The Drowned Order
Author’s Note:
This reflection contains a reference to the Book of Jasher, an ancient text not included in the canonical Scriptures. The material is engaged symbolically rather than historically, and is intended as an exploration of imaginative insight rather than factual reconstruction. Readers are invited to approach it with discernment, recognizing its purpose is creative reflection, not theological assertion.
How Yahweh Undid the Gods of Egypt
“Against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am Yahweh.”
— Exodus 12:12
The Exodus is more than a liberation story. It is a cosmic confrontation—a theomachy—between the living God and a kingdom built not just on bricks and whips, but on myth, magic, and sacred water. Behind every plague lies not randomness, but precision. Each act of judgment is a surgical strike against Egypt’s spiritual architecture, targeting not only its economy and people, but the very order it was founded upon—its gods, its symbols, its cosmology, and the Pharaoh who stood at the center of it all as their embodied nexus.
This is not merely a display of force. It is an act of de-creation, a cosmic collapse. The very fabric of Egypt’s world is unwound. Where Genesis speaks of Yahweh dividing light from darkness, water from land, calling forth plants, animals, and man—here, Yahweh unravels those same categories. Light is withdrawn. Water turns to death. The sky collapses into contradiction. The animals perish. The image of divine man is disfigured. What was called good is now made unrecognizable. The world Egypt built—its rhythms, rituals, and gods—is returned to chaos. This is not just the collapse of empire. It is the deliberate unmaking of a false creation.
1. Hapi – The River That Bled (Water to Blood)
Hapi, the god of the Nile, was not merely a river deity. He was the divine pulse of Egypt’s lifeblood, the sacred artery through which the very breath of the gods flowed. Unlike many of Egypt’s other deities, Hapi was not tied to the sun or the sky, but to the cool, dark depths of the earth—the life hidden beneath the surface, the slow, patient rhythms of the flood. He embodied the cycles of fertility and nourishment, the predictable rise and fall of the Nile’s waters that brought grain to the fields and life to the people. His name was spoken with reverence, his presence celebrated with hymns and offerings, for without Hapi, Egypt’s heart would cease to beat.
But Hapi was more than just a river god. He was the unifier of Upper and Lower Egypt, the god whose annual inundation mingled the soils of the north and south, binding the land into a single, fertile body. His very form, often depicted as an androgynous figure with full breasts and a rounded belly, symbolized this unity—male and female, earth and water, north and south, life and abundance intertwined. He was the god of cycles, of return, of the eternal pulse that kept Egypt alive. His waters were not merely a physical force, but a spiritual one—a visible sign of the divine breath that animated the cosmos.
To strike the Nile, then, was to strike at the heart of this sacred order, to wound the very body of Egypt’s divine self-understanding. When Moses and Aaron stretched out their hands over the waters, and the Nile ran red with blood, it was not just a physical corruption but a spiritual one. The river did not dry up, nor did it recede. It remained, but its nature was changed. What once brought life now stank of death. What once nourished the soil now poisoned it. Fish died, their silver scales turning black in the thick, clotted currents. The green reeds along the banks withered, their roots starved of oxygen. The cool, dark depths of Hapi’s body, once the source of life, now choked on its own decay.
The Nile, once a place of washing and refreshment, became a place of defilement. Its waters, once the veins of the land, now flowed with a different kind of blood—a sacrificial, accusing blood, a prophetic blood. It was the blood of judgment, the blood of reckoning. And Pharaoh, divine image of Egypt’s stability, stood helpless. His magicians, the ritual maintainers of divine order, could do nothing to restore the river. They could only mimic the plague, deepening the wound rather than healing it, confirming the judgment rather than reversing it. The sacred order of Egypt began to unravel, its pulse faltered, its breath choked off.
And then, in a final, symbolic inversion, the Red Sea itself would later rise to consume Pharaoh and his army, the river that once nourished him becoming the sea that swallowed him. Hapi’s waters, which had once given Pharaoh life, now sealed his death. The god of the Nile, whose annual pulse had once breathed life into Egypt, was silent. His body, his breath, his blessing—overturned, overrun, drowned in blood.
