catholic Biblical Quarterly 41 (1979): 1836;
Blum, Studien zur Komposition des Pentateuch, 24256; Ludwig Schmidt, Beobachtungen zu der
Plagenerzhiung in Exodus VII 14XI 10, Studia Biblica 4 (Leiden: Brill, 1990); Samuel E. Loewenstamm, The Evolution of the Exodus Tradition, trans. Baruch J. Schwartz ( Jerusalem: Magnes, 1992),
69183; Christoph Levin, Der Jahwist, Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und
Neuen Testaments (FRLANT) 157 (Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1993), 33439; Jan
Christian Gertz, Tradition und Redaktion in der Exoduserzhlung: Untersuchungen zur Endredaktion des
Pentateuch, FRLANT 186 (Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1999), 74188; Bndicte
Lemmelijn, The So-Called Priestly Layer in Exod 7, 1411, 10: Source and/or/nor Redaction, Reve Biblique 109 (2002): 481511; Philippe Guillaume, Only Six Plagues in the Priestly
Narrative, Biblische Notizen 123 (2004): 3133; Marc Z. Brettler, The Poet as Historian: The
Plague Tradition in Psalm 105, in Bringing the Hidden to Light: Studies in Honor of Stephen A.Geller,
ed. Kathryn F. Kravitz and Diane M. Sharon (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2007), 1928;
Christoph Berner, Die Exoduserzhlung: Das literarische Werden einer Ursprungslegende Israels, Forschungen zum Alten Testament (FAT) 73 (Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), 168266.
For explicit identications of patterns in the canonical text and/or its constituent parts, see
esp. Greenberg, Redaction, 248; Zevit, Priestly Redaction, 194 (note that Zevit cites Tanh.. B,
which already identies a pattern of increasing severity in the plagues); Rolf Rendtorff, The Old
Testament: An Introduction, trans. John Bowden (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1986), 10; Loewenstamm,
Evolution, 79102; Bndicte Lemmelijn, Genesis Creation Narrative: The Literary Model for
the So-Called Plague-Tradition? in Studies in the Book of Genesis: Literature, Redaction and History,
ed. Andr Wnin (Leuven: University Press, 2001), 40719; William H. C. Propp, Exodus 118: A
New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 2 (New York: Doubleday, 1998), 31517;
Guillaume, Only Six Plagues; Brettler, The Poet as Historian, 2627.
5
See G. J. Wenham, The Coherence of the Flood Narrative, Vetus Testamentum 28 (1978):
33648, and Method in Pentateuchal Source Criticism, Vetus Testamentum 41 (1991): 84109;
Herbert Donner, Der Redaktor: berlegungen zum vorkritischen Umgang mit der Heiligen
Schrift, Henoch 2 (1980): 130; Isaac M. Kikawada and Arthur Quinn, Before Abraham Was: The
Unity of Genesis 111 (Nashville: Abingdon, 1985); J. A. Emerton, An Examination of Some
Attempts to Defend the Unity of the Flood Narrative, Vetus Testamentum 37 (1987): 40120, and
An Examination of Some Attempts to Defend the Unity of the Flood Narrative: Part II, Vetus
Testamentum 38 (1988): 121; Baruch Halpern, What They Dont Know Wont Hurt Them:
Genesis 69, in Fortunate the Eyes That See: Essays in Honor of D. N. Freedman, ed. A. B. Beck et al.
(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995), 1634; Gerhard Larsson, Remarks concerning the
Noah-Flood Complex, Zeitschrift fr die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 112 (2000): 7577; Baruch
J. Schwartz, The Flood Narratives in the Torah and the Question of Where History Begins,
Shai le-Sara Japhet: Studies in the Bible, Its Exegesis and Its Language, ed. Moshe Bar-Asher et al. [in
Hebrew] (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2007), 13954; Risa Levitt Kohn, Whom Did Cain
Raise? Redaction and Js Primeval History, in Le-David Maskil: A Birthday Tribute for David Noel
Freedman, ed. Richard Elliott Friedman and William H. C. Propp (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2004), 3946; Jean Louis Ska, The Story of the Flood: a Priestly Writer and Some Later
Editorial Fragments, in The Exegesis of the Pentateuch: Exegetical Studies and Basic Questions, FAT
66 (Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009), 122.

