The ten plagues of Egypt

The Plague of The Death of the Livestock

The fifth plague · Exodus 9:1-7 · The book of Exodus

The fifth plague struck the livestock of Egypt with a grievous disease, so that the cattle, horses, donkeys, camels, herds, and flocks in the fields died. Yet of the livestock of Israel not one died. Again God drew a clear line between Egypt and his people, and struck at Egypt's wealth and at animals its religion held sacred.

And the LORD did that thing on the morrow, and all the cattle of Egypt died: but of the cattle of the children of Israel died not one.Exodus 9:6 (KJV)

What happened

Moses came again with the same demand and a new warning: if Pharaoh still refused, the hand of the LORD would fall upon the cattle in the field with a very grievous murrain, a deadly pestilence, upon the horses, the donkeys, the camels, the oxen, and the sheep. And the LORD set a time, saying, Tomorrow the LORD shall do this thing in the land. On the morrow he did it, and all the cattle of Egypt in the field died, but of the cattle of the children of Israel died not one.

This was a blow to the heart of Egypt's wealth. Livestock was capital, food, labor, and status, the visible measure of a household's security. To lose the herds in a single day was to watch the nation's prosperity die in the fields. And once again God had named the hour beforehand, so that no one could call it chance.

Everything in the warning stressed exactness. The LORD named the creatures that would fall, the horses and donkeys and camels, the herds and the flocks; he named the day, tomorrow; and he named the boundary, that nothing of Israel's would die. When the morrow came and it happened precisely so, the plague could be read only one way. This was not a murrain that merely happened to spread; it was the hand of the LORD, falling where he said, when he said, on whom he said.

The sacred animals of Egypt

Egypt's religion was full of sacred animals, and readers have long connected this plague to that fact. The bull was honored in the Apis bull of Memphis and in the mother-goddess Hathor, pictured with a cow's horns, and the ram was tied to the god Khnum. If those associations are in view, then the death of the herds was a judgment on the very creatures Egypt revered as images of its gods, exposing them as mortal beasts that could not save themselves, let alone their worshipers. This is a common and reasonable reading. It should be held honestly as interpretation, since Exodus names no god here. What the text stresses is the completeness of the loss in Egypt and the completeness of the sparing in Israel.

The line drawn again

As with the flies, God divided sharply between Egypt and Israel: not one of Israel's animals died. Pharaoh even sent to check, and behold, there was not one of the cattle of the Israelites dead, and still his heart was hardened. The sparing was public and verifiable, a mercy meant to be seen, and its steady repetition builds the book's insistence that this is no natural run of misfortune. The God of the Hebrews is choosing, plague by plague, to shelter his people, and he is inviting even Pharaoh to see it.

Nothing about it could be waved away as coincidence. The hour had been named in advance, the boundary between Egypt and Israel had been drawn, and the proof had been checked by Pharaoh's own messengers, and still the king would not yield. Each such sign left him with less excuse, and left Egypt with ever clearer evidence of whose hand was truly at work in the land.

Pharaoh's hard heart

The plague notes that Pharaoh sent, and saw the proof with his own messengers, and the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, and he did not let the people go. He had the evidence in hand, confirmed by his own men, and chose defiance. This is the honest weight of the hardening: it is not a lack of information but a set of the will. The account will soon say more openly that the LORD hardened Pharaoh, yet never in a way that excuses the man, for the reader has watched him harden himself again and again. The two truths stand together. Pharaoh is fully responsible, and God is fully sovereign, bending even a tyrant's obstinacy toward the day his people go free.

What it revealed about the LORD

The death of the livestock revealed a God who strikes at the security men trust in place of him. Egypt's wealth was in its herds, its labor, its food, its standing; to lose them in a single day was to watch the ground of the nation's confidence collapse. The LORD showed that everything Egypt leaned on was his to give and his to take, and that no store of wealth could stand between a hard heart and the judgment of God.

It revealed again the God who distinguishes. Not one animal of Israel's died, and the sparing was public enough that Pharaoh sent men to confirm it. God was not content to save his people quietly; he made the difference visible, plague after plague, so that Egypt and Israel alike would know whose hand was at work.

There is a hidden mercy even here. God struck the cattle that were in the field, and a later plague would spare those brought under shelter, so that all through the account there is a way of safety for any who would heed his word. The judgment was real, but so was the space God kept opening for Egypt to relent, if only it would. The plagues were climbing now, from the water to the land to the beasts, drawing steadily nearer to the lives of the people themselves, and still the king held his course, showing both the depth of human stubbornness and the certainty of God's purpose to set his people free.

The shadow of redemption

That God spared the flocks of Israel while Egypt's died points once more to the deliverance he is working. He is not merely punishing Egypt; he is preserving a people, guarding what is theirs, making a difference that only grace explains. In the larger story the sparing of the flocks looks ahead to the sparing of the firstborn under the blood, and to the day when the true Lamb would be led out for the flock of God. The God who kept Israel's herds alive in the midst of death is the same God who keeps his people, so that not one whom the Father has given to Christ will be lost.

That mercy runs on to the cross. The plagues drew ever nearer to death, and the exodus itself would be sealed by the death of a lamb in the place of the firstborn. So the whole story leans forward to the Lamb of God, who did not merely have his flock spared but laid down his own life for the sheep. The God who kept Israel's herds alive in the midst of a dying land is the same Shepherd who says that he gives his life for the flock, and that no one is able to pluck them out of his hand. What Egypt lost by clinging to its wealth, God's people gained by belonging to him, for their treasure was never in their herds but in the God who had claimed them, and that treasure no plague could touch.

A note on reading the plagues: this account follows Exodus faithfully and does not add to it. The idea that each plague confronted a particular Egyptian god or power is a widely held and often persuasive reading, and it is presented here as an interpretation, not as a certainty. Except on the final night, where Exodus itself says the LORD executed judgment against all the gods of Egypt, the text names no specific deity. What Scripture states plainly is that the LORD alone is God, that he heard the cry of his people, and that he brought them out with a mighty hand.

Related: The plague of flies · The plague of boils · The ten plagues