2. Heqet and Geb – Fertility Turned Grotesque (Frogs and Lice)
Heqet, the frog-headed goddess of fertility and birth, was more than just a symbol of life—she was the breath that transformed potential into being. In the mythology of Egypt, it was Heqet who breathed life into the clay forms fashioned by Khnum, the divine potter. She was the final touch, the divine midwife who whispered the first breath into each new creation, who turned the inert into the living, the silent into the speaking. Her likeness adorned amulets and birthing stones, her image a promise that life, once begun, would be sustained. The frog, her sacred animal, emerged each year with the flooding of the Nile, a living sign of life emerging from the depths, of potential rising from the hidden places. To the Egyptians, each croak along the riverbank was a hymn of abundance, a chorus of fecundity.
But in the second plague, this sacred image is inverted. Frogs do not merely emerge from the Nile, they overrun it. They swarm out of the waters, spilling over the banks, moving into houses, beds, ovens, and kneading troughs. The boundaries between life and death, sacred and profane, collapse. The divine midwife becomes the mother of chaos. The breath that once animated clay now fills Egypt’s air with a suffocating stench. The sound of croaking, once a sign of fertility, now becomes a clamor of judgment, a suffocating drone. What once whispered life now chokes it. The breath of creation becomes the stench of decay.
And then, as if the very earth itself responds to this inversion, the third plague strikes. Geb, lord of the earth, god of soil and stone, is humiliated. The dust beneath Pharaoh’s feet rises against him, transformed into gnats or lice—tiny, biting creatures that cling to flesh and clothing, that burrow into every crack and crevice, that turn skin into a battlefield. The very dust that once yielded crops and sustained life now breeds vermin and spreads disease. The foundation of Pharaoh’s throne, the ground that upheld his rule, the soil from which Egypt drew its strength, now turns against him.
There is a bitter irony here. In the Hebrew account of creation, it is the breath of God that transforms the dust of the earth into a living soul. Life is not merely formed, but inspired—called forth from silence and chaos, shaped by divine intention. But in this plague, the breath that once gave life now suffocates it. The dust that once yielded grain now yields gnats. The clay that once formed human beings now swarms with parasites. It is a grotesque parody of the original act of creation, a reversal of the divine exhalation that once filled the lungs of humanity.
And in this inversion, Egypt’s spiritual architecture cracks. The earth no longer responds to Pharaoh’s command. It does not yield to his touch. It rises against him, breathing out pestilence instead of life, choking rather than sustaining, collapsing rather than upholding. The dust beneath his feet no longer supports him—it consumes him. The breath of the gods turns bitter. The very ground of Pharaoh’s power becomes a source of his humiliation.
What once whispered life now suffocates. The breath of creation turns rancid. Egypt’s rhythms break, its cycles shatter, its fertility returns to chaos.
3. Khepri – Heaven Desecrated (Swarms of Insects)
Khepri, the scarab-headed god of rebirth, was not merely a symbol of renewal but a divine architect of order. His image, a beetle pushing a sphere of dung across the desert, represented the eternal cycle of life emerging from death, of order arising from chaos. Just as the scarab rolls its egg-laden ball into the sand, Khepri was believed to push the sun through the underworld each night, bringing it to rebirth at dawn. His was the divine labor of the horizon, the unending revolution of light over darkness, the eternal recurrence of form and meaning. The scarab’s daily work mirrored the cosmic work of creation itself—life concealed within death, emergence hidden within decay, order buried within the formless.
To the Egyptians, this was not merely a comforting metaphor but a cosmic truth. The sun itself, the very heart of creation, relied on this divine push. Without it, the horizon would fail, the sky would collapse, and the pulse of creation would falter. It was a vision of the cosmos as a vast, breathing body, always in motion, always renewing itself through the labor of the gods.
But in the fourth plague, this delicate balance is shattered. Swarms of flies pour into Egypt, corrupting the air, filling the horizon with their relentless buzzing. What was once a sacred image of ordered renewal becomes a grotesque parody. The horizon, the place of rebirth, becomes a swarming chaos. The air, once the realm of divine light, chokes with pestilence. Khepri’s sacred symbol, the scarab, is mocked in its own image. The creatures that were once emblems of life emerging from decay now embody the very collapse of that order. The horizon does not hold. The cycle breaks. The sun struggles to rise through the cloud of wings and stinging bodies, its passage through the heavens choked by the very symbol that once represented its rebirth.
To the Egyptians, this would have felt like the shattering of a cosmic promise—the breakdown of the sacred cycles that kept the world in motion. The scarab, once a sign of divine order, now becomes a sign of infestation, its symbolic meaning twisted into a grotesque parody. The god of becoming finds his work undone. The horizon swarms. The air writhes. The sacred image shatters.
