Exodus 8:6

Hebrew Bible

3 The Nile will swarm with frogs, and they will come up and go into your house, in your bedroom, and on your bed, and into the houses of your servants and your people, and into your ovens and your kneading troughs. 4 Frogs will come up against you, your people, and all your servants.”’” 5 The Lord spoke to Moses, “Tell Aaron, ‘Extend your hand with your staff over the rivers, over the canals, and over the ponds, and bring the frog* up over the land of Egypt.’” 6 So Aaron extended his hand over the waters of Egypt, and frogs came up and covered the land of Egypt. 7 The magicians did the same with their secret arts and brought up frogs on the land of Egypt too. 8 Then Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, “Pray to the Lord that he may take the frogs away from me and my people, and I will release the people that they may sacrifice to the Lord.”

Revelation 16:13

New Testament

11 They blasphemed the God of heaven because of their sufferings and because of their sores, but nevertheless they still refused to repent of their deeds. 12 Then the sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates and dried up its water to prepare the way for the kings from the east. 13 Then I saw three unclean spirits that looked like frogs coming out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. 14 For they are the spirits of the demons performing signs who go out to the kings of the earth to bring them together for the battle that will take place on the great day of God, the All-Powerful. 15 (Look! I will come like a thief! Blessed is the one who stays alert and does not lose his clothes so that he will not have to walk around naked and his shameful condition be seen.)

 Notes and References

"... In ancient Mesopotamia, settlement sites can also be found around the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, where the people living there established a centralized society. And the people of that time also attached great importance to the rivers here, treating the frogs there as symbols of fertility and life. In the Sumerian poem Inanna and Enki, the first creature that the goddess Inanna tricked the water god Enki into giving the gods an order to send some water creatures for Enki to retrieve it was a frog. Therefore it seems that frogs came to be depicted in reliefs, sculptures and objects as a symbol of life-giving water. Furthermore, focusing on the life cycle of frogs, they are known to take on a completely different shape when they transform from juvenile to adult. Ancient peoples revered their shape as a symbol of rebirth. However, the frog has not always been interpreted in a positive light as a symbol of fertility. For example, the second plague of Egypt described in Exodus 8:6 was the work of frogs, and in the New Testament, frogs are associated with unclean spirits in Revelation 16:13. Thus, the social and symbolic importance of frogs has been preserved in many documents since antiquity, and it is clear that frogs were also familiar in ancient Mesopotamia ..."

Tsuneki, Mai A Study of Frog-Shaped Artefacts in Mesopotamia (pp. 1-3) Al-Rafidan, Vol. 44, 2023

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