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The Devastation of Darkness

the pentateuchal redactors work. This is primarily because, like the Flood
story, the plague account is exceptionally lengthy in comparison with other
pentateuchal stories and exhibits both a unied plot and signicant evidence of interwoven source material. Several scholars have argued that
patterns in the combinations of source materials contribute to the aesthetic
quality of the text and/or its fundamental meaning. Especially prominent in
analyses of the plague accounts of the individual pentateuchal sources are
identications of symbolic enumerations of plagues. However, none of these
identied patterns successfully explains all aspects of the narrative, and
some are particularly dubious.6
There is, however, one pattern that scholars have plausibly identied in
the Exodus plagues account. It is a pattern of intensication or increasing
severity in the concatenation of plagues. Such a pattern is normally measured from the sanguination of Egypts water to the death of every rstborn
among the Egyptians.7 It is propelled by the magnitude of the nal plague,
including the unprecedented response that it elicits (Exod 11:6) and its
effectiveness at securing the Israelites release (Exod 11:1). In particular, the
divine prediction of Israelite release after one more plague (Exod 11:1)
points to this pattern of mounting severity and effect.8
Yet arguments for an intensication pattern in the Exodus plague narrative have been repeatedly stymied by the account of darkness. This is true at
both the compositional and the redactional level. In the P source, the rst
four marvels (crocodile, blood, frogs, and lice) are momentary demonstrations of divine power and are not debilitating. The rst three are even
reproduced by the Egyptian magicians, who also attempt to replicate the
fourth.9 It is the next three marvels that introduce enduring destruction into
Ps story: boils, hail, and locusts produce lasting and even severe damage. Yet
plagues ve through seven in P are then followed by darkness, the effect of
which does not seem commensurate with its predecessors,10 let alone an
escalation beyond them. This problem becomes even more acute when the
6

See Stackert, Why Does the Plague of Darkness.

See, e.g., Rendtorff, Old Testament, 10.
8
This prediction, which belongs to the E source (for which we do not have a complete
narrative of the plagues), suggests that the same pattern of increasing severity likely characterized Es plague account.
9
Although it is equally true of each of the marvels that the Egyptian magicians attempt to
reproduce, their ability to replicate the blood marvel, which is said to affect all of the water in
Egypt, is particularly probative for understanding these wonders as momentary demonstrations
with no persistent quality.
10
See, e.g., Hugo Gressmans characterization of darkness as a Schauwunder (Mose und
seine Zeit: Ein Kommentar zu den Mose-Sagen, FRLANT 18 [Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht,
1913], 84); see also his larger discussion (8486), where he attributes darknesss status as a
plague to its pervasiveness and three-day duration. More recently, see Brevard S. Childs, The
Book of Exodus: A Critical, Theological Commentary, Old Testament Library (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1974), 160. Both ancient and modern commentators have attempted to increase the
severity of the darkness wonder. Among the ancients, see Exod. Rab. 14:3, Mek. Pisha 13:8588,

365

The Journal of Religion

subsequent account of the destruction of the rstborn is compared to the
preceding marvels. Because it incorporates the entirety of the P plague
narrative in its original sequence, the compiled Exodus text suffers from
the same difculty as P does with regard to a hypothesized intensication
pattern. In fact, it might be argued that every J plague that precedes
darkness in the compiled account is more severe than darkness.
Once the canonical text in Exodus is separated into its constituent
sources, the J narrative, which includes no darkness plague, presents a
sequence of plagues that can readily be construed as increasingly severe:
blood, frogs, swarm, pestilence, hail, locusts, and rstborn. Additional exemplars of this pattern can be found in the plague lists outside of Exodus.
The accounts of the Egyptian plagues in Pss 78:4351 and 105:2738, though
signicantly different from each other, also each present a relatively uncontroversial list of increasingly destructive plagues.11 Because this pattern
seems so clear in the Psalms and in J, the deviation from this pattern in P
is especially remarkable. However, as we will show, the P plague narrative,
with darkness in the ultimate position, does exhibit an intensication pattern as well.
D AR K N E S S , DI SABI LI TY , A N D IN TE N S I FI CA T I O N I N T H E PL A G UE S

Blindness and Lameness in the Priestly Plague of Darkness

The darkness wonder appears in Exod 10:2123, 27:
fyw 22 j myw yrxm ra l[ j yhyw ymh l[ dy hfn hm la hwhy rmayw 21
ya war al 23 ymy tl yrxm ra lkb hlpa j yhyw ymh l[ wdy ta hm
tbwmb rwa hyh lary ynb lklw ymy tl wytjtm ya wmq alw wyja ta
jll hba alw h[rp bl ta hwhy qzjyw 27

Tanh. Bo 3. In their efforts to increase its severity, modern interpreters oftentimes offer a

naturalistic
origin for the darkness (e.g., a sandstorm that would impede both sight and
breathing). See, e.g., August W. Knobel and August Dillmann, Die Bcher Exodus und Leviticus,
Kurzgefasstes exegetisches Handbuch zum Alten Testament (Leipzig: Hirzel, 1880), 9495;
Loewenstamm, Evolution, 99 (following Josephus, Ant. II: 14, 5, although Josephus goes further
to claim that the darkness prevented the Egyptians from breathing and thus killed them);
Umberto Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Exodus, trans. Israel Abrahams ( Jerusalem:
Magnes, 1967), 129.
11
For treatments of the plagues in Psalms 78 and 105, see B. Margulis, Plagues Tradition in
Ps 105, Biblica 50 (1969): 49196; Samuel Loewenstamm, Evolution, 18488 (a revision of The
Number of Plagues in Psalm 105, Biblica 52 [1971]: 3438); Th. Booij, The Role of Darkness
in Ps cv 28, Vetus Testamentum 39 (1989): 20914; Archie C. C. Lee, Genesis 1 and the Plagues
Tradition in Psalm cv, Vetus Testamentum 40 (1990): 25763, and The Context and Function of
the Plagues Tradition in Psalm 78, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 48 (1990): 8389;
W. Dennis Tucker Jr., Revisiting the Plagues in Psalm cv, Vetus Testamentum 55 (2005): 40111;
Brettler, The Poet as Historian.

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The Devastation of Darkness

[21The LORD said to Moses, Stretch out your hand to the heavens that there might
be darkness over the land of Egypta heavy darkness. 22Moses stretched out his
hand to the heavens, and there was a heavy darkness in all the land of Egypt for three
days. 23No one could see anyone else, and no one could rise from his place for three
days, but the Israelites had light in their homes. 27The LORD strengthened Pharaohs resolve, and he would not let them go.]