And in this collapse, something deeper is revealed. If even the sun—the heart of their cosmology—can be choked off, if even the horizon can be overrun, then what of the lesser cycles, the smaller orders that Egypt relied upon for stability? What of the breath in their lungs, the pulse in their veins, the cycles of harvest and flood that defined their world? If Khepri can be undone, then the entire structure of Egyptian order stands vulnerable.
The god who rolled the sun through the sky is mocked in his own symbol, his labor parodied, his order overrun. Egypt’s cycles falter. Its divine breath chokes. Its horizon fails.
4. Hathor and Apis – The Herd Laid Waste (Death of Livestock)
Hathor, the cow-headed goddess of love, fertility, and motherhood, was a central figure in the Egyptian pantheon. She represented the nurturing force of life, the maternal power that cradled the young Pharaoh and sustained the land with her divine milk. Her temples echoed with the sound of sistrums and song, her image smiled down from great columns, her presence a reminder that life, growth, and abundance were the rightful state of the world.
Apis, the sacred bull of Memphis, stood as her counterpart—an embodiment of strength, power, and divine virility. Unlike the distant, abstract gods of the sky, Apis was a living presence, a sacred animal kept in pampered splendor, adorned with gold and fine linens, fed the choicest grain. He was the physical embodiment of divine power, a walking sacrament whose very breath was said to carry the blessing of the gods. Pharaoh himself was often likened to a mighty bull, his strength and authority mirrored in the snorting, muscular form of Apis.
But the fifth plague strikes directly at this living power. The livestock of Egypt—its cattle, horses, donkeys, camels, sheep, and goats—fall dead in the fields, their bodies stiffening in the sun, their breath stilled. The animals that once pulled the plow, that bore the weight of Egypt’s power, collapse into the dust. The sacred cows of Hathor, symbols of divine nurture, lie lifeless, their udders dry. The bulls of Apis, once emblems of divine strength, rot where they stand. The breath of life, so central to these gods, is cut off.
The fields, once green with grazing herds, become graveyards. The symbols of divine strength and nurture, the beating heart of Egypt’s divine economy, lie stiff and cold in the dirt. The sistrums fall silent, the temple songs die in the throat, the offerings of milk and grain are rejected by the gods they were meant to honor. Hathor’s milk curdles. Apis’ flesh rots. The gods of flesh and strength, of nurture and power, are silent.
And in this silence, something deeper is revealed. The power that once filled the land, that once sustained the people, that once fed the sacred flame of Egypt’s divine order, is shown to be as fragile as flesh, as mortal as bone. The breath of the gods is not inexhaustible. The strength of the divine is not unending. The pulse of divine life can falter. The flesh of gods can die.
5. Imhotep – The Priesthood Afflicted (Boils and Sores)
Imhotep, the deified architect, physician, and sage, was one of the few mortals to ascend into the Egyptian pantheon. Known as a healer, a scribe, and a counselor, his wisdom was said to span the heavens and the earth. He was the divine mediator of knowledge, the bridge between the mortal and the divine, the architect not just of stone but of stability and order. His temples were places of learning and healing, his name invoked in medical texts and whispered in prayers for the sick. In life, he had served as a high priest, a builder of monuments, a counselor to kings. In death, he became a god, a divine patron of medicine and wisdom, a silent architect of Egypt’s power.
But the sixth plague strikes at the very heart of his domain. Boils break out on the skin of the Egyptians, painful, festering sores that spread without mercy. The priests of Imhotep, the ones who mediated the divine mysteries, who anointed the Pharaoh, who whispered the secrets of life and death, find themselves covered in blisters and scabs. They cannot stand in their temples. They cannot perform their rites. Their flesh, once the symbol of divine favor, becomes a sign of divine judgment. The divine order they were sworn to uphold collapses around them. The body of the priesthood, once the living bridge between heaven and earth, is consumed by its own corruption.
The symbols of health and stability, once the pride of Egypt, rot from within. The healers cannot heal themselves. The wise cannot escape their own affliction. The hands that once built temples now tremble. The voices that once spoke divine mysteries now cry out in pain. The body of Egypt—the sacred flesh of its priests—breaks down. The image of divine order collapses into itself, undone by the very flesh it sought to sanctify.
