PLAGUE (נֶ֫גַע, H5596, מַכָּה, H4804, מַגֵּפָה, H4487; Gr. μαστιξ, lit. whip, scourge; πληγή, G4435, blow, plague). Plague is a highly contagious, deadly disease due to infection by Bacillus Pasteurella Pestis. Rats are the usual carriers of plague, and fleas the liaison agents that obtain the bacilli from rats and infect human beings. The incubation period is from one to six days. When symptoms appear, the ensuing progress is rapid, with severe fever, chills, septicemia, pneumonia, buboes, mental deterioration and death—all within a period of about three days.

Plague occurred frequently in Egypt during the years b.c., and was also fairly common in Pal., esp. in Philistia, along the seacoast. Terrible outbreaks also occurred in Asia and Europe. In the 14th cent., plague, called Black Death, swept across Europe and killed an estimated 25,000,000 people, or one-fourth of the entire population. Even as late as 1907, 1,316,892 persons were reported from world-wide sources as having died from plague.

In the years before modern medicine, there was no known cure for plague. People did learn, however, that if rodents were drastically controlled, and fleas were discouraged by cleanliness, the spread of plague could be slowed down. Today there are medicines that usually cure the infected person if given promptly after symptoms first appear. Furthermore, vaccines are effective.

In Leviticus 13 and 14 (KJV) the word plague is used loosely for almost any kind of skin rash. It was the duty of the priests to determine whether the condition was relatively harmless, or required isolation.

The ten plagues in Egypt did not include plague as a disease entity. Attempts have been made to show that these plagues were really accentuated but otherwise normal phenomena to the Egyptians. Thus the bloody Nile is said to have received its appearance from an exceptionally large content of red clay silt, and that the three days of total darkness were only blinding dust storms. It is more reasonable to accept the record of the visitations as just plain miracles.

The horrible plagues experienced by the Hebrews during their Sinai Desert journey (Num 14:37; 16:47; 25:9) could well have been plague in its true medical sense.

When the Ark was returned from Ashdod and other Philistine cities, after the inhabitants had suffered many deaths, probably due to plague, gold mice and tumors were presented to the Hebrews (1 Sam 5). The Heb. word for mice and rats is considered to be the same, and the tumors could well have been representative of the enlarged glands, or buboes, observed in plague.

Note that in Mark 3:10 (KJV) plague is used as a synonym for diseases.