Bible Commentaries

SECOND PLAGUE — FROGS, Exodus 8:1-15.

1. Go unto Pharaoh — The going we must think of as being from Goshen to Zoan, Pharaoh’s capital. Zoan we may suppose to be the scene of these interviews between prophet and king.

2. I will smite all thy borders with frogs — Several species of frogs are found in Egypt, and they are specially abundant in September, filling the lakes and ponds left by the retiring inundation. In the spawning season the waters are so filled with them that a bowl of water taken up almost anywhere will be found to contain tadpoles, yet there is no other instance of their becoming a plague to the inhabitants, although there are traditions of similar plagues in other countries. But a superhuman influence is here most evident. The frog is an amphibious animal, living in the water or in moist, marshy lands. For these animals, then, to leave the river and river banks, and swarm up into the cities, which were situated in the edge of the dry desert, into the very houses, and into the driest places in the houses, as the beds, kneading-troughs, and ovens, was a miraculous manifestation most striking and alarming. The atmosphere of Egypt is always remarkably dry, rain being very rare except on the seacoast, sothat usually a frog could live but a very short time in an Egyptian street or house. If, now, heavy clouds and rains accompanied this visitation, in order to enable the reptiles to live in the cities, as seems likely, the supernatural character of the infliction would be still more marked.

This was also in several ways a blow at the Egyptian idolatry. The judgment comes, as before, from the deified Nile, and comes in one of their sacred animals. The frog was an emblem of the great god Pthah, the tutelar god of Memphis, and the principal divinity of Lower Egypt, so that their protecting deity now became to the Memphites a loathsome abomination. Lepsius traces this form of idolatry to the most ancient nature worship of the land. Mariette has published a curious vignette from the monuments, representing king Seti offering two vases of wine to a frog enshrined in a small chapel. Brugsch also shows that in the district of Sah the Egyptians worshipped a goddess with a frog’s head, whom they called Heka.

3. Into thine house, and into thy bedchamber — The Egyptian house was built around a rectangular court, which was paved, and open to the sky, often containing trees, and generally a tank or fountain. See notes on Matthew, pp. 121 and 326. The poorer houses had only a basement story, or ground floor, but those of a better class had store rooms, offices, etc., in the basement, and above these were the parlours and sleeping chambers. There was often an additional story in one part on which was a terrace covered with an awning, or a light roof supported on columns, where the ladies of the family sat at work during the day, and where the master of the house took his, afternoon nap. See annexed cut. The reed-like columns with lotus capitals, and the disregard of perspective in showing the end of the house, are especially noticeable as illustrating Egyptian architecture and drawing.

Into thine ovens, and into thy kneading troughs — The Egyptian oven was a jar of clay, or a jar-like structure built up from the ground, about three feet high, and widening toward the bottom, there being a hole in the side for the extraction of the ashes. It was heated by making a fire within it, and the dough was spread on the inside and on the outside. The accompanying cuts, from a representation in a Theban tomb, illustrate the mode of kneading the dough, which was done both with hands and feet, and of carrying the cakes to the oven, which is now lighted.

8. Entreat the Lord — Pharaoh now, for the first time, owns the power of the Hebrews’ God. He has found an answer to his question, “Who is Jehovah?” Jehovah has come into his kitchen and into his bedchamber.

9. Glory over me — Rather, Appoint for me when, etc.: (Samaritan, Septuagint, Vulgate, Arabic versions.) Let Pharaoh set the time when the plague shall cease, and then shall he “know that there is none like Jehovah our God.”

13. Out of the villages — Literally, the courts; probably the open courts within the houses, described above.

14. And they gathered them together upon heaps — Literally, Heaps, heaps; vast heaps, or a multitude of heaps.

And the land stank — The stench of their great god Pthah went up to heaven, even from his own magnificent temple courts. The putrid corpses were piled upon his altars.

The author of the Book of Wisdom, who was probably an Egyptian Jew, says that God in these plagues “tormented them with their own abominations;” and as “they worshipped serpents void of reason and vile beasts,” he “sent a multitude of unreasonable beasts upon them in vengeance.” — Wisdom of Solomon 11:15.

THIRD PLAGUE — LICE, Exodus 8:16-19.

16. Smite the dust of the land, that it may become lice — The Hebrew word here rendered lice occurs only in the account of this miracle, and its meaning has been much disputed, many considering that the insect was a gnat or mosquito; but Josephus and the Rabbies all give the same rendering as our English version. The Septuagint has been erroneously supposed to establish this meaning, but its word, σχνιφες, may mean any small biting or stinging insect, whether winged or wingless. Modern travellers describe the louse as a great pest in Egypt; and Sir Samuel Baker, especially, speaks of the abundance of the vermin in almost Scripture language — “It is as though the very dust were turned into lice.”

This plague struck at the Egyptian idolatry less directly, but even more effectually, than either of the preceding. It made all the sacred animals, and the priests themselves, unclean, so as to cut off the worship in the temples. The priests were most scrupulously attentive to cleanliness, being always careful to have their linen garments fresh washed, scouring their drinking cups each day, bathing in cold water twice each day and twice each night, and shaving not only the head and beard, but the “whole body every other day, that no lice or other impure thing might adhere to them when engaged in the service of their gods.” (Herod., 2:37.) Think of these fastidiously cleanly servants swarming with lice, and finding their gods covered with them also! Thus the word of Moses smote every temple and every god in Egypt.

18. But they could not — Here the magicians are baffled, and they can imitate these signs no further. In this the gradual advance is to be noted, and also in the fact that the stroke is much more severe. The Egyptians could keep away from the bloody river; the frogs came upon their tables and beds; but the loathsome lice feasted on their bodies.

19. This is the finger of God — Rather, of the gods; for they did not mean to own Jehovah, but declared that this was a supernatural infliction from their own gods. This explained their failure to Pharaoh, and so his heart became yet more hardened.

FOURTH PLAGUE — SWARMS (OF FLIES,) Exodus 8:20-32.

20. Lo, he cometh forth to the water — To offer his morning worship on the bank of the river, as in Exodus 7:15. Jehovah’s message confronted him at the altar of his god.

21. Swarms of flies — The precise nature of this plague is doubtful. The word used, ערב, occurs only in this place and in the two psalms where this judgment is described, so that we get no aid in interpretation from parallel passages. The rendering of the Septuagint is dog-fly, an insect which in Egypt gives great annoyance to man and beast; and as the authority of that version is very high on Egyptian subjects, this is the most usual interpretation. These insects are described as coming in immense swarms, and settling in black masses on whatever part of the person of the traveller is exposed. Stuart Poole considers it to have been the domestic fly, which is now the most troublesome insect in Egypt. Hengstenberg quotes a traveller as saying: “Men and beasts are cruelly tormented by them. You can form no conception of their fury when they want to settle on any part of your body. You may drive them away, but they settle again immediately, and their obstinacy wearies out the most patient man.” The distress arising from ophthalmia, now so common in Egypt, is much aggravated by the swarms of flies. Others, as Adam Clarke, Wordsworth, Kurtz, following a Jewish tradition, consider this plague to have been swarms of all kinds of noxious insects, and the author of the Book of Wisdom seems to have supposed that there were beasts also. (Wisdom of Solomon 11:15-16, etc.) Swarming creatures of some kind, probably of various species of insects, so afflicted Pharaoh that he yielded more than ever before, and consented to allow the Israelites to go into the wilderness and sacrifice. Further than this we cannot yet affirm.

22. I will sever in that day the land of Goshen — Here also is now a marked advance, a more distinctive character in the judgment. The putrid Nile had afflicted Egypt and Israel alike; the frogs and the lice had been found, at least to some extent, in the land of Goshen; but henceforth the Israelitish province was to be protected from the inflictions that were to fall upon heathen Egypt. Here was to be a decisive proof of Jehovah’s supremacy, to the end thou mayest know that I am JEHOVAH. I will put a division (or deliverance) between my people and thy people — It is also to be considered, that while at the beginning of these inflictions the Israelites had been considerably scattered from Goshen throughout the land in the great public works, these successive judgments would have greatly hindered, if not by this time have totally suspended, the industrial activities of the nation. By this time there must have been a great national anxiety, and soon there was a general panic. Under these circumstances the Israelites would naturally gather together into their own province, and be no more mingled among the Egyptians. Thus this marked distinction in regard to Goshen would be now, perhaps, for the first time possible.

25. Go ye, sacrifice… in the land — Pharaoh now allows them to sacrifice, but insists that it shall be in Egypt.

26. The abomination of the Egyptians — The Egyptians would not allow them to worship in the land according to Jehovah’s will. Some, as Hengstenberg, understand the text to mean that the manner of their worship would be abominable to the Egyptians — that they would not observe the manifold rigid sacrificial regulations of the Egyptian priests, but the Targum of Onkelos translates, “the animal which the Egyptians worship,” that is, the ox, which as Apis and Mnevis was so specially adored. So the Vulgate renders, “the animals which the Egyptians worship.” This is a characteristic Hebrew phraseology. Idols are often styled “abominations” in the Old Testament. Thus, in 2 Kings 23:13, the god Chemosh is called “the abomination of Moab,” and Ashtoreth “the abomination of the Zidonians.” So the ox is here called “the abomination of the Egyptians,” not as abominated by them, not because it was abominable in their eyes to kill it, but because this worship of the ox was an abomination to Jehovah. This was doubtless bold language for Moses to use to Pharaoh, (styling his god an “abomination,”) but his boldness has greatly increased since he deprecated his stammering tongue, and the same spirit is seen in the pungent rebuke and exhortation of the twenty-ninth verse, “Let not Pharaoh deal deceitfully any more.”

The sacred bull was specially worshipped at Memphis, the great city of Lower Egypt, where he had palatial stalls and temples. In the above engraving the bull is crowned with a circle representing Ra, or the sun, and also wears on his forehead the asp, the symbol of majesty.

Will they not stone us — The animal-worship of the Egyptians is frequently dwelt upon by classical writers, so that it became a proverb that in Egypt it was easier to meet a god than a man. The text is well illustrated by the statement of Herodotus, that it was a capital crime in Egypt to kill one of the sacred animals; and Diodorus and Cicero relate that this was the case in their time. (Herod., 2:65; Cic., Tusc. Disp., 5:27; Diod., 1:83.) So modern Hinduism makes it a mortal sin to kill a cow. (Butler’s Land of the Veda, chap. 2.) The Egyptians, however, killed oxen for food, beef and goose being their chief meats. The same animals were not sacred through all Egypt, but each had his special district, and the ox or heifer, one of the animals specially designated for sacrifice in the Mosaic economy, was, as we have seen, particularly worshipped in the district where the Israelites dwelt. Apis was the sacred bull of Memphis, and Mnevis, second only in rank to Apis, and by Plutarch called his sire, was the sacred bull of Heliopolis. (Wilkinson’s Anc. Egypt, chap. iv,) and these were the two leading cities of Lower Egypt. Thus the fear expressed by Moses, “Will they not stone us?” is just what might have been expected in Egypt above all other lands, and in this district above all others of Egypt.