6. Nut and Shu – The Skies Unsealed (Hail and Fire)
Nut, the sky goddess, arched her body over the earth, her star-studded form a protective dome that held back the chaos of the void. She was the great canopy of heaven, the cosmic vault that separated the waters above from the waters below, the divine arch that stretched from horizon to horizon. Each night, she swallowed the sun, and each morning, she gave birth to it again, her body the threshold through which light entered the world. In the Egyptian imagination, Nut was not just the sky, but the boundary of order itself, the living wall that kept the waters of chaos at bay.
Shu, her consort, was the god of air and light, the invisible force that held Nut aloft, the breath that filled the lungs, the wind that bent the reeds along the Nile. He was the force of separation, the divine breath that kept the heavens from crashing down upon the earth, the pillar of air that upheld the world. Together, Nut and Shu embodied the separation that defined creation—the boundary between light and dark, order and chaos, life and death.
But in the seventh plague, this separation collapses. Hail mixed with fire rains down from the sky, shattering the boundary between earth and heaven, dissolving the line between breath and flame, between light and destruction. The skies no longer sing with the gentle sigh of Shu, but roar with the fury of unbound forces. The heavens do not merely open—they break. Fire and ice, opposites that should never meet, crash down together, consuming crops, stripping trees, shattering stones. The pillars of order, the sacred divisions that upheld the world, give way. The breath of life becomes a torrent of destruction. The sky, once a protective canopy, becomes a weapon, its vault shattered, its promise broken.
The very air becomes hostile, the sky an enemy. Nut’s protective arch collapses, her promise to cradle the world broken. Shu’s breath becomes a roar of judgment. The divine separation, the ordered division that held chaos at bay, cracks and falls. The heavens themselves, once the highest expression of order and balance, unleash chaos upon the world below.
7. Seth – Provider and Boundary Destroyed (Locusts)
Seth, the god of storms, deserts, and boundaries, was a paradox in the Egyptian pantheon. He was both a protector and a destroyer, a god of chaos who nevertheless played a crucial role in maintaining the cosmic order. He defended the sun god Ra in his nightly battle against the serpent Apep, wielding his spear against the forces of darkness, ensuring the dawn’s return. Yet he was also the god of the desert, of barren places, of shifting sands and howling winds. He represented the edge of the known world, the wild, untamed forces that Egypt sought to keep at bay. In this, Seth was both a guardian and a threat, a god who embodied the thin line between order and chaos, life and death.
But in the eighth plague, this line collapses. Swarms of locusts pour into Egypt, crossing the borders that Seth once defended, stripping the land bare, consuming every green thing that remained after the hail. The boundaries that once held the desert at bay crumble, and the fertile heart of Egypt is laid waste. The crops that survived the fire and ice are devoured, the leaves stripped from the trees, the grass chewed down to the root. The green world, the living promise of spring and harvest, vanishes into the jaws of a million chittering mouths.
The locusts swarm over walls and fields, crossing thresholds, collapsing borders, erasing the carefully drawn lines that kept the wild at bay. Egypt, the land of order and abundance, becomes indistinguishable from the desert that surrounds it. The line between life and death, once held firm by the gods, blurs into dust and ruin. The divine boundary, the sacred edge that Seth once guarded, gives way. The protector fails to protect. The guardian is overrun. The ordered fields of Egypt dissolve into chaos.
And in this collapse, the power of Seth is revealed to be as fragile as the thin line he once guarded. The wild, the untamed, the chaotic forces he embodied, once held in check by his spear and will, pour into the heart of Egypt. The god of the boundary, the guardian of the threshold, is undone by his own power. The boundary he once defined collapses, and with it, the world it protected.
8.Ra – The Light Extinguished
Ra was not merely a sun god. He was the living eye of creation, the divine fire at the heart of Egyptian cosmology. He embodied the rhythm of day and night, the pulse of time itself. Each dawn was his rebirth, each dusk his descent into the underworld—a cycle as reliable as breath, as essential as heartbeat. His daily journey across the sky mirrored the Pharaoh’s own passage from life to death, from mortal to divine. Ra was the measure of all things, the great regulator, the center of Egypt’s cosmic order.
