The story of the Ten Plagues tells not only about Israel and Egypt, but also about all people. We are a sorry bunch. If we are doing the wrong thing, enslaving other human beings in the example from the Torah, we will not change our ways save by intimidation and/or punishment. Pharaoh refused to give ear to the complaints of the Hebrew people. He did not believe them when they told him that slavery was an intolerable position. He would not grant them their freedom except when the existence of his people was at stake, and even then tried to renege on his promise to free them when he saw opportunity to destroy them.
The story of Pharaoh has repeated so many times throughout history. In our own country the Civil War is the consequence of the reluctance of a people to pay heed to discussion and later admonition until finally war and bloodshed was the only method to left to force the Confederacy to give up on the idea of slavery. And, as evidenced by the words of Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi, they have not yet fully learned the consequences of their pre-Civil War practices.
Our jails and prisons are filled with people who just could not be persuaded without intimidation or punishment that what they proposed to do, and did, was just plain wrong. Our policemen carry guns because kind words usually do not work. People need plagues, man-made or otherwise, to move them from their nefarious plans.
Saddam Hussein and Osama ben Laden are just the two newest leaders who will never change their ways until against their will they are changed. They are people for whom a good word will never bring results. Indeed, those who have tried to talk peace with such men often have been assassinated. Nobody ever listened to them. The Hussein and ben Laden types are not very different from Pharaoh of Egypt. Only the source of plague is. Both plagues come from heaven, one from the hand of God and the other from B-1's and smart bombs. Both through destruction bring salutary change. Both are a testament to humankind that usually must meet with misfortune and killing and war in order to change.
The world and all of us would be so different if Pharaoh could have been persuaded by acts of kindness instead of acts of death.