Egyptian Pharaohs, hard men to push around

Frozen in time, the world's last memory of Hosni Mubarak – for now at least – will be that bizarre address to the Egyptian people on Thursday night when, against all expectations, he still refused to go. He was patronising, condescending and, in the long tradition of Egyptian Pharaohs, stubborn to the point of madness.

When the crowds in Tahrir Square waved their shoes in the air, to show their disrespect for their zombie-like president, well, if God could have texted, he'd have said, "I no how u feel."

The Egyptian Pharaohs wrote the book on stubborn. Remember the Ten Plagues of Egypt? According to the Bible, the Pharaoh was so stubborn about 'letting the people go' – yes, it was the Jews, not the Egyptians, on that occasion, but it's still pertinent - that God's impatience was something to behold.

As the story goes, God appeared to Moses as the burning bush (this is way before Twitter) and told him to return to Egypt, and tell the Pharaoh to set the Jews free.

Moses sent his spokesman, Aaron, for talks. To make a long story short, the talks led nowhere. Moses tried reasoning with the Pharaoh. When that didn't work, he had a word with God, who resorted to the Plagues.

First, God turned the Nile to blood. All the fish died. Did that spook the Pharaoh? Not particularly.

The bastard, thought God. So he unleashed a plague of frogs. The Pharaoh promised to let the slaves go if God removed the frogs. So God removed the frogs – but the Pharaoh went back on his promise and refused to set the Jews free.

With a sigh that shook the universe, God unleashed a plague of gnats. Now, had the Pharaoh been a girl, this had possibilities. But the Pharaoh - this guy was made of stone! - still wouldn't back down. Not surprisingly, the plague of flies didn't work either.

Is this getting tedious? You don't say. It's what the White House would term a ‘fluid' situation.

Then in a horror show predating mad cow disease by about 3,500 years, God tried a plague on cattle. Did that make the Pharaoh concede? No way.

It gets worse - boils. Everyone in Egypt was covered in boils and open sores. Again the Pharaoh was unmoved.

Then hail – then a plague of locusts. Then darkness. And finally, the most dreadful plague – Moses told the Pharaoh that every firstborn child would be killed.

God ordered Moses to tell his people – and this is where religion is just bestial – to protect their own by marking their door with the blood of a yearling – a lamb or a goat – so that the angel of death would see the blood and ‘pass over'. And so it was the firstborn of Egyptians who died that night. Only this act of mass murder persuaded the Pharaoh to set the Israelites free.

Of course, it didn't end there. Heading for the Red Sea and home to Palestine, the Israelites realised thay had been duped by the Pharaoh, who had sent his brutal army after them.
 
It was then Moses pulled his joker card - and parted the Red Sea.

Excommunicated to his residence in Sharm el-Sheikh, the Egyptian people still cheering his departure, Mubarak will doubtless be clenching his jaw and staring out stubbornly at the horizon, as Pharaohs do. ·