The ninth plague strikes directly at this heart. It is no accident that the darkness lasts for three days, a direct inversion of the divine triad so often reflected in Egyptian theology. But even more significant is the number itself—nine. In Egyptian belief, the Ennead—a group of nine primary deities—stood as the architects of creation, with Ra at their head, the source of their light and power. Nine, the sacred number of finality and completeness, marked the boundaries of their order. To strike Ra, then, is to strike at the heart of this divine council, to unravel the ninefold structure of Egypt’s world.
When darkness falls over Egypt for three days, this rhythm snaps. The sun god’s eye is closed. His passage through the sky halts. The familiar arc of morning, noon, and night—the great wheel of time—is frozen, its axis shattered. This is not a mere eclipse, not a passing shadow, but an unmaking of the very principle Ra embodied.
In Egyptian mythology, the sun’s light was Ra’s breath, his gaze, his very being projected into the world. To remove it is to silence his speech, to sever his reach, to erase his face from the cosmos. It is a symbolic assassination, a reversal of the first creative act: Let there be light.
For three days, Egypt endures the void—a suffocating pre-dawn that stretches beyond endurance. The eyes of Ra do not open. The sun does not rise. The world returns to the darkness of the unformed deep. The pulse of creation falters, and Pharaoh, the living Horus, is left to stumble in the dark, his divine lineage cut off, his symbols broken, his world unmade.
Creation began with light. Judgment begins with its removal.
9. Horus and Osiris – The Line Cut Short (Death of the Firstborn)
Horus, the falcon-headed god of kingship and the living Pharaoh, was the divine embodiment of strength, vision, and rightful rule. He was the avenger, the son who rose to challenge his father’s murder, the god who reclaimed his throne from the chaos of Seth. In the mythology of Egypt, every Pharaoh was a living Horus—a vessel of divine authority, a physical incarnation of heavenly order. To stand before the Pharaoh was to stand before a living god, a being whose very breath carried the will of the divine.
Osiris, his father, was the god of the dead, the lord of the underworld, the judge of souls, and the eternal king. Osiris represented the promise of life beyond death, of resurrection and divine renewal. His story was the central myth of Egypt’s theology of hope—a tale of betrayal, dismemberment, and reassembly, of a body broken and restored, of a divine line that could not be cut. Every Pharaoh, in death, sought to become an Osiris, to pass through the trials of the underworld and be reborn as a star, as a divine, eternal presence in the sky.
But in the tenth plague, this divine line is shattered. The firstborn of every Egyptian household, from the son of Pharaoh to the child of the lowest servant, is struck down. The breath of life is cut off. The line of succession, the bloodline that carried the divine spark, is severed. In a single night, the promise of divine continuity, the myth that every Pharaoh would ascend to the throne of Osiris, breaks. The future is choked off, the line cut short. The god of the living and the god of the dead both fall silent.
For Pharaoh, this is more than just the loss of a son. It is the loss of his divine identity, the collapse of his mythic purpose. The child who would have been his living legacy, his embodiment of divine power, is taken. The line of Horus, the line of kings, the divine thread that bound the past to the future, snaps. Pharaoh, who once embodied the eternal cycle of death and rebirth, now faces only the finality of loss. The river that once carried his legacy flows red with the blood of judgment. The tomb that once promised resurrection now echoes with the silence of the dead.
And in this silence, the power of Osiris is revealed to be as fragile as the flesh it claimed to transcend. The body that was meant to rise is broken. The line that was meant to stretch into eternity is cut short. The breath that was meant to fill the next Pharaoh’s lungs is stolen. The divine chain snaps. The gods fall silent. Egypt’s hope for rebirth, for the eternal return of the divine king, is undone.
Sobek – The God Who Could Not Protect
Sobek, the crocodile god, was Egypt’s embodiment of ferocity, strength, and untamed power. His image—half-beast, half-lord—represented the raw, primal force of the Nile, the unpredictable surge of floodwaters, the crushing jaws of nature itself. Sobek’s teeth and scales marked him as a god of violence and control, a divine predator whose very presence inspired both fear and reverence. In times of war, Pharaohs claimed his favor, seeking his ferocity for their armies, his relentless drive for their conquests. His temples rose along the Nile, his priests fed him choice meat, his image adorned the shields of warriors. He was the god who devoured threats, who swam in the deep, who turned the chaotic power of the waters into the ordered strength of empire.