This account presents several difculties, ranging from text-, form-, and
source-critical issues to general ambiguities in its narrated details. These
interpretive problems have prompted an array of mutually exclusive proposals for the compositional origin, meaning, and signicance of the darkness
episode in Exodus, up to and including claims for its late interpolation and
thus its fundamental disconnection from the plague narratives of the
sources combined in Exodus.12 Among the issues prompting scholars to
offer signicant tradition-historical and redactional solutions is the position
of darkness in the sequence of plagues, as previously noted. This is especially
the case in light of the alternative positioning of darkness in Psalm 105,
where it appears rst in the succession of Egyptian plagues rather than at its
end.13 (Psalm 78 includes no mention of darkness whatsoever.) The differences between the Exodus and Psalmic accounts suggest at a minimum a
complex tradition history for the darkness plague and, maximally, a displacement of the darkness episode among the Exodus plagues.14 The appeal
of the displacement argument is its ability both to preserve an intensifying
plague sequence and to harmonize the plagues in Exodus and Psalm 105, at
least with respect to darkness.
Whatever explanatory value they offer for the darkness episode, attempts
to reorder the plague sequence in Exodus gain most of their force from the
absence of a convincing explanation for the position of darkness among the
plagues in the canonical text or in P. Thus, if a plausible explanation for
the darkness episode can be offered that accords with its current position
among the Exodus plagues, intrusive attempts to relocate this unit can be
effectively set aside. We shall offer here one such explanation.
The key to understanding the plague and its role in the P narrative is the
description of the impact and duration of the miraculous, thick darkness
12
For discussion of the different scholarly views of the origin of the darkness episode, see
Stackert, Why Does the Plague of Darkness.
13
The early Jewish interpretive tradition attests additional variation in the sequence of the
plagues, particularly in relation to darkness. Drawing from, combining, and harmonizing the
Exodus and Psalmic accounts, 4Q422 includes darkness as the sixth of nine Egyptian plagues.
See Emanuel Tov, A Paraphrase of Exodus: 4Q422, in Solving Riddles and Untying Knots:
Biblical, Epigraphic, and Semitic Studies in Honor of Jonas C. Greeneld, ed. Ziony Zevit, Seymour
Gitin, and Michael Sokoloff (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1995), 35163. Other early
exegetes similarly reordered and revised the plagues tradition. See the discussion of Loewenstamm, Evolution, 10211.
14
The separation of v. 27 from vv. 2123 in the compiled text suggests that, if the argument
for relocation would be entertained at all, it must posit displacement of the darkness episode in
the P source and not in the compiled text.

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The Journal of Religion

(hlpa j). According to verse 23a, after Moses imposed the darkness upon
the Egyptians, no one could see anyone else, and no one could rise from his
place for three days. Though laconic, these effects and their duration are
sufcient to understand how P imagines the darkness wonder and its role
within the larger sequence of plagues.
The Priestly plagues, alternatively termed signs and wonders (ytpmw twta,
Exod 7:3) and great chastistements (ylwdg yfp, Exod 7:4), are all enacted
on a single day in a single audience with Pharaoh. In such a scenario, the
darkness wonder must appear last in the sequence of plagues, for it literally
paralyzes Egyptian society for three full days. Viewed from the perspective of
the Egyptians in Ps narrative ction, both the psychological and physical
effects of this marvel are devastating. The contrast between this wonder,
which is not immediately followed by another marvel, and the previous ones
signals to its victims a calamitous perdurance for the plague: until the
darkness is lifted, the Egyptians could not know how long it would persist.
Moreover, the three days that it does remaina duration unknowable to the
Egyptians within the story itself because of the complete darkness that
envelops themprovides for the texts reader a literary indication of the
darknesss full impact. As several scholars have observed, the passage of
three days signals in a variety of biblical texts the duration necessary to
complete a task, and the third day in many cases marks a literary climax or
commencement of a new action.15
The three days of Ps darkness wonder serve several such purposes concurrently. First, they provide a respite for the Israelites from their onerous
toil at the hands of the Egyptians and thus solve the problem of the
shortness of breath and hard labor (hq hdb[mw jwr rxqm) that prevents
them from listening to Moses (Exod 6:9). Second, they mark the end of Ps
plague narrative.16 Finally, and most importantly for our purposes here, they
signal the completeness of the Egyptians loss of sight and mobility. The
reader is to conclude that, both in their present experience and as they
15
Representative examples from the Hebrew Bible include Gen 30:36; 40:13, 19; 42:17; Exod
3:18; 5:3; 8:23; 15:22; 19:11, 16; Num 10:33; 33:8; Josh 2:16, 22; Judg 14:14; 2 Kgs 2:17; Jon 2:1;
Esth 4:16. For discussions of the three-day motif, see M. G. Swanepoel, Die drie dae-motief in
die Ou Testament, Nederduits Gereformeerde Teologiese Tydskrif 32 (1991): 54151; Roland Gradwohl, Drei Tage und der dritte Tag, Vetus Testamentum 47 (1997): 37378; Stackert, Why Does
the Plague of Darkness. The accounts of the death and resurrection of Jesus (Matt 12:40; 16:21;
27:63; Luke 24:21, 46; John 2:1921; 1 Cor 15:4) are paradigmatic New Testament examples of
the three-day motif. The reference to three days in the early Jewish Vision of Gabriel text is more
difcult to assess. For the most ambitious reading of this text, see Israel Knohl, By Three Days,
Live: Messiahs, Resurrection, and Ascent to Heaven in Hazon Gabriel, Journal of Religion 88,
no. 2 (2008): 14758. For the most recent treatments of this text, see the essays in Hazon Gabriel:
New Readings of the Gabriel Revelation, ed. Matthias Henze (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature,
2011).
16
As indicated especially by the summary statement in Exod 11:910, Ps plague narrative
ends prior to the episode of the death of the rstborn. See Stackert, Why Does the Plague of
Darkness.

