“The land crept with frogs

In the rooms of their kings.”

(Psalm 105:30)

We find ourselves with a retelling of the second of the Ten Plagues and the language used is much the same as what we find in the Exodus account. Sometimes people speculate as to the purpose of the second phrase about the chambers of the kings. The word used here is הדר (hadar), which is a generic word that refers to any sort of room or private chamber. This may simply reflect the extent to which these frogs were swarming the land, demonstrating that even the king (or kings — leaders) were incapable of escaping the presence of these creatures. Another option is a little more tongue and cheek, recognizing that the purpose of some of this language is designed to show the extent to which God humiliates his enemies. In this case, הדר (hadar) could be understood to be the inner chamber where the king would relieve himself privately (see a parallel in Judges 3:24) — the Pharaoh cannot even go to the bathroom in peace.

There is some discussion as to which Egyptian god this plague is directed against. On one side, Heqet was the goddess of frogs (depicted with a frog’s head). She was the goddess of fertility and birth, which is a good thing when controlled, but when fertility runs amok (too many frogs!), it certainly can be detrimental. The other option we have is Sobek, the Egyptian god of crocodiles. He was associated with fertility (as so many pagan gods are), but also was a god of chaos. The reason that Sobek is significant here is that it was his job (or the job of the crocodiles) to keep the frogs of the Nile under control. Thus, with God putting Sobek under his thumb of judgment, the frogs became a nuance in the land. A third option is that this is a judgment against both of the Egyptian false gods, with Yahweh demonstrating his power over both.

In either case, God continues to use what the Egyptians bow down to in such a way that He humiliates them. How similar this is to Paul’s language in Romans 1, that God uses the sin of those who do not honor His name to bring judgment upon them. Food for thought in our Neo-pagan culture.