Ra and Sekhmet

Before there was land in Egypt, there was only Nun, the great ocean.  Out of this ocean rose The Egg, and The Egg was Ra.

The omnipotent Ra took many forms, and spoke many names, and his power was such that whatever he spoke came into existence.  "At dawn, I am Khepera.  At noon, I am Ra.  In the evening, I am Atum."  The sun rose, passed through the sky, and set.  It was the first day.

Then Ra created the winds, and named them Shu.  Then Tefnut, the spitter, came, and it rained.  Next he named Geb, and there was land; Nut, the goddess of the sky, stood on one side of the horizon, and placed her hands on the other.  Then Ra named Hapi, and he watered all of Egypt with the Great Nile.  After this, Ra named all living things on the earth, and, last of all, man.

Ra took the form of man and became the first Pharoah.  He ruled over the land of Egypt for thousands of years.  During his reign, the harvests were plentiful, so much so that people still use the phrase "which happened in the time of Ra" to describe good things.

Ra discovered, however, that as a man, he would grow old.  As he aged, he discovered that men no longer feared him.  They would laugh and say, "His bones are like silver, his flesh like gold, and his hair looks like lapis luzi!"

Though this angered Ra, people continued to do evil deeds.  So Ra met with Shu, Tefnut, Nut, and Geb - all the gods he had made.  Nun was also there, and Ra spoke to him. "Ancient One, creator of Ra, look on mankind.  They plot against me, they are disobedient to my laws, and they mock my ancient wisdom, I who created the other gods.  I wish to destroy them, but I will heed your advice first."

Nun replied, "Ra, destroy them with your daughter, Sekhmet."

The gods all answered, "Send Sekhmet against them!"

They all bowed their heads to the ground, and Ra said, "Even now, fear is seizing them as they hide in the desert." 

So from the Eye of Ra, Sekhmet came, and her chief delight was in bloodshed.  She laid waste the people of Upper and Lower Egypt, pursuing them into the mountains, rushing along the Nile, and slaughtering them in the desert.  When Ra looked out and saw what she had down, he was pleased, and asked, "Tell me what you did."

"By your will, I have avenged you.  I am glad."

The Nile ran red with blood for many nights, and her feet were red, as one who presses grapes for wine, and Ra began to pity the men.  Sekhmet, however, would not stop, and Ra himself had to resort to clever cunning in order to cease her slaughter.

Ra called for his messengers, and told them to go to Elephantine Island, in the First Cataract, and bring him red ochre.  The messengers did so, bringing the ochre to the City of the Sun, where Ra lived.  The women in city had spent all day brewing beer, according to the will of Ra, and when the messengers returned at night, Ra bade them to put the ochre into the beer.  There were seven thousand jars.

"Take it to the place where Sekhmet plans her next slaughter."  So they did, and they poured it out upon the fields.  The liquid, which looked like blood, was thick upon the ground.  As Sakhmet approached the next day, she saw the beer and thought it to be the blood of her victims.  She laughed, roaring like a lioness, and stooped to drink.  Over and over she drank, and soon she became drunk, unable to kill.

Reeling left and right, she came upon Ra, who named her Hathor.  She was no longer violent, but peaceful and sweet, overcoming men and women with love, instead of death.  Mankind was saved, and Ra continued to rule for a little while longer.   

-Egypt


This week's myth offers us up the typical creation story of the great cosmic ocean, out of which comes a god/the gods.  We find similar ideas in Mesopotamia, certain Native American tribes, the Hindu scriptures, and so on.  But what is striking about this story is its similarity to a far-less compared story found in the Book of Exodus:  the ten plagues.

We read in the story of Ra that Sekhmet "laid waste the people of Upper and Lower Egypt," that "the Nile ran with blood," and that the whole of Egypt was perishing under Sekhmet's fury.  In the Book of Exodus, we read:  'Then the LORD said to Moses, “Pharaoh’s heart is unyielding; he refuses to let the people go.  Go to Pharaoh in the morning as he goes out to the river. Confront him on the bank of the Nile, and take in your hand the staff that was changed into a snake.  Then say to him, ‘The LORD, the God of the Hebrews, has sent me to say to you: Let my people go, so that they may worship me in the wilderness. But until now you have not listened.  This is what the LORD says: By this you will know that I am the LORD: With the staff that is in my hand I will strike the water of the Nile, and it will be changed into blood.  The fish in the Nile will die, and the river will stink; the Egyptians will not be able to drink its water.’”

As we continue to read, we find that plagues of frogs, gnats, boils, and other plagues strike the Egyptians, causing an economic nightmare.  The final plague involves the death of all of the firstborn sons of Egypt.  While the Bible is unclear how long all ten of these plagues lasted, it does make one thing clear:  the land of Egypt was full of blood and death. 

At this point, we may begin to see that the Egyptian belief in Sekhmet and the incidents of the Exodus may very well be parallel accounts.  Both describe incidents which, at their cores, are very similar.  While the causes certainly vary, the results do not. Now, I am not attempting to say that the story of Sekhmet is the Egyptian version of the Exodus plagues - not at all.  However, from a logical standpoint, how likely is it that the Egyptians would tell a story of their own destruction at the hands of the Hebrew God?  What seems far more likely is that they would invent a story that would refer to the real events, but through the interpretive lens of their own pagan beliefs.  In other words, what I am suggesting is that, rather than disregard the Bible as so many do, we should be willing to take a fresh look at it and see how other literature parallels - and even supports - the Biblical account.