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The Devastation of Darkness

anticipate an unknown future, the Egyptians in the story can reasonably
infer that they are suffering from a supernaturally imposed blindness and
lameness.
Though loss of sight in this case is relatively straightforward, the implication of the clause no one could rise from his place (wytjtm ya wmq alw) in
Exod 10:23a requires further consideration, especially in light of its resemblance to Exod 16:29. The similarity of the language in Exod 10:23a and
16:29 leads some scholars to read these verses in relation to each other.17
Yet, these verses differ signicantly, and the insights that Exod 16:29 offers
for 10:23a prove to be primarily contrastive. Exodus 16:29, which belongs to
the Yahwistic story of the divine test of the Israelites with manna provisions
(16:45, 2630),18 states that the Israelites must remain (by) in their homes
(the meaning of tjt and wqm in this verse) on the Sabbath day rather than
go out (axy) to gather manna. Exodus 10:23, by contrast, uses a different verb
(wq, to rise) in relation to the Egyptians place (tjt) and makes no
reference to the Egyptians homes or departing from them.19 The meaning
of tjt in Exod 10:23 is thus much closer to the LXX translation of it, bed
(), than to the place of Exod 16:29. Though bed is admittedly an
overtranslation,20 The LXX here rightly understands the nuance of the
clause as a whole, including the contextual sense of the verb wq. This means
that the lameness imagined in Exod 10:23 is not the limited mobility (i.e.,
groping) that is occasioned by darkness and limited sight (Deut 28:29; Isa
59:910; Zeph 1:1517; see below).21 It is a miraculous and extreme immobility.22 The reference to not leaving homes in Exod 16:29 is thus not
applicable to the Egyptians in Exod 10:23, and the latter verses statement
that the Israelites had light in their homes (tbwmb rwa hyh lary ynb lklw) is
17

See, e.g., Propp, Exodus 118, 341.

In Exod 16, vv. 45 and 2630 belong to J. See Joel S. Baden, The Original Place of the
Priestly Manna Story in Exodus 16, Zeitschrift fr die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 122 (2010):
491504 (esp. 49294).
19
This formulation corresponds closely with that of Jon 3:6: he arose from his throne
(waskm qyw; cf. Judg 3:20). Note also the Priestly usage of wytjt in Lev 15:10, which refers to
anything beneath a person upon which he sits.
20
Propp, Exodus 118, 341.
21
Note also that different kinds of blindness were recognized in the ancient Near East,
including night blindness. See, e.g., Marten Stol, Blindness and Night-Blindness in Akkadian,
Journal of Near Eastern Studies 45, no. 4 (1986): 29599.
22
That lameness in the Hebrew Bible is sometimes not perceived as complete immobility (as
indicated, e.g., by 2 Sam 9:13) is unproblematic for this argument. The immobility imagined
here is both divinely imposed and a miraculous plague. Moreover, because the conventional
pairing of blindness and lameness in Exod 10:23 is a literary one (rather than a technical,
medical one), it is unsurprising that it may depart from other presentations of impairment and
disability. Yet, some biblical comparisons to lameness do suggest completeness for the impairment imagined. For example, Prov 26:7 compares the worthlessness of a proverb to fools with
the worthlessness of the legs of the lame. Arguably even more applicable to the present
argument is Job 29:15, where Job claims to have been eyes for the blind and feet for the
lame. The complete inability to see is closely coordinated here with impaired mobility and
suggests by comparison completeness for the latter. See below for further discussion of the
literary pairing of blindness and lameness.
18

