Teaching a Sunday School lesson on the 9 plagues of Egypt to kids can be very exciting if you mix it up a little.
Since every kid whose been to church for a decent amount of time has probably heard the story of the plagues of Egypt you’ll need to add a few ‘twists and turns’ to the story to keep things interesting.
Check out my Plagues of Egypt Lesson Script below and See what you think! There’s some really fun stuff in here.
The 9 Plagues of Egypt Sunday School Lesson Script
Who do you think would win an arm wrestling competition between a first grade girl and a fifth grade boy?
Who do you think would win a race between 2 kids if one who had army boots on with the shoelaces untied and the other one who had running shoes (that were correctly tied) on?
Who do you think would win between Batman and Superman?
Who do you think would win between Batman and Superman?
How would you determine the winner?
This week in our story of The Fire Prince, we are going to look at a contest, of sorts, between two kings.
The Story of Moses Review
Before we talk about the plagues of Egypt, let’s review where we’ve been
We started a few weeks ago talking about a little baby boy born to two Hebrew slaves, Jochebed and Amram. The problem was they were slaves in Egypt. And the guy in charge, Pharaoh, did not want any boys to grow up and threaten his throne. So Pharaoh ordered all baby boys be thrown into the Nile River.
Jochebed decides to put her little baby into a basket, and sets him afloat on the river. Sure enough, Pharaoh’s daughter finds him. But she doesn’t get rid of him. Instead, she raises him as her own child, and gives him his name…Moses!
Moses grows up and one day, makes Pharaoh really mad…so mad, in fact, that Moses flees and runs to the desert. He gets married and begins to watch his father-in-law’s sheep.
But God wasn’t done with him.
One day while watching the sheep, God speaks to him through a burning bush and tells him to go back to Egypt and tell Pharaoh to let all the Hebrew slaves go free.
Moses finally agrees to do this but only if his older brother Aaron does most of the talking.
When Moses and Aaron tell Pharaoh what God had said about letting all the Israel slaves go Pharaoh says absolutely not! After all, he is not letting all of his help, all his employees, just walk out. Who would do the work, then?
It’s at this point that we pick up the story today. Pharaoh has refused to listen to Moses and his older brother Aaron. More importantly, Pharaoh has refused to listen to God. See, God had told Moses what to tell Pharaoh. So really, when Pharaoh doesn’t listen, he is disobeying God.
The Plagues of Egypt = A Contest
So you know what God does? He decides to have a contest to see who actually has all the power.
After Pharaoh didn’t listen, God began to send plagues on the land of Egypt. One by one, each plague was designed to show off God’s power.
The first plague was turning the Nile River into blood.
This sounds bad enough, but wait until you hear this…
This sounds bad enough, but wait until you hear this…
When we think of turning a river into blood, that sounds a little gross, right?
The difference for Pharaoh was, it was his only source of water for everything he did.
Drinking water? It came from the Nile.
Taking a bath? In the Nile River.
Every part of life that required water, meant going to the Nile River.
Can you imagine taking a bath in a bunch of blood? Ugh!!!
The Nile River Plague
But there’s one more thing I think you would want to know.
God wasn’t just sending random plagues. He didn’t just randomly choose to the make the Nile River gross. He was showing his power over the ‘gods’ of Egypt.
Including the Nile River god.
The people of Egypt WORSHIPPED Hapi, god the Nile River. That’s right: the Egyptians had a made-up god that ruled over the Nile River.
(Teacher resource: Nile River Hymn )
Here was part of the song the Egyptians would sing to the Nile River:
Hail to thee, O Nile!
Thou showest thyself in this land,
Coming in pace, giving life to Egypt;
Pharaoh and the Egyptians worshipped and trusted in the Nile River god instead of God in Heaven!
They trusted and worshipped a god someone had made up!
Now it makes a little more sense to us why God turned the Nile River into blood. He was proving his power over Hapi, the supposed god of the Nile River.
He was proving his power over Hapi, the supposed god of the Nile River.
God sent a total of 10 plagues…each plague designed to prove His power over one of the Egyptian gods.
Does anyone remember what the second plague was? God sent frogs to cover the ground. When you looked down, all you saw was tons and tons of frogs! And guess what? The Egyptians had a frog god, named Heqet!
How silly does that sound? A frog god!
And to think they were worshipping and trusting in a frog god instead of trusting in the God of Heaven.
Like I said, in all there were 10 plagues that God sent on Egypt. Each one to prove His power over the Egyptian gods.
Some of the other plagues included, lice, flies, boils, hail and fire, and dead animals.
This was not pleasant stuff!
I want to tell you about one other plague before we finish up today.
The ninth plague was the plague of Darkness. In Exodus 10:21-23 God tells Moses to stretch out his hand over Egypt. When Moses did, darkness covered Egypt for 3 straight days.
This would be bad enough…not being able to see the hand in front of your face for 3 days!
But do you know what God was doing?
Do you know what God was doing?
He was directly challenging Pharaoh. Egyptians believed that the Pharaoh was a family member of the god Ra, who was the god of the Sun.
It’s like God was saying, “Pharaoh, you think you’re powerful? You think that you are a relative of this ‘Sun god’? Let me show you who the REAL sun God is.”
The plague of darkness was a direct challenge to Pharaoh himself. And Pharaoh could do nothing to stop it.
You see, all of Egypt trusted in gods someone had made up. They trusted in ideas and people. And all of those people and all of those things let them down.
What are you trusting in? Are you trusting in your stuff, or in your friends, or are you trusting in God?
There is only one safe place to put your trust: in the God who made heaven, earth and everything in them. Put your trust in Him today.
Plagues of Egypt Sunday School Activity
The people in Egypt had some pretty awful choices…like take a bath in the Nile River (which had turned to blood) or to not take a bath at all.
What would you choose!!??
Let’s consider some other choices and see what you would choose!
To play this game with a large group, instead of having everyone shout out an answer, have them move to different parts of the room based on their answer. For instance, if the options are green or blue, have everyone who chose green go stand by the table, and everyone who chose blue go stand by the wall.
Would you rather….
Visit the doctor or the dentist?
Eat broccoli or carrots?
Watch TV or listen to music?
Read a book or write a book?
Own a lizard or a snake?
Vacation at the beach or in the mountains?
Eat an apple or banana?
Have feet for hands or hands for feet?
Be invisible or a mind-reader?
Be hairy all over or completely bald?
Be really popular or really smart?
Go without TV or without fast food for the rest of your life?
Always be cold or hot?
Not be able to hear or not be able to see?
Be shorter or taller?
Wrestle a lion or fight a shark?