But in the Exodus, Sobek is silent. The Nile, his sacred domain, turns to blood. His waters run red with the death of fish and the rot of flesh. His river, the vein of Egypt, becomes a tomb. And when Pharaoh’s chariots crash into the parted sea, when his warriors are thrown from their horses, when his archers drown with their quivers empty, Sobek’s jaws remain closed. His teeth do not close around the enemy. His claws do not strike. His waters, once the living symbol of power and control, become the grave of his people.
The irony is sharp. The god of violence dies by silence. The protector fails to protect. His power is not overcome—it is simply bypassed. Sobek, the devourer, is devoured by decree. His strength, his ferocity, his primal violence—all are swept away, not by greater force, but by the silent withdrawal of divine favor. His waters, once the source of fear and control, become his own undoing.
And in this silence, the image of Sobek cracks. His power, once the terror of Egypt’s enemies, fails to manifest. His jaws do not close. His claws do not cut. His symbols are submerged without resistance. The god of violence, the devourer of threats, is himself devoured by the judgment he could not stop.
Nun – The Abyss Without Return
Long before the Nile rose, Egypt believed in Nun—the formless ocean of potential, the chaotic waters that preceded creation. All things were said to emerge from Nun: the sun, the gods, the land itself. In Egyptian cosmology, Nun was not evil, but primal—a cosmic womb. It was expected that one day, all would return to Nun, dissolving back into the source from which it came. Even Pharaoh, upon death, was to descend into Nun to be reborn, to travel through the night sky in divine barques, to join the eternal rhythm of death and renewal.
But something strange happens in the book of Jasher. Pharaoh, who should have died in the sea does not. As the waters return to consume Egypt’s army, one man remains—Pharaoh. He is not deified. He is not received. The text reads: “And not one man was left excepting Pharaoh, who gave thanks to the Lord and believed in him; therefore the Lord did not cause him to perish at that time with the Egyptians. And the Lord ordered an angel to take him from amongst the Egyptians, who cast him upon the land of Nineveh, and he reigned over it for a long time.”
This is not apotheosis. It is interruption. Pharaoh does not descend into Nun. He does not die the death of kings. He is pulled from the sea and scattered—not into rebirth, but into exile. His cycle is broken. His return is denied. Nun—the primal sea, the mother of all beginnings and endings—does not receive him. The waters, once his cradle, reject him. The myth breaks. The line snaps. What was meant to dissolve into myth is left alive in ambiguity. And Pharaoh, once a god, is left adrift, alive but cut off, a living remnant of a dead empire, a shattered symbol in a world that has moved on without him.
Yahweh and the Drowning of Symbols
Each plague is not merely a punishment. It is a pronouncement—a systematic unraveling of Egypt’s sacred order. Yahweh does not merely compete with the gods of Egypt; He dismantles them. Their powers are not matched—they are undone. Their domains are not challenged—they are inverted. Their patterns are not corrected—they are collapsed.
The Nile, once the sacred artery of Egypt’s life, turns to blood. What once sustained becomes undrinkable, a river of death. The sky, once the balanced realm of Ra and the eternal blue dome of Nut, strikes down fire and ice. It fractures the equilibrium of heaven and burns the fixed order of the cosmos.
The earth itself, once fruitful and firm beneath the feet of the living, crawls with swarms—teeming with vermin, frogs, and locusts. The ground that once whispered fertility now hisses with corruption. The animals, sacred vessels of divine essence—Apis, the bull of Ptah; the hawks of Horus—wither and die. Their breath ceases. Their flesh rots.
The priests, custodians of ritual precision and cosmic order, find their rites undone. Their spells falter. Their incantations fail. Their gods remain silent as the order they represent crumbles around them. The sun, the very eye of Ra, disappears into darkness. Its light is smothered. Its fire is choked. The world shudders as the god-king’s vision is stolen.
The womb—the sacred promise of continuity and future—is struck barren. The firstborn dies. The line is broken. The unending chain of divine right is severed. The king himself, the living god upon the throne, is cast away. He is no longer Pharaoh, but a fugitive—a shattered symbol in a world that has moved on without him.
This is not merely conquest. It is not the replacement of one power for another. It is unweaving. It is de-creation. The careful order that Yahweh once called good—the separation of waters, the command to be fruitful, the filling of the void—now collapses back into chaos.
Creation is not merely the beginning of something. It is the standard against which all other orders are judged. And here, in Egypt’s final hours, that standard is invoked not to build, but to break. It is not the making of a world, but the dismantling of one—the drowning of symbols, the unmaking of gods.