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simply a notice that claries that the Egyptians alone suffered the horror of
the darkness wonderblindness and lameness.
Blindness and Lameness as Literary Conventions
This interpretation of Ps darkness plague as the iniction of blindness and
lameness gains strength both from the conventional pairing of these disabilities elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible and from the frequent conceptualization in the ancient world of blindness as a divinely imposed afiction.23
Within the Hebrew Bible, the pairing of blindness and lameness is one of a
few conventional combinations of disabilities.24 They appear both as a
distinct pair and alongside other disabilities. For example, Deut 15:21 specically identies blindness and lameness as severe blemishes ([r wm) that
disqualify animals from being sacriced. Malachi 1:8 adds to the blind and
lame animals that may not be sacriced the sick ones, as well. Leviticus
21:18 prohibits from priestly practice otherwise qualied Aaronid males who
suffer from a blemish, among which are listed blindness, lameness, and a
limb of disproportionate length. The difcult verses 2 Sam 5:6 and 8 pair the
blind and the lame and cast them in a decidely negative light. This opposition provides the etiology in verse 8b for excluding them from the house,
referring either to the palace or Temple.25 Blindness and lameness and their
effective literary stigma reappear later in the Deuteronomistic History in the
demise of the lines of both Saul and David.26 Jeremiah 31:8 and Job 29:15
also pair the blind and the lame and emphasize both their vulnerability and
their need for assistance, and Isa 35:56 lists the blind and the lame alongside the deaf and the mute. Recognizing the stereotypical pairing of blindness and lameness, it has even been suggested that this combination
functions as a synecdoche for a wider range of physical disabilities.27
A number of biblical texts also explicitly associate blindness and darkness.
In its covenantal curses, Deuteronomy threatens the one who would defy its
23
For the conventional pairing of blindness and lameness, see Francis Brown, with the cooperation of Samuel R. Driver and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament: With an Appendix containing the Biblical Aramaic (Boston: Houghton Mifin, 1907), 820B.
For the construction of blindness and lameness as disability in the Hebrew Bible, see Rebecca
Raphael, Biblical Corpora: Representations of Disability in Hebrew Biblical Literature, Library of
Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies 445 (New York: Clark, 2008), 14.
24
Another conventional pairing with blindness is deafness. See Exod 4:11; Lev 19:14; Isa
29:18, 35:5, 42:1819, 43:8.
25
For discussion of the various understandings of these references to the blind and the lame
in the history of interpretation, see P. Kyle McCarter Jr., II Samuel: A New Translation with
Introduction, Notes and Commentary, AB 9 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1984), 138.
26
Shmuel Vargon, The Blind and the Lame, Vetus Testamentum 46 (1996): 498514;
Anthony R. Ceresko, The Identity of the Blind and the Lame (iwwr pissah) in 2 Samuel
the Imagery
5:8b, Catholic Biblical Quarterly 63 (2001): 2330; Jeremy Schipper, Reconsidering
of Disability in 2 Samuel 5:8b, Catholic Biblical Quarterly 67 (2005): 42234.
27
Saul M. Olyan, Anyone Blind or Lame Shall Not Enter the House: On the Interpretation
of Second Samuel 5:8b, Catholic Biblical Quarterly 60 (1998): 21827, at 22526.

