Abstract
Scholars have long been intrigued by the block of material in Exodus 7-11, which is commonly called the “10 Plagues,” almost like the analogue to the “10 Commandments.” Treatment of this material has been guided by each facet of nineteenth and twentieth centuries Eurocentric biblical scholarship, from source, to form, to redaction, to new literary criticism. Attempts have thus been made to divide up and to keep whole these units and subunits. In so doing there have been a wide range of organizing schema from doublets to three groupings of three,1 to two groupings of five in chiastic structure,2 and so forth. There have also been suggestions of royal court, prophetic and cultic settings for these narratives. All have agreed that each organizing scheme has some merit to it but that there is at least one major flaw in each.