John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible.

John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible.

John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible.

Exodus 5:1



INTRODUCTION TO EXODUS 5



Moses and Aaron go in to Pharaoh, and desire leave for the children of Israel to go into the wilderness three days' journey, to sacrifice to the Lord, and are answered in a very churlish and atheistical manner, and are charged with making the people idle, the consequence of which was, the taskmasters had orders, to make their work more heavy and toilsome, Ex 5:1 which orders were executed with severity by them, Ex 5:10, upon which the officers of the children of Israel complained to Pharaoh, but to no purpose, Ex 5:14, and meeting with Moses and Aaron, lay the blame upon them, Ex 5:20, which sends Moses to the Lord to expostulate with him about it, Ex 5:22.



Ver. 1. And afterwards Moses and Aaron went in, and told Pharaoh,.... Whose name, some say, was Cenchres, others Amenophis, according to Manetho and Chaeremon {h}; See Gill on "Ex 3:10" went into Pharaoh's palace, and being introduced by the proper officer at court for that purpose, addressed him in the following manner:



thus saith the Lord God of Israel: as ambassadors of him, who is King of kings, and Lord of lords; and so Artapanus {i}, the Heathen, says that the Egyptian king, hearing that Moses was come, sent for him to know wherefore he was come, who told him, that the Lord of the world commanded him to let the Jews go, as it follows here:



let my people go, that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness; in the wilderness of Sinai or Arabia, at Horeb there, where they might keep it more freely and safely, without being disturbed by the Egyptians, and without giving any offence to them; and the demand is just; they were the people of God, and therefore he claims them, and service from them was due to him; and Pharaoh had no right to detain them, and what is required was but their reasonable service they owed to their God. This feast was to be held, not for themselves, but to God, which chiefly consisted in offering sacrifice, as is after explained; the entire dismission of them is not at once demanded, only to go a little while into the wilderness, and keep a feast there to the Lord; though it was not intended they should return, but it was put in this form to try Pharaoh, and that he might be the more inexcusable in refusing to grant what was so reasonable.



{h} Apud Joseph. contr. Apion. l. 1. c. 26. 32. {i} Apud Euseb. Praepar. Evangel. l. 9. c. 27. p. 434.





Exodus 5:2



Ver. 2. And Pharaoh said, who is the Lord,.... Jehovah, they made mention of, which, whether he took it for the name of a deity, or of a king, whose ambassadors they declared themselves to be, was a name he had never heard of before; and this being expressed and pronounced, shows that this name is not ineffable, or unlawful to be pronounced, as say the Jews:



that I should obey his voice, to let Israel go? he knew of no superior monarch to him, whose orders he was obliged to obey in any respect, and particularly in this, the dismission of the people of Israel out of his land, though it was but for a short time:



I know not the Lord; who this Jehovah is, that made this demand, and required Israel's dismission. The Targum of Jonathan paraphrases it,



"I have not found the name of Jehovah written in the book of angels, I am not afraid of him.''



An Egyptian book, in which, the paraphrast supposes, were written the names of gods and of angels; and no such name being there, he was the more bold and insolent:



neither will I let Israel go; determining he would pay no regard to such an unknown Deity, or King, be he who he would.





Exodus 5:3



Ver. 3. And they said, the God of the Hebrews hath met with us,.... Perceiving that the name Jehovah was unknown to him, and treated by him in a scornful manner, they leave it out, and only say, "the God of the Hebrews": a people that dwelt in his country, he well knew by this name, and could not be ignorant that their God was different from his; and it was he that had met Moses and Aaron; they did not seek to him to be sent on this errand, but he appeared to them as he did to Moses at Horeb, and to Aaron in Egypt. Some render it, "the God of the Hebrews is called upon us" {f}; his name was called upon them, or they were called by his name; they were his servants and worshippers, and therefore under obligation to attend to what he enjoined them:



let us go, we pray thee, three days' journey into the desert: a request which was made in a very humble and modest manner, and not at all extravagant, nor anything dangerous and disadvantageous to him; for now they speak as of themselves, and therefore humbly entreat him; they do not ask to be wholly and for ever set free, only to go for three days; they do not propose to meet and have their rendezvous in any part of his country, much less in his metropolis, where he night fear they would rise in a body, and seize upon his person and treasure, only to go into the wilderness, to Mount Sinai there. And hence it appears, that the distance between Egypt and Mount Sinai was three days' journey, to go the straightest way, as Aben Ezra observes:



and sacrifice unto the Lord our God: which is what was meant by keeping a feast; some sacrifices the people, as well as the priests, feasted on; this was not a civil, but a religious concern:



lest he fall upon us with pestilence, or with the sword: this they urge as a reason to have their request granted, taken from the danger they should be exposed unto, should they not be allowed to go and offer sacrifice to God; though by this they might suggest both loss and danger to Pharaoh, in order to stir him up the more to listen to their request; for should they be smitten with pestilence, or the sword, he would lose the benefit of their bond service, which would be a considerable decline in his revenues; and besides, if God would be so displeased with the Israelites for not going, and not sacrificing, when they were detained, how much more displeased would he be with Pharaoh and the Egyptians for hindering them?



{f} wnyle arqn "est invocatus super nos", Montanus. So some in Vatablus, Drusius.





Exodus 5:4



Ver. 4. And the king of Egypt said to them,.... For he was not struck dumb, as Artapanus {g}, afore cited writer, says:



wherefore do ye, Moses and Aaron, let the people from their works? as they did when they gathered them together, and wrought signs before them; which Pharaoh it seems had heard of, and had got their names very readily:



get you unto your burdens; meaning not Moses and Aaron, ordering them to go about their private and family business, but the people they represented, and on whose account they came; and it is highly probable the elders of the people, at least some of them, were with them, to whom these words might be more particularly directed. See Ex 3:18.



{g} Ut supra. (Apud Euseb. Praepar. Evangel. l. 9. c. 27. p. 434.)





Exodus 5:5



Ver. 5. And Pharaoh said, behold, the people of the land now are many,.... So that if some were taken off, as suggested, there were enough of them to do business and so he cared not; but if allowed to go, they might mutiny and rebel, and give a great deal of trouble to quell them; or it may be, the sense is, they were very numerous, and too numerous already, and if they were took off of their work, and allowed to go a feasting, they would be more so, which agrees with the next clause:



and you make them rest from their burdens; which was the way to make them more numerous still, and to frustrate the design of laying burdens upon them, which was originally intended to hinder the multiplication of them, Ex 1:9.





Exodus 5:6



Ver. 6. And Pharaoh commanded the same day the taskmasters of the people,.... Who were Egyptians, and whom Pharaoh sent for the same day, to give them orders to oppress them yet more and more, so far was he from complying with their request:



[and] their officers; who were Israelites, and were under the taskmasters, and accountable to them for each man's work that they had the inspection and care of:



saying, as follows.





Exodus 5:7



Ver. 7. Ye shall no more give the people straw to make brick,.... Whether this was given and used to mix with the clay, as is done in some places {h}, that the bricks made thereof might be firmer and stronger, or to burn them with in the furnaces, or to cover them from the heat of the sun, that they might not dry too soon and crack, is not easy to determine; though it is said that the unburnt bricks of Egypt formerly were, and still are made of clay mixed with straw. The Egyptian pyramid of unburnt brick, Dr. Pococke {i} observes, seems to be made of the earth brought by the Nile, being of a sandy black earth, with some pebbles and shells in it; it is mixed up with chopped straw, in order to bind the clay together, as they now make unburnt bricks in Egypt, and many other eastern parts, which they use very much in their buildings. He says he found some of these bricks (of the pyramid) thirteen inches and a half long, six inches and a half broad, and four inches thick; and others fifteen inches long, seven broad, and four inches three quarters thick. But be the straw for what use it will, it had been dealt out to them by proper persons to be used in one way or another; but now it was forbidden to be given them,



as heretofore it had been done:



let them go and gather straw for themselves; out of the fields where it lay, after the corn had been reaped and gathered in, or in barns, where it had been threshed; to do which must take up a good deal of their time, and especially if the straw lay at any distance, or was hard to be come at.



