plagues of Egypt

Cultural  

1. The traditional name for the set of disasters that God inflicted on Egypt (see also Egypt) before the pharaoh let Moses lead the Israelites out of Egypt to the Promised Land. The plagues, as recorded in the Book of Exodus, included swarms of locusts, hordes of frogs, and a scourge of boils. After the tenth and most horrible plague, in which the angel of Death killed every Egyptian firstborn male child, including the pharaoh's son, the pharaoh finally freed the Israelites. (See Passover (see also Passover).)

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Example Sentences

A joke about the CDU being held responsible for the “seven plagues of Egypt” backfired: did the Catholic politician really not know the Old Testament listed 10 plagues?

From The Guardian

The plagues of Egypt are invoked for the third act; so, for a boxes-toppling climax, is the Tower of Babel.

From New York Times

“I am the return of all the plagues of Egypt,” says Turner, “come in this day to this nation: the earth’s most prideful and most prosperous.”

From New York Times

He has since campaigned for a vote to Remain, making increasingly implausible claims about the wars, depressions and plagues of Egypt that will follow if the world’s fifth-biggest economy tries to survive in a world where Norway, Switzerland, Japan and Singapore seem to manage fine.

From The Wall Street Journal

You’ve heard the story of Noah’s flood, and about the fire God rains down on Sodom and Gomorrah, and about the 12 plagues of Egypt, but did you know that in the Bible God kills 158 times?

From Salon