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laws with blindness (28:28) that will cause its victim to grope at noon as the
blind man gropes in the dark (hlpa) (v. 29a), after which he will suffer
oppression and robbery (v. 29b).28 In Isa 59:910, the speakers lament that
they grope like the blind and stumble as in the dark, even comparing their
predicament to death. Zephaniah 1:1517 describes the coming day of
YHWH as densely clouded and dark (lpr[w n[ wy hlpaw j wy) and causing
those affected to walk like the blind. Like the Priestly plague narrative, each
of these texts conceives of blindness as divinely inicted,29 a view also
attested in several nonbiblical ancient Near Eastern texts as well as later
New Testament texts.30 It is notable that lameness is not explicitly conceived
of elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible as divinely imposed. It is thus possible that
Ps view of lameness is its own innovation.31
A few Isaianic texts also associate blindness and darkness in the context
of salvation. Pledging divine assistance to both the deaf and the blind, Isa
29:18 promises that the blind will even be able to see in thick darkness
(hnyart yrw[ yny[ jmw lpamw). Similarly, Isa 42:16 describes turning the darkness of the blind to light, and Isa 42:7 associates giving sight to the blind and
freeing the prisoner from his dark dwelling.
These examples demonstrate that blindness and lameness and blindness
and darkness are conventional literary combinations in the Hebrew Bible and
even the wider ancient world. As such, they were readily available to the Priestly
author, who creatively deployed them in the darkness episode to provide a
conclusion to his plague narrative that is simultaneously awful and satisfying.
CONCLUDING REMARKS

The devastating effects of blindness and lameness upon the Egyptians in the
Exodus darkness account solves the problem of this plagues interruption of
28
In light of the arguments above, it is also worth noting that blindness in Deut 28:28
follows closely upon a threatened curse of the boils of Egypt (v. 27), an association that
provides additional evidence for understanding the Egyptian darkness wonder as an imposition
of blindness.
29
Note also Zech 12:4, which describes divine iniction of blindness upon horses, and Exod
4:11, which identifies the god as the origin of blindness.
30
See, e.g., Esarhaddons Succession Treaty, 40 (lines 42224): May ama, the light of
heaven and earth, not judge you justly. May he remove your eyesight. Walk about in darkness!
(Simo Parpola and Kazuko Watanabe, Assyrian Vassal Treaties and Loyalty Oaths, State Archives of
Assyria 2 [Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 1988]; http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saa
[accessed July 21, 2011]); the Hittite First Soldiers Oath, 10: Who takes part in evil against
the king and queen, may the oath of the deities seize him and . . . b[li]nd him like the blind
man (Billie Jean Collins, trans., Context of Scripture 1.66, p. 166b). In the New Testament, see
Matt 21:14; John 9:142.
31
Yet this innovation, if it is indeed one, is hardly surprising, for it accords well with Ps view
that all natural phenomena (including illness and disability) have a divine origin. Moreover, the
context of the plagues provides a framework for understanding the divine origin of the wonder.
For discussion of Ps conception of disability and its divine origin, see Joel S. Baden and Candida
R. Moss, The Origin and Interpretation of saraat in Leviticus 1314, Journal of Biblical Literature

130 (2011): 64362.

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The Journal of Religion

an apparent intensication pattern in both the P narrative and the compiled, canonical text.32 In P, the rst four wonders are impressive but not
injurious; the second four, with darkness capping off the entire series,
produce enduring devastation for the Egyptians. As such, they provide a
powerful introduction to the death of the rstborn that follows them, even if
the latter is not properly one of Ps signs and wonders.
The description of the effects and duration of the darkness in Exodus also
underscores the differences between this darkness plague and its counterpart in Psalm 105. The latter includes no details of the plagues effects or
duration. Such differences between the two descriptions of the darkness
plague recommend that these two accounts be read apart from each other:
what is ostensibly a single event in Israelite memory nonetheless functions
individually and coherently in its distinct literary contexts. It is the attempt to
harmonize the Exodus and Psalmic accounts that introduces interpretive
difculties.
32
The pattern of increasing severity in the compiled Exodus text differs, however, from its
underlying sources as well as from the plague accounts in Psalms 78 and 105 with regard to
literary intent. In the case of the compiled Exodus text, the intensication pattern is most likely
an inadvertent result of the redactors method of compilation, which prioritizes the full
preservation of the preexisting sources, their chronological arrangement, and minimal intervention, including minimal alternation between sources. For a discussion of the redactors
method of compilation, see Joel S. Baden, J, E, and the Redaction of the Pentateuch, FAT 68
(Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009), esp. 25586; Baruch J. Schwartz, Josephs Descent into
Egypt: The Composition of Genesis 37 from Its Sources, [in Hebrew] Beit Mikra 55 (2010):
130, esp. 1920.

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