{h} Vide Vitruvium de Architectura, l. 2. c. 3. p. 46. & Philander in ib. {i} Observations on Egypt, p. 53.





Exodus 5:8



Ver. 8. And the tale of the bricks, which they did make heretofore, you shall lay upon them,.... Oblige them to make and bring in the same number of bricks they used to do, when straw was brought to them and given them; by which it appears, that their daily task was such a number of bricks:



you shall not diminish ought thereof; not make any abatement of the number of bricks, in consideration of their loss of time and their labour in going to fetch straw from other places:



for they be idle; and want to be indulged in a lazy disposition, which ought by no means to be connived at:



therefore they cry, let us go and sacrifice to our God; suggesting, that this request and cry of theirs did not proceed from a religious principle, or the great veneration they had for their God, but from the sloth and idleness they were addicted to.





Exodus 5:9



Ver. 9. Let there more work be laid upon the men,.... Instead of lessening it, let it be increased, or "be heavy" {k} upon them, that it may oppress and afflict them and keep them down, and weaken their strength and their spirits, and diminish them:



that they may labour therein; and have no leisure time to spend in idleness and sloth:



and let them not regard vain words; or "words of falsehood" {l} and lies, such as were spoken by Moses and Aaron, promising them liberty and deliverance from their bondage, which he was determined never to grant, and so eventually make such words to appear to be vain and empty, falsehood and lies.



{k} dbkt "aggravetur", Pagninus, Montanus, &c. {l} yrbdb "in verbis mendacii", Pagninus, Montanus, Vatablus. "Verbis falsis", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator.





Exodus 5:10



Ver. 10. And the taskmasters of the people went out,.... From the presence of Pharaoh, out of his court, to the respective places where they were set to see that the Israelites did their work:



and their officers; the officers of the Israelites, who were under the taskmasters, and answerable to them for the work of the people, and their tale of bricks:



and they spake to the people, saying, thus saith Pharaoh, I will not give you straw; that is, any longer, as he had used to do.





Exodus 5:11



Ver. 11. Go ye, get ye straw, where you can find it,.... Before it was provided by the king, and brought to the brickkilns, but now they are bid to go and fetch it themselves, and get it where they could, whether in fields or barns; and if they were obliged to pay for it out of their labour; it was a greater oppression still:



yet not ought of your work shall be diminished; they were to do the same work, and make the same number of bricks, as when straw was brought and given them; and no allowance made for waste of time in seeking, or expenses in procuring straw, which was very hard upon them.





Exodus 5:12



Ver. 12. So the people were scattered abroad throughout all the land of Egypt,.... That part of it where they dwelt:



to gather stubble instead of straw; straw not being easy to come at, they were obliged to gather stubble that was left in the fields, after the corn was gathered in. Ben Melech observes, that the word signifies small straw, or small sticks of wood, and Kimchi {m}, and if so, this must be to burn the bricks with in the furnaces.



{m} Sepher Shorash, rad. vvq.





Exodus 5:13



Ver. 13. And the taskmasters hasted them, Kept them tight and close to their work, and were urgent on them to make quick dispatch of it:



saying, fulfil your works, [your] daily tasks, as when there was straw; they insisted upon it, that they did the same business at the brickkilns, made the same number of bricks every day, as they used to do when they had straw at hand. See Ex 5:11.





Exodus 5:14



Ver. 14. And the officers of the children of Israel, which Pharaoh's taskmasters had set over them,.... This makes it clear, not only that the taskmasters and officers were different persons, but that the one were Egyptians appointed by Pharaoh, and the other were Israelites, of the better sort of them, who were set over the poorer sort by the taskmasters, to look after them, and take an account of their work, and the tale of their bricks, and give it in to the taskmasters; now these



were beaten by the taskmasters, either with a cane, stick, or cudgel, or with whips and scourges, because there was a deficiency in their accounts, and the full tale of bricks was not given in:



[and] demanded, wherefore have ye not fulfilled your task in making brick, both yesterday and today, as heretofore? the first day they were deficient they took no notice of it, did not call them to an account for it, but this being the case the second day, they not only expostulated with them about it, but beat them for it, which was hard usage. They had no need to ask them the reason of it, which they knew very well, and must be sensible that the men could not do the same work, and be obliged to spend part of their time in going about for straw or stubble; or the same number of men make the same tale of bricks, when some of them were employed to get straw for the rest, and to beat those officers for a deficiency through such means was cruel.





Exodus 5:15



Ver. 15. Then the officers of the children of Israel came and cried unto Pharaoh,.... Made their complaints to him, perhaps with tears in their eyes, being used so very ill. They little thought it was by Pharaoh's orders; they supposed he knew nothing of it, and therefore hoped to have their grievances redressed by him, but were mistaken:



saying, wherefore dealest thou thus with thy servants? so they call themselves, they living in his country, and being under his jurisdiction, though not properly his subjects; however, he had made them his slaves, and so indeed even bondservants.





Exodus 5:16



Ver. 16. There is no straw given unto thy servants,.... As used to be, which they supposed Pharaoh knew nothing of, and by which it appears that the order given by Pharaoh, Ex 5:6 was not given in the hearing of the officers, only to the taskmasters, and by them to be made known to the officers, though indeed both are there mentioned, and both represent this to the people, Ex 5:10



and they say to us, make brick, though they had no straw to make or burn it with:



and, behold, thy servants are beaten; because the same number of bricks is not made as heretofore, but the fault is in thine own people; the taskmasters, who sent the people abroad to get straw or stubble themselves, and therefore could not make the same bricks as before; or "thy people sin" {n}, the guilt is theirs: or by thy people are meant the Israelites, whom they call Pharaoh's people to gain favour with him; and then the sense is, either "sin" is imputed "to thy people" {o}, the blame is laid upon them, or punishment is inflicted on them without cause, sin being often put for punishment; they are wrongfully charged with a fault, and wrongfully punished.



{n} Kme tajxw "et peccat populus tuns", Montanus, Drusius, Cartwright. {o} So Vatablus, Piscator, and some in Munster, Pagninus.





Exodus 5:17



Ver. 17. But he said, ye are idle, ye are idle,.... Instead of expressing indignation at the taskmasters, and relieving the officers and the people, he insults them in a flouting sarcastic way, charging them with sloth and idleness; and which, for the certainty of it, or, however, to show how strongly persuaded and fully assured he was of the truth of it, repeats it, and gives the following as a proof of it,



therefore ye say, let us go and do sacrifice to the Lord; suggesting that it was not so much the service and honour of God they regarded, as that they might have a leisure day from work and labour.





Exodus 5:18



Ver. 18. Go therefore now, and work,.... Go about your business, attend to your work, even you officers, as well as your people; work yourselves, as well as see that your people do theirs, and do not trouble me with such impertinent applications:



for there shall no straw be given you, yet shall ye deliver the tale of bricks; the usual number of bricks, as the Vulgate Latin version has it; though in Ex 5:8, it is rendered in that version the measure of bricks, and so another word is translated by them, Ex 5:14, and perhaps both may be intended, both number and measure; that is, that it was expected and insisted on that they delivered the full number of bricks they used to make, and these of full measure; for bricks were made of different measures, as Vitruvius {p} observes; some among the bricks were of two hands' breadth, others of four, and a third sort of five. See Gill on "Ex 5:7".



{p} Ut supra. (Vide Vitruvium de Architectura, l. 2. c. 3. p. 46)





Exodus 5:19



Ver. 19. And the officers of the children of Israel did see that they were in evil case,.... In a bad condition and circumstances, and that there was no likelihood of their getting out of them, since Pharaoh treated them after this manner; they saw not only that the common people were in a bad condition, in great bondage, misery, and distress, to be obliged to get straw to make brick, and carry in their full tale as before; but that they themselves were in a bad situation, since for the deficiency in their people they were like to be beaten for it from time to time:



after it was said, ye shall not minish ought from your bricks of your daily task; after this had been said and confirmed by Pharaoh, they had no hope of things being better with them, but looked upon their unhappy lot as irretrievable.





