{"id":88457,"date":"2021-02-07T23:10:46","date_gmt":"2021-02-07T21:10:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=88457"},"modified":"2021-02-07T23:10:47","modified_gmt":"2021-02-07T21:10:47","slug":"psalmists-poetic-plague-license","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/psalmists-poetic-plague-license\/","title":{"rendered":"Psalmist\u2019s Poetic Plague License"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[],"acf":{"old_id":"88457","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":78133,"related_cahpter":"672","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"How else can we explain the liberties he took with the text?\r\n\r\n","content":"

Psalm 105 is a nice historical overview of the books of Genesis through the Exodus. In verses 27-36 there is a recitation of the plagues. There are a few striking details. The first, is that the plagues are out of order. The actual order of the plagues is blood, frogs, lice, wild beats or a swarm, pestilence, boils, hail, locusts, darkness and death of the first born.\u00a0 But here they are listed as darkness, blood, frogs, wild beasts or swarm, lice, hail, locusts, death of first born. Second is that pestilence and boils are missing from the list. There also is a heavy emphasis on the destruction of the Egyptian food: dead fish, destroyed vine and fig trees, herbs and fruit.<\/span><\/p>\n

Why all these changes?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps after Psalm 104’s emphasis on the creation of the world- there was a desire to focus on vegetation and food destruction. That could be why boils is missing and darkness is placed first to remove it from the list, but does not explain why pestilence is missing. Maybe the darkness is both the plague of darkness and a metaphor for the death of the animals due to pestilence. However, death of the first born is included and again, we have no explanation for why boils is missing. It is interesting that, in the Bible, pestilence and boils appear back to back. Maybe this psalm is missing a verse that addressed pestilence and boils. However, this does not explain why darkness is first.<\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps the answer is actually pretty simple. The psalmist is taking artistic liberty. For the poetic structure they are employing, this was the list, and order that worked.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":88463,"id":88463,"title":"ps105-plagues","filename":"ps105-plagues.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/ps105-plagues.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/psalmists-poetic-plague-license\/ps105-plagues\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"ps105-plagues","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":88457,"date":"2021-02-07 21:10:33","modified":"2022-04-21 10:49:39","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","type":"image","subtype":"jpeg","icon":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":950,"height":724,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/ps105-plagues-150x150.jpg","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/ps105-plagues-300x229.jpg","medium-width":300,"medium-height":229,"medium_large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/ps105-plagues-768x585.jpg","medium_large-width":768,"medium_large-height":585,"large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/ps105-plagues.jpg","large-width":950,"large-height":724,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/ps105-plagues.jpg","1536x1536-width":950,"1536x1536-height":724,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/ps105-plagues.jpg","2048x2048-width":950,"2048x2048-height":724,"post_full_size":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/ps105-plagues.jpg","post_full_size-width":950,"post_full_size-height":724,"home_baner":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/ps105-plagues-551x420.jpg","home_baner-width":551,"home_baner-height":420}},"embedded_video":"","video_duration":"","show_fb_comments":true,"credit_media":""},"tile":{"top_caption":"","main_caption":"Psalmist\u2019s Poetic Plague License","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"How else can we explain the liberties he took with the text?","preview_embedded":"","preview_image":{"ID":88463,"id":88463,"title":"ps105-plagues","filename":"ps105-plagues.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/ps105-plagues.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/psalmists-poetic-plague-license\/ps105-plagues\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"ps105-plagues","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":88457,"date":"2021-02-07 21:10:33","modified":"2022-04-21 10:49:39","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","type":"image","subtype":"jpeg","icon":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":950,"height":724,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/ps105-plagues-150x150.jpg","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/ps105-plagues-300x229.jpg","medium-width":300,"medium-height":229,"medium_large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/ps105-plagues-768x585.jpg","medium_large-width":768,"medium_large-height":585,"large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/ps105-plagues.jpg","large-width":950,"large-height":724,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/ps105-plagues.jpg","1536x1536-width":950,"1536x1536-height":724,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/ps105-plagues.jpg","2048x2048-width":950,"2048x2048-height":724,"post_full_size":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/ps105-plagues.jpg","post_full_size-width":950,"post_full_size-height":724,"home_baner":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/ps105-plagues-551x420.jpg","home_baner-width":551,"home_baner-height":420}},"preview_video":"","external_link":"","link_for_pay":false,"tile_gallery_items":false,"credits":""},"alternate_tile":{"top_caption":"","main_caption":"","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"","hide_media":false},"tile_group":{"preview_image_url":false,"main_caption":"","sub_caption":"","":null,"popup_package_extra_content":"","read_time":""},"home_color":"","home_gallery_top":"","home_gallery_middle":"","home_gallery_book":"","home_gallery_bottom":"","seo":{"seo_title":"","seo_description":"","seo_default_title":"","seo_default_description":""},"links":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88457"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88457"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88457\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88464,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88457\/revisions\/88464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}