Parsha “Bo” (Exodus 10:1 – 13:16) describes the last three of the ‘Ten Plagues of Egypt.” And, in the process, lays out the understanding of the most important, the ‘death of the firstborn,’ and the first of His Appointed Times, Pesach; aka “the Passover.”

In the Erev Shabbat reading, Mark Call of Shabbat Shalom Mesa fellowship, outlines the reason why these might better be thought of as the final two of the third set of three plagues, followed by the one which in fact is in a category by itself:

The Sabbath Day midrash might be considered part two in a sequence, and begins with an examination of thise patters – multiple patterns in fact – that make up those “three sets of three” setup plagues, and, in particular, what they might show us about a future set of events that he again suggests will unfold at some time in the future.

Certainly they were not only all judgments against various fake Egyptian ‘gods,’ but other patterns within the plagues, such as who and what they affected, and how, may give us a great picture of what the judgments against ‘modern gods’ might well look like. And what we should be prayerfully prepared for.

also, Mark contends, a set of ‘open brackets,’ or one half of a set of bookends, which we will eventually see closed by the prophesied second, or “Greater Exodus.”

And there are certainly “candidates” for those in play today. So, sometimes a bit of speculation is useful.

The combined two-part teaching is here: