Squid Game has parallels to several Biblical Stories

Squid Game Takeaways

My grandchildren and I just finished watching Squid Game, a three-season South Korean television series. The 2021–2024 Netflix episodes revolve around 456 impoverished men and women being recruited to play violent games in the hopes of being the grand winner.

Initially, I found the series graphic but realized the Bible has bloody accounts like the 70 sons of Ahab being beheaded and their heads placed in baskets and a king's thumbs and big toes cut off. I realized that I read about violence in scripture all the time. The Netflix series just put it in front of me in living color.

Takeaways from films and television series vary from person to person. I liken it to looking up at a cloud. Six different people may have six varied interpretations of the shapes they see in the sky.

All for the sake of a baby

In the final Squid Game season, I found parallels with Bible stories I read as a child. Kim-Jun-hee (Jo Yu-ri) was Player 222, who gave birth to a daughter in the midst of the madness. CGI and a robot were used to portray the infant until the final scene, when a real baby was utilized.

Han Mi-nyeo (Kim Joo-ryeong), player 212, delivered Kim's baby. She encouraged the new mother to eat and not give up, and was the first to say that the baby was most important.

After Kim fell to her death from a jump rope game on a bridge, her daughter was given her number 222 and considered a player, which outraged others in the game. The VIPs thought this was a strategic move.

Protecting babies from danger

Lee Jung Jae (Seong Gi Hun), number 456, had been the winner of a previous Squid Game. He returned because you can compete as often as you like. In season three, he was tasked with watching Jun-ee's daughter.

He made it to the other side of the bridge with the baby before her mother tried to cross with an injured leg and fell. Near the end of the final game, five of the six men who had survived discussed sacrificing the baby. Jae held the infant close in a makeshift harness around his shoulders and chest.

He refused to sacrifice the child because he and her mother had discussed that her survival was most important. As Jae and the child go from one dangerous situation to the next, I thought of the story of Moses in Exodus chapter 2.

Saving the child at all costs

Pharaoh had decreed that all Hebrew baby boys must die. His soldiers went throughout the land of Goshen, murdering Hebrew babies. With death and grieving mothers everywhere, Jacabed hid her son in a basket in the water, where he was found by Pharaoh's daughter and raised in the palace as a Prince.

In Squid Game, there were masked VIPs watching the activities proceed. They expressed no sympathy for a newborn and were expecting her to be sacrificed due to human greed.

I thought of Mary and Joseph in Matthew chapter 2, who fled to Egypt with baby Jesus to escape King Herod, who had decreed that all baby boys age 2 and under should be slaughtered.

Moses and Jesus were spared the fate of the other baby boys. The Squid Game infant was spared in the end. The VIPs expected Lee Jung Jae to kill the child and save himself.

Sacrificing so others may live

I thought of Satan tempting Jesus in the wilderness (Luke chapter 4) and offering him the world's riches if He would serve him. Just as Jesus refused the devil, Jae refused to take the billions of dollars in winnings and proved the elite wrong.

In an act of selflessness, Jae fell backward from the platform on which he was standing. With arms stretched wide, he chose death and set the baby girl free.

The VIPs were stunned at the selfless act that they could not comprehend. The Bible says in Matthew 27 that Jesus, with His arms stretched wide and nailed to the cross, died in a selfless act so that humanity might live.

If you are a Squid Game fan, consider watching again and see what parallels you may notice that correspond with your own life. If you have never seen the Netflix series, consider watching it while it's still available and do the same.