Two Plagues, One Purpose: Proof of God

Dani Roth

Parshas Bo starts off in the middle of the plagues, just after the plague of hail. In Exod 10:2, just before the plague of locusts, God says, “And that you may recount in your child’s ears, and of your grandchildren how I made a mockery of the Egyptians and how I displayed My signs among them—in order that you may know that I am God.” How will the plague of locusts prove that He is God? To find the answer, we must look at the “stated” purpose of this plague:

The locusts shall devour the surviving remnant that was left to you after the hail (Exod 10:5)

The locusts will eat up all the grasses in the land, whatever the hail has left (Exod 10:12)

The locusts ate up all which the hail had left (Exod 10:15)

Such repetition is God’s way of calling our attention to an important phenomenon. Why did God have to make the locusts devour the “remnants of the hail”? Couldn’t He have destroyed all their crops with the hail alone, without the help of the locusts? Of course He could have! There must be a reason that God used 2 natural methods—not just 1—to destroy the vegetation.

Hail or locusts alone could have destroyed all vegetation. But what is significant is that both plagues worked together for a single cause. This “working together” must have a Designer that orchestrated the identical goal of both plagues. This is seen from the verse in Exod. 10:5, “They shall devour the surviving remnant that was left to you after the hail.” Exodus 10:12 and 10:15 repeat that the locusts would devour the “remnants” of the hail. 

Torah repetitions indicate significance. 

The lesson is that God controls the heavens (hail) and animal life (locusts). When both realms are harnessed for a single objective, God shows there is a single “Controller” of all natural law.

This answers both questions. The identical objective in both plagues proves a divine plan, as stated in Exod. 10:2, “In order that you may know that I am God.” And the reason God used two plagues for the same objective is to show His rule over all parts of creation. 

This was a lesson targeted specifically at Egypt who imagined many forces were relegated to the many realms of the universe. Now, they saw Moses’ God controlled weather, animals, and all corners of the universe. If both meteorology and animal life act with the same objective, this means that there is some Designer that controls the heavens and the animals, and directs them for the same objective. God thereby taught Egypt there are not multiple gods, as they believed.

We again see God’s great wisdom in how He teaches man.