Coup de Grâce
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0I guess when you’re thinking up ways to really screw an entire culture over, it can be difficult to make them all chart toppers. It’s not like this was even the first time the Big Guy had to work on this kind of thing. Here’s a trick they taught us in art school: it’s all about volume; the more you produce, the more likely you are to land some hits.
Clearly Yahweh is passionate about his art, specifically the art of making people miserable.
It’s Passover week! Wooo! Throw out your leavened bread and bust out your Haggadah, it’s time to get funky!
…with some tales from Jewish mythology…
Hooray.
Passover is the celebration of the deliverance of the Children of Israel from Egypt where they were slaves. It begins with the story of the birth of Moses, a newborn baby Israelite, at a time when the Pharaoh had ordered all newborn Hebrew babes be thrown into the Nile. Moses’ mother, rather than drown the child, sets him adrift in a basket. After somehow avoiding being devoured by crocodiles, overturned, or crushed by hippos, the baby Moses floats peacefully along until he is found by the Pharoah’s daughter, who raises the child and names him. Eventually, the young lad grows up, speaks to a burning bush, learns the name of the god that will be the salvation of the Israelites, and becomes a prophet of this god and a leader in his community. At this point, Moses becomes a real menace to the establishment in Egypt. He demands the Jews be set free but, not wanting to give up a good thing, Pharaoh is dead set against this. This is where things get interesting.
The god of the Israelites, Yahweh, working through his prophet, commands ten plagues to fall upon the people of Egypt to demonstrate his power and to display to the world the covenant between the Hebrews and Himself. After each plague, Moses visits the Pharaoh and demands the release of his people. Each time, the Pharaoh agrees so long as the curse is lifted, but then he “hardens his heart” and refuses to let the people of Israel leave. Some of the plagues are, as demonstrated by the strip, quite destructive. Others…well, you be the judge.
The first plague is the plague of blood. All the water throughout the kingdom of Egypt turns to blood, killing off fish and generally being pretty disturbing. That’s some Stephen King level horror right there, clearly Yahweh means business. Following that up is the plague of frogs wherein frogs rain from the sky. That’s more cartoon villain douchebaggery, in my book. Third comes the plague of gnats and lice, annoying but not really horrific. Frogs that remained behind from the previous plague were probably extremely pleased. Fourth is the plague of flies or wild animals. Why flies OR wild animals you ask? There are different accounts, though I’m not quite sure how one would get those two things mixed up. Fifth, a plague of pestilence falls on the land, killing livestock. That’s pretty brutal and clearly makes cooking dinner a difficult prospect. After that, there’s a plague of boils, causing many Egyptians to erupt in unhealable sores. That one’s just gross. The plague of hail and fire comes after that, clearly designed to irritate the boils. God really outdid himself with that combo. After that, locusts swarm Egypt, devouring what little food remains. Luckily tor the Egyptians, the plague of darkness descends and they no longer have to look at their wasteland of a kingdom or their hideously pockmarked faces and weeping sores. The whole ordeal finally culminates in the death of the firstborn of Egypt, a truly dastardly plague indeed.
After the final plague, Pharaoh finally allows the Hebrews to go. Moses leads them toward the promised land, away from slavery and captivity. Hooray!
To any of my Jewish readers, I hope you have a lovely Passover! Don’t mind my poking a little fun at the story!
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I guess Ancient Egyptians didn’t have solar power back then
well…actually it was becase they worshiped the sun in a sense, so it was like moses was more powerfull then thier god
Yup! That’s the general scholarly thought behind it, anyway. By blocking the sun, Yahweh was attempting to show that he was more powerful than Ra, the sun god, one of the primary deities in the pantheon of ancient Egypt.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t make for a very funny comic haha
I don’t know, I like the idea of a comic about Yahweh punching Ra in the face or something.
Or doing that thing where (normally when you are a kid) you go on tiptoes and try to block the face of your elder sibling from the camera view with your hands while they dodge around and get annoyed. anyone?? It wasn’t just me was it?? The final photo may end up with younger sibling being nuggied, if you will excuse me giving that noun verbal force.
Great comic, by the way! Having bashed my shin in the dark three times in the last couple of months I am now releasing all my enslaved household populaces, just in case…
Well, with darkness comes cold. So there’s that.
Significantly, that plague was ‘darkness that could be felt’. This was not the mere absence of light, but a thick, stifling darkness.
Probably worse than it sounds, considering that the Egyptians didn’t move about for three days.
Well I wouldn’t move for 3 days either at fear of a stubbed toe. Those suckers hurt.
I remember reading an article about how a volcano may have caused the chain of events leading to the plagues. It’s always interesting to see how events like that and the aftermath of them may be interpreted back then.
i don’t know, i think the plague of darkness would be pretty bad. i mean, with all the crazy s*** that had been going on up until that point, there could’ve been something a little bigger than frogs and locusts lurking around
The problem is, Yahweh threw out all the big stuff at the start of the plagues. Blood water and wild crocodiles devouring the populace is something you want to save until near the end of the plagues. Right before the raining fire down from the sky. Which should have been a big finish for the whole thing. Because it’s freaking fire from the sky!
I just came to the conclusion that back in the day it was natural to blame the wrath of nature on a god or goddess being angry. “OH NO! My crops have withered and died!” … “Well, you shouldn’t have pissed off Ba’al, man!”
Nowadays, it’ll be like, “River of blood killing my fish? Pestilence ruined my livestock? Fire ruined my crops? No problem, we’ll just genetically engineer them all, and it’ll taste like the real thing :)”
Yep….
My favorite part of that story is, The Pharaoh isn’t the one who “hardens his heart” Yahweh hardens the Pharaoh’s heart…. so, basically, he was all “Hey, I already set up all these really cool plagues, you can’t be one over by the first one. What the hell, man?”
**won over
Those “yahweh hardens the Pharaoh ‘s heart” bits are most likely in error since it also says “Pharaoh hardened his heart” in other places. Most likely a transcription over the years error.
Actually, darkness probably served as the most IMMEDIATE danger of all the plagues. Real darkness is very hard for modern humans to understand: we have light ****ing everywhere. Even miles from civilization, our skies are illuminated by ‘light pollution.’ And being civilized, we spend most of our time in, er, civilization. Bright lights. Electricity. The works.
The night is not something we have any more.
And it was dangerous back in the day. It amounted to, basically, being blind. Don’t be fooled by historical/fantasy pop fiction, depicting torches and campfires or even oil lamps illuminating entire sets with all the ease of a light bulb: flame does NOT provide much light. And most people didn’t have torches.
I guess what I’m getting around to is this fun little fact: one of the most common causes of death among peasants in medieval Europe was, well, darkness. Roads had were very uneven due to horses/carts cutting ruts in the dirt/mud, and ditches/creeks were common. If you were walking at night and tripped, it was easy to break something. Snap something. Die. Even easier if you were drunk; and the poor of every era always have the time and dime for liquor.
In addition to the “darkness you can feel”, pointed out by Seth, during the plague of darkness, the Jews rummaged through the houses of the Egyptians for jewelery and money. Not entirely cosmetic :p
“So god makes it rain frogs? That just seems kind of…mean to frogs…Kyle.”