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295 Pharaoh, Moses was instructed by the Lord to begin the series of plagues—"hits," if one is to translate the Hebrew term literally—that kept escalating in severity as the Egyptian king first refused to release the Israelites, then wavered, then agreed and changed his mind. Ten in all, they ranged from the turning of the Nile's water red as blood for a week, through the swarming of the river and lakes with frogs; the afflicting of the people with lice and the cattle with pesti- lences; devastation by hailstones and brimstones and _ locusts; and a darkness that lasted three days. And when all that did not attain the Israelites' freedom, when all the "wonders of Yahweh" failed, the last and decisive blow came: All the firstborn of Egypt, be it men or cattle, were stricken to death "as Yahweh passed through the land of Egypt." But the Israelite homes, marked with blood on their doorposts, were "passed over" and spared. That very same night, the Pharaoh let them go out of Egypt; and therefore is the event celebrated to this very day by the Jewish people as the holiday of the Passover. It happened on the night of the fourteenth day of the month Nissan, when Moses was eighty years old—in 1433 B.C. by our calculations. The Exodus from Egypt was on—but it was not yet the end of the troubles with the Pharaoh. As the Israelites reached the edge of the desert, where the chain of lakes formed a watery barrier beyond the Egyptian forts, the Pharaoh con- cluded that the escapees were trapped and sent his fast chari- ots to recapture them. It was then that Yahweh sent an Angel, "the angel of the Elohim who had gone in front of the Israe- lite host," to station himself and a pillar of dark clouds be- tween the Israelites and the pursuing Egyptians, to separate the camps. And during that night "Yahweh drove back the sea with a strong east wind, and dried up the sea, and the waters were divided, and the Children of Israel went into the sea upon the dried ground." By early morning the dazed Egyptians tried to follow the Israelites through the parted waters; but no sooner had they tried that, than the wall of water engulfed them and _ they perished. It was only after that miraculous event—so vividly and artfully recreated for all to see by Cecil B. DeMille in the The Greatest Theophany