Introduction

Welcome to this series on defending the Bible. As Christians, we’re called to practice discernment and to be ready with a thoughtful explanation for the hope within us (1 Peter 3:15). We should examine the Scriptures to confirm the truth (Acts 17:11) and not be led astray by false doctrine (1 John 4:1). However, if we’re going to build our lives on the Word of God, we should be confident that it is reliable.

Our goal is to explore why the Scriptures are trustworthy and how they provide a solid foundation for faith. The goal of arguments concerning the Bible's reliability is not to force belief, but to demonstrate that faith in Jesus and confidence in the Bible are rational.

Icebreaker

Do you read the prophets?

Grammar and Lexicon of "The Destroyer" in Exodus To understand the identity of the "destroyer" in Exodus 12:23, we must first look at the underlying Hebrew grammar. The word translated as "the destroyer" is הַמַּשְׁחִית (hammashhit).
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• Morphology: This word is a Hiphil participle from the root שחת (shachat), which means to ruin or destroy,.
• Lexicons: In Exodus 12:23, it is used as a substantivized participle (a verb functioning as a noun), meaning "the destroyer",. The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (HALOT) provides the gloss "the destroyer, destroying angel" for this verse, though the word "angel" does not explicitly appear in the immediate Hebrew text. The Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon (BDB) offers a similar gloss of "destroyer".
• Contrast within Exodus 12: In Exodus 12:13, a similar root is used but in a different grammatical construct: negef lemashhit ("a plague for destruction" or "destructive blow"),. In verse 13, destruction is the result of the plague, but in verse 23, the participle hammashhit acts as a personified agent carrying out the destruction.

Based on the biblical text, two primary views emerge regarding the identity of this Destroyer: that it is the Angel of the LORD (a divine manifestation, assumed here to be the pre-incarnate Jesus) or that it is the Devil (Satan).

View 1: The Destroyer is the Angel of the LORD (Jesus)
The "Destroyer" represents the uncompromising, lethal justice of God against sin and oppression, while the "Passover" represents God's gracious, protective mercy. It is the Angel of the LORD executing severe, terrifying justice (the Destroyer), but it is also the Lord acting as the Savior, actively shielding the Israelites' homes from that exact same consuming wrath because of the atoning blood.
Pros:

• Direct Obedience to God (Rest of the Bible): The strongest lexical and contextual links to the Destroyer in the rest of the Old Testament equate this figure with the Angel of the LORD. In 2 Samuel 24:16 and 1 Chronicles 21:15, God sends an agent to judge Jerusalem using the exact phrase lammal'ak hammashhit ("the destroying Angel"),. In these passages, the destroying angel is explicitly identified as the "Angel of YHWH," who acts in perfect obedience to God's commands and stops the plague the moment God says, "It is enough; now stay your hand",,. This depicts the Destroyer not as a rebellious demon, but as an obedient servant executing divine justice.
• The Angel of the LORD as a Divine Manifestation: In Exodus, the "Angel of the LORD" (mal'ak YHWH) is frequently presented as a theophanic manifestation of Yahweh Himself,. Exodus 23:20-23 states that God will send an angel to guard Israel, emphasizing that "my Name is in him" and that this angel has the authority to forgive rebellion and wipe out enemies. Christian theology often views this angel, who bears God's name and exacts His judgments, as the pre-incarnate Jesus.
• Yahweh Takes Direct Credit (Exodus Context): Multiple times in Exodus 12, the text insists that Yahweh Himself is the one executing the judgment. Exodus 12:12 says, "I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn... I am the LORD". Exodus 12:29 records that "At midnight the LORD struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt",,. Therefore, the Destroyer can be seen as an extension of God Himself—the Angel of the LORD acting as His death-dealing agent.

Cons:

• Textual Separation in Exodus 12:23: Exodus 12:23 creates a literary and theological distinction between Yahweh and the Destroyer: "the LORD will pass over that doorway and will not permit the destroyer to enter your houses". This hypostatization—where God's protective presence at the threshold blocks the Destroyer—makes it difficult to cleanly equate the two. It does work in light of trinity theology, but It forces the somewhat awkward interpretation that God is protecting the Israelites from His own manifestation.
• Character of Christ: Assigning the title of a ruthless "Destroyer" to Jesus conflicts with certain theological frameworks that emphasize Jesus as the savior of life and the one that came to destroy the Devil

View 2: The Destroyer is the Devil (Satan or an Evil Angel)

Pros:

• New Testament Lexical Links: When Paul references the wilderness wanderings in 1 Corinthians 10:10, he writes that the murmuring Israelites "were destroyed of the Destroyer". The Greek word used here for destroyer is olothreutes, which some scholars connect to a "venomous serpent," pointing directly to "that old Serpent, called the Devil, and Satan" (Revelation 12:9).
• Apocalyptic Literature: In Revelation 9:11, the "angel of the bottomless pit" is named Abaddon in Hebrew and Apollyon in Greek, both of which translate to "Destroyer",. This firmly establishes the title "Destroyer" as a designation for a demonic leader or Satan himself.
• The Theological Nature of God vs. Satan: In John 10:10, Jesus explicitly contrasts His character with that of the Devil, stating, "The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life".
• God as Protector, Not Executioner: If the Destroyer is Satan, Exodus 12:23 makes perfect logical sense. God's judgment was simply removing His hand of protection from the Egyptians, giving them over to their own fate. God "permitted" the Destroyer (Satan) to enter the Egyptian homes, but actively protected the homes of the Israelites marked by faith and blood.
• -Psalm 78 Context: Psalm 78:49 describes the plagues by saying God "unleashed against them his hot anger, his wrath, indignation and hostility— a band of destroying angels" (or "EVIL ANGELS").

Cons:

• Contradicts Explicit Declarations of God’s Action: Claiming Satan killed the firstborn directly contradicts Exodus 12:29, which explicitly states, "the LORD struck down all the firstborn",. It also ignores the numerous times God declares, "I will strike down every firstborn" (Exodus 12:12).
• Satan Does Not Serve God's Redemptive Purpose: The plagues were a targeted, highly controlled judgment against the "gods of Egypt" (Exodus 12:12) to prove Yahweh's supreme sovereignty. Viewing the Destroyer as an autonomous evil entity (Satan) undermines the biblical theme that the Destroyer is a direct instrument of God's holy retribution,.

Summary Synthesis Deep within the grammar of the Old Testament, the מַשְׁחִית (mashhit) is a terrifying force of complete ruin. When viewing the Destroyer as the Angel of the LORD (Jesus), the text harmonizes beautifully with the rest of the Old Testament (like 2 Samuel 24 and 1 Chronicles 21), where the destroying angel is an obedient extension of God's own judging hand, bringing perfect justice to the unrepentant while providing a covering of mercy (the blood) for the faithful.

Conversely, viewing the Destroyer as the Devil aligns well with New Testament nomenclature (Abaddon/Apollyon) and the theological premise that Satan's ultimate goal is to "kill and destroy." It easily explains the dichotomy in Exodus 12:23 of God shielding the door from an outside intruder. However, this view struggles to account for the overarching biblical narrative that God claims absolute, sovereign responsibility for the tenth plague as a righteous judgment against the oppressive Egyptian empire and its false gods.

My opinion

Reconciling the identity of the Destroyer as both the Angel of the LORD (God's sovereign manifestation) and the Devil (an evil, destructive entity) requires looking at how biblical theology often handles the relationship between divine sovereignty, judgment, and the forces of evil.

Based on the texts and theological commentaries, there are three primary frameworks for understanding how the Destroyer might encompass elements of both:

1. The "Permissive Will" Framework: God as the Sovereign Judge, Satan as the Executioner In this view, the event is a collaboration of sorts between God's sovereign judicial decree and the Devil's natural desire to destroy. God is the ultimate authority who takes responsibility for the plague, but Satan is the actual instrument of death.

Scripture frequently portrays God's "wrath" not as Him actively lashing out, but as Him withdrawing His protective grace and giving rebellious people over to their own choices and fate. Because all life belongs to God, Satan cannot take life unless God permits it like we see in the book of Job.

explicitly teach that one of the most severe forms of God's judgment is simply giving people over to their own sinful desires. Rather than always striking people externally with active plagues or weapons, God's wrath is frequently manifested by removing His restraining grace and allowing human rebellion to run its logical, self-destructive course.

This concept of "handing over" is a profound judicial act by God. When people persistently despise God, become proud, and reject His commands, He ceases to restrain their evil. As the Psalms and the Apostle Paul state, God delivers them "unto the desires of their heart" or "to their own hearts' lusts" so they can freely walk in their own worldly inventions. By giving them up to themselves and their own affections, they sink into a "great abyss" of sin, becoming entirely blinded by their own choices.

The sources explain that what the Bible sometimes describes as God "stretching out his hand" in judgment can actually be understood as the withdrawing of His hand. When God removes the humanizing and protective efficacy of His common grace, He leaves sinners to fully implement the savagery of their fallen nature. Because every anti-God system inherently "loves death," this withdrawal inevitably leads to absolute ruin. Ultimately, God acts as the judge of their iniquities precisely by delivering them over to the things they falsely loved, meaning that the wicked are effectively punished by the results of their own foolishness and depraved will.

or example, the Old Testament shows God using the Assyrians to punish the disobedient nation of Israel. The king of Assyria did not realize he was acting as God's servant; he did not "think in his heart" to obey God, but merely wanted to conquer and destroy. Nevertheless, God used him as a "weapon of his indignation" to execute just judgment. Similarly, God used the military invasion of the Chaldeans (Babylonians) as "heathen instruments of divine wrath" to lay waste to Judah and punish them for their transgressions.

