Darkness as a plague for Israelites left behind

There are many accounts in the midrash about the purpose of the plagues. While the overwhelming approach is that the plagues were meant to be “measure for measure punishment against the Egyptians” for the sin of overplaying their role as taskmasters, there is one plague that doesn’t fit in with the rest in the midrashic depictions: the plague of Darkness.

Of course, there are explanations. The midrash Tanchuma in Bo writes that the plagues follow a pattern of how an invading king and his army would slowly destroy a city and its army after putting it under siege. Each of the plagues in this account parallels an attack point, and darkness is compared to imprisonment or solitary confinement of the enemy force.

And while it is possible that Darkness was meant to be an attempt at defeating the Sun god Ra, the fact is that in most midrashic accounts, the plague of Darkness is explained as “G-d’s opportunity to kill off the Israelites that would not be leaving Egypt,” so the Egyptians would not be able to see that there were wicked Israelites who were not worthy of Redemption (Midrash Rabba Vaera 14, Tanchuma Vaera 14).

Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch explains the plagues following the mnemonic of Rabbi Yehuda – D’tza”Ch, Ada”sh, B’aCha”V – that most of us recall from the Haggadah, suggesting that the first plague in each grouping a specific theme of intensity; the middle plague in each group represented a different message, while and the last plague in each group was the punishment.

Blood, Beasts and Hail demonstrated to the Egyptians “Gerut” – that they were merely strangers in their own land, at the mercy of G-d, and were hardly in any position to make the Israelites feel as strangers. Frogs, Pestilence and Locusts demonstrated “Avdut,” or “how illusory were the notions that had made them feel superior to the people whom they had reduced to slavery.” Finally, Lice, Boils and Darkness served in the function of “inuyim,” making the Egyptians “feel what it means to have to submit to a systematic regime” of suffering.