The Plagues

 I LOVE the movie, Prince of Egypt. I know a lot of Christians find this film to have too much artistic freedom and to be lacking in Biblical accuracy, but I have found time and time again, value in this cartoon.

I love musicals and operas, because a story told partly or fully with song, has something especially powerful about it. Music automatically makes us feel things, so well a composed song can be very moving, but adding meaningful and deep lyrics with the right music can change a song from moving, to live changing. God created music, He knew what He was doing. There's something so mysterious and supernatural about the power of music.

I say all this because I was listening to the soundtrack of Prince of Egypt recently, something I do often with my little sister. [We LOVE this movie- serusly.] My all-time favorite song off the soundtrack is The Plagues.  

It starts about 45 seconds in.

If you've never seen the movie before [though I doubt it] it includes Moses and Ramseys singing back and forth to each other. They were very close in this Dreamworks adaption of the story, but I think it's realistic. Anyway, they haven't seen one another since Moses fled Egypt after killing a man [40 years before in the Bible, clearly less in the movie]. They've missed each other and want things to be the way they were before, but it can't be, because Moses serves God now, and Ramseys has grown exceedingly more prideful and is offended by Moses trying to tell him what to do.

Getting to hear this song fully, with earbuds, zero distractions, and without the imagery of the film for the first time, [on a long drive I took recently] I actually started to cry while listening to the lyrics.

The song starts out scary sounding, a choir singing, “I send the pestilence and plague, Into your house into your bed, Into your streams into your streets, Into your drink into your bread, Upon your cattle on your sheep, Upon your house and in your field, Into your dreams into your sleep, Until you break until you give, I send the sword, I send the horde, Thus saith the Lord.”

I began thinking, like anyone would, how frightening this sounds, especially coming from God. He is all powerful and mighty. I don't want Him against me [not to mention I love Him and that would make me beyond sad], but knowing God, I also know that He's righteous, and I began to think of why He was doing this. The anger, or maybe better described as, wrath, in this song, is perfectly communicating the wrath and power, a parent would exercise on someone who was enslaving their child. Israel was- and is- God's children, His special chosen people. That anger isn't so bad sounding anymore, in fact it makes me love God more, that He is so loving, protective, and faithful.

If you don't believe these things, and are now saying, “But not ALL the Egyptians were guilty for Israel's enslavement! How were the plagues loving to the Egyptians!?”

Excellent question. I thought of the same thing. Because I know God [to an extent] I know that He also desperately loved the Egyptians- and still loves them- all Egyptians even to this day. Why do I say that?

Egypt strictly believes in the plagues of Moses. They teach them as history and talk about them in their Museums. These plagues weren't pointlessly cruel, each one had a specific and powerful meaning for the Egyptians. You see each plague, represented another one of their gods, dying.

God could have wiped out all of Egypt to save His people. It would have been easier, and by His standards, they were wicked, but instead He wanted to do something that would show the Egyptians who He was, and they haven't forgotten yet. He wanted to leave Egypt with a message that would never stop ringing through their children's or children's children's minds. The message that He was stronger than their idols, that could not help them. That He was real and is real. What's the point in that unless it's for the sake of offering them grace?

See, God, actually cared about the Egyptians. Why would He allow His people to be taken as slaves in the first place? So that in the long run, He could leave them a message of His power and faithfulness. We have free will, but He is so good, that even those trying to work against Him, end up working into His plans.

The next part of the song, Moses begins singing, “Once I called you brother, Once I thought the chance to make you laugh, Was all I ever wanted,” more choir singing about plagues, “And even now, I wish that God had chose a another, Serving as your foe on His behalf, Was the last thing that I wanted,”

This hit me differently than it normally has when I watch the movie. I used to see Moses as feeling like he had been dragged into this battle, simply because of his newly discovered heritage. Now I saw it from a more relatable view.

I heard a woman at my church teach on confrontation and correction. What should be done when we believe another Christian or maybe just a [unbelieving] family member, is doing something wrong? How should we act when we have to stand up for our faith, even though it will offend someone? The main thing that hit me from that study, was that confronting or correcting someone, should not be enjoyable. If God wants you to stand up for something, it's not going to be easy, it's not going to be fun, because if it is, we have the wrong attitude about it. We shouldn't enjoy the possibility of offending someone. Sometimes, we have to offend someone, because we have to stand for truth, but if we revel in the thought of winning a debate, making someone look stupid, or rubbing their nose in some truth, than we're not doing it because God told us to, we're doing it because we like feeling smarter, better, stronger.

Moses, in this song, is not enjoying confronting his brother over this. He's not feeling roped into this by God or forced to come up against his brother, or even doing it just because he's discovered he's a Hebrew. He's doing it because slavery is wrong and God told him to do this. God doesn't need us to serve Him. Like I said before, He could have wiped out the Egyptians, and freed His people in a second, but instead He wanted to use Moses, for Moses' sake.

Off topic, I was reading Exodus, and I thought for a moment, 'You know, God prepared Moses to be the perfect guy for this, raised as a Prince, he had authority, learning, an idea of how court and politics in Egypt worked.' But then I caught myself. God never chooses someone who's perfect for the job. He always chooses someone, ill-equipped. Why? So that He can show the world, it's not them, it's Me. Moses wasn't perfect for the job. He had anger issues, was not good at public speaking, and was a bit of a coward. He even argued with God about how bad he was for the job. Who argues with GOD? [coughcoughme]

BACK onto subject, Moses hated to have to confront and oppose his brother in the film and song. He must have absolutely hated it, but known God enough to desire to do it for Him, putting him before himself and his family. The next words are, “This was my home, All this pain and devastation, How it tortures me inside, All the innocent who suffer, From your stubbornness and pride.” It must have been torture to watch his home of 40 years be plagued, people he must have known, suffering, and yet it he must take a stand for God, but he never acts smug like he enjoys it. He then says, “You who I call brother, Why must you call down another blow.” Moses must have been begging Ramseys, for his own sake, for the sake of all this once held dear, to let the Hebrews go.

Ramseys returns with, “You who I call brother, How could you have come to hate me so, Is this what you wanted?” This part just kills me.

Ramseys is like anyone who doesn't know God. He doesn't understand what's going on, and is taking Moses actions personally. He's letting them offend his pride, convinced and unwilling to see that he could, in fact, be wrong to hold the Hebrews. Instead he's choosing to believe that Moses is confronting him smugly, that he's doing this for power, to humiliate and ruin him. Even after so many plagues, he refuses again and again, making and breaking promises. He must have known it was God at some point, but it was just a power issue by that time, and he wasn't about to give in, even to a God with so much power he had personally experienced. How much pride, and yet I understand that anger that makes you so unreasonable. I don't know how, but seeing this pride in people doesn't anger me, it doesn't make me say, “What an idiot for being so full of themselves.” It makes me weep for them. I guess it's this.

When we are without God, our world revolves around defending and taking care of ourselves. It's the way we have to live and think to survive. God knows this, I'm sure this compassion in me comes from Him. People are blinded to and don't want to believe someone might actually take care of and defend them Himself; maybe out of pride, maybe out of fear and doubt, or maybe just out of selfish-ness and just plain wanting to live by your own rules even if it means living without that faithful, ever-loving person.

Ramseys then says, “Then let my heart be hardened, And nevermind how high the cost may grow, This will still be so, I will never let your people go.” Again, this just kills me inside; when someone rejects God. This makes those verses in the Bible, “And Pharaoh hardened his heart,” make so much more sense, on an emotional level. What I mean by that is, the song and the film, make Ramseys choice to harden his heart, his indignant indifference, seem like a realistic reaction. Some might say, “God's existence should have been obvious to him- who in their right mind would continue to fight against God?” But this added emotional plotline, makes me look at Ramseys and want to cry, because I might have made the same choices in his place.

Maybe because I've been deeply plotting my own angry villains lately and I see their mental processes more clearly, in a way that makes sense and makes their lives just plain sad. I just look at a villain, at anyone who's mean, and I see a child; afraid and angry, trying to obtain something they think they desperately need- love, power, control, security, money.

I've said for a while now, we're all just a bunch of children pretending to be grown up. Without God, we believe have to look out for ourselves, if we don't, we'll get hurt by those who really just enjoy hurting others. There's a guy I know, and he's such a macho, mean guy, but I can't stop seeing him as this scared little boy who needs people to think he's strong. I mean he feels the need to be mean to kids to make himself feel better. I look at him and my heart wrings, almost making me physically wince, because I feel his fear; he's just a scared little boy- he's so scared.

To wrap this whole post up, I almost can't believe how accurate the music in this movie is with the scripture. Even the very mood of the music, with the right lyrics, communicating the correct emotion with words that could be taken harshly and making them deeply strong and loving. Whoever wrote and composed this music knew what they were doing, or perhaps they had no idea; that only makes the music all the more powerful.