This exact pattern culminates in the New Testament with the Roman Empire. Jesus Himself prophesied this in Matthew 22:7, stating that the King would "send his armies, and destroy those murderers, and set their city on fire". This was fulfilled in A.D. 70 when the Romans besieged and destroyed Jerusalem. Even though the Roman armies were pagan, they functioned as God's armies, sent by Him to execute the curses of the broken covenant. God has the power to put it directly into the hearts of these hostile forces to perform His ultimate purposes, utilizing their warfare, rage, and pillaging to execute His sovereign will.

Therefore, the tenth plague can be understood as God officially removing His protective hand from the Egyptian nation, which had utterly rejected Him, and "letting loose" evil angels among them. Psalm 78:49 describes this dynamic by saying God cast His fierce anger upon Egypt "by sending [or letting loose] EVIL ANGELS among them".

In this scenario, God's judgment was simply the decision of whether or not to permit the Destroyer (Satan, the "Angel of Death") to enter a house. Where the blood of the lamb was applied in faith, God actively blocked the Devil from entering. Where it was not, God "dropped the rod" and allowed the forces of evil and destruction—symbolized by the serpent—to operate freely. Thus, it is both: God is the sovereign judge who commands the event, and the Devil is the literal Destroyer who carries it out.

In this sense, the Destroyer functions with the terror, violence, and totality we associate with the Devil, yet it is entirely subjugated to the Angel of the LORD, serving as a weapon in God's redemptive plan to permanently break the oppressive power of the Egyptian empire and prove that their false gods could not provide the one thing they promised: life.

What This means

The Bible reveals that the plagues and the Passover were actually a physical foreshadowing of a much greater spiritual deliverance. When Jesus incarnated, His battle lines shifted: He did not come to fight earthly empires like Romen or Egyptian empire, but rather to wage war against the ultimate enemy of God’s people, Satan.

The scriptures explicitly declare that “The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8).

1. Reversing the Character of the Destroyer To understand how Jesus destroys the works of the devil, we must define what those works are: sin, death, and enslavement. Ever since the Garden of Eden, the devil has sought to bring "death, fear, and oppression" into the world, holding humanity captive in slavery to the fear of death.

Jesus draws a sharp contrast between His own character and this adversarial power. He states, "The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly". While Satan functions as the ultimate "Destroyer," Jesus comes as the "Restorer". His mission is not to kill or destroy human lives, but to save us from Sin, which is the very thing that seeks to kill us.

2. A New Exodus and Cosmic Warfare In the book of Exodus, Yahweh acts as a cosmic warrior to dismantle the authority of Pharaoh and the "gods of Egypt," which the biblical text often connects to demonic forces. Jesus's earthly ministry operates on this exact same framework, but on a universal scale.

For example, when the Egyptian magicians were unable to replicate the plagues, they admitted it was the "finger of God". Jesus deliberately alludes to this when He casts out demons, stating that He does so by the "finger of God" (Luke 11:20). This signifies that just as God dismantled Pharaoh's kingdom to free the Israelites, Jesus is actively dismantling Satan's kingdom to free humanity. The New Testament writers view the death of Jesus as bringing about a "new exodus," designed to permanently ransom people from the domain of death and the power of the devil.

3. The Ultimate Passover: Stripping the Destroyer of Power The most profound connection between the Exodus Destroyer and Jesus's mission lies in the Passover event. God's ancient promise to humanity was that a rescuer would come to "crush the devil while taking a fatal blow himself". Jesus fulfills this by willingly going to the cross.

Jesus did not come simply to cover up mistakes; He came to actively rescue humanity from the power of the devil's works. He accomplished this through His substitutionary, self-sacrificial death and resurrection. The sources draw a direct, powerful parallel to the tenth plague: "Just as the blood of the Passover lamb in Egypt stripped the 'Destroyer' of his power to strike God's people, the blood of Christ and the cross now shields believers from the kingdom of death and the devil".

By taking the fatal blow on the cross, it appeared to the world that Satan had won, but in reality, Jesus was overcoming death itself. Through this victory, Jesus publicly declared that "evil has been defeated, and death itself has been overcome," permanently destroying the enslaving works of the devil and freeing all who take shelter under His blood.