Scholars have interpreted the account of the ten plagues in the book of Exodus with reference to ancient Egyptian ecology, by theorizing that the plagues are structured as a polemic against the Egyptian pantheon, and in various other ways. Ziony Zevit argues instead that the best explanation comes from within the biblical text, and that the ten plagues are meant as a mirror-image of the creation story:
At the end of the narrative in Exodus, Israel looks back over the stilled water of the sea at a land with no people, no animals, and no vegetation, a land in which creation had been undone. Israel is convinced that her redeemer is the Lord of all creation. It is this implicit theological principle that motivated the explicit creation of the literary pattern [connecting the ten plagues to the creation story]. He who had just reduced order to chaos was the same as He who had previously ordered the chaos.
One question still remains. What is the significance of the number ten in the Exodus tradition? Why ten plagues? The answer, I believe, is clear. The number of plagues in Exodus was meant to correspond to the ten divine utterances by which the world was created and ordered. The destruction of Egypt was part of the redemption of Israel, so the Exodus narrator tied his story of redemption to the story of creation through subtle echoes and word plays.
Read more on Bible History Daily: http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/exodus/exodus-in-the-bible-and-the-egyptian-plagues/