Exodus 5:20



Ver. 20. And they met Moses and Aaron,.... The officers of the children of Israel, who had been with their complaints to Pharaoh:



who stood in the way as they came forth from Pharaoh; they, had placed themselves in a proper situation, that they might meet them when they came out, and know what success they had, and which they were extremely desirous of hearing; by which they might judge in what temper Pharaoh was, and what they might for the future expect from him in consequence of their embassy.





Exodus 5:21



Ver. 21. And they said unto them, the Lord look upon you and judge,.... Or, "will look upon you and judge" {q}; and so it is either a prediction of what would be done to them, or an imprecation on them that God would take notice of their conduct, and punish them, or at least chastise them for acting the part they had, if not wickedly, yet imprudently:



because you have made our savour to be abhorred in the eyes of Pharaoh; or to "stink" {r}; they were become vile, abominable, and hateful to him, he could not bear the sight of them, and treated them as the filth and offscouring of all things; they had lost their good name, credit, and reputation with him; for leave being asked for them to go three days' journey into the wilderness, to offer sacrifice, and keep a feast, they were looked upon as a parcel of idle slothful fellows:



and in the eyes of his servants; not the taskmasters only, but his nobles, counsellors, and courtiers:



to put a sword in their hands to slay us; a proverbial expression, signifying that they by their conduct had exposed them to the utmost danger, and had given their enemies an occasion against them, and an opportunity of destroying their whole nation, under a pretence of disobedience and disloyalty.



{q} jwpvyw-ary "videbit" "et judicabit", Rivet. {r} Mtvabh "fecisti foetere", V. L. Pagninus, Montanus, Tigurine version, Drusius.





Exodus 5:22



Ver. 22. And Moses returned unto the Lord,.... Bishop Patrick thinks, that this not only intimates that the Lord had appeared to Moses since he came into Egypt, but that there was some settled place where he appeared, and where he might resort to him on all occasions, and therefore is said to return to him; though it may signify no more, than that, instead of staying to give an answer to the officers, which he might be at a loss to do, he went to God, to the throne of grace, by prayer, as he was wont to do in cases of difficulty:



and said, Lord, wherefore hast thou so evil entreated this people? or afflicted them, and suffered them to be thus afflicted; which to ascribe to God was right, whatever were the means or instruments; for all afflictions are of him, and who has always wise reasons for what he does, as he now had; to try the faith and patience of his people; to make the Egyptians more odious to them, and so take them off from following their manners, customs, rites, and superstitions, and make them more desirous of departing from thence to the land of Canaan, nor seek a return to Egypt again; and that his vengeance on the Egyptians for such cruelty and inhumanity might appear the more just, and his power might be seen in the plagues he inflicted on them, and in the deliverance of his people when reduced to the utmost extremity:



why is it that thou hast sent me? he seems to wish he had never been sent, and could be glad to be recalled, something of the same disposition still remaining in him as when first called; since no end was answered by his mission, no deliverance wrought, yea, the people were more afflicted and oppressed than before; and therefore he was at a loss how to account for it that he should be sent at all, seeing nothing came of it to the good of the people.





Exodus 5:23



Ver. 23. For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in thy name,.... Had he come in his own name, it needed not be wondered at if he should not succeed, but coming in the name of God, it might have been expected he would, and that Pharaoh would have been prevailed upon, or obliged to use the people well, and let them go; but instead of that,



he hath done evil to this people; afflicted and oppressed them more than ever: see Ex 5:7, &c.



neither hast thou delivered thy people at all; there was not the least thing done towards their deliverance, their affliction was not at all mitigated, but increased: Moses expected that God would have made a beginning as soon as he had delivered his message to Pharaoh; that his mind would have been disposed in favour of the people, and he would have made their bondage lighter and easier, if he did not dismiss them at once; but, instead of that, more work was laid upon them, and their burdens were heavier: now this was a stumbling and a temptation to Moses, to wish he had never been sent; but if he had called to mind, which he seems to have forgotten, that Pharaoh would not let the people go at first, until all the wonders were wrought he had given him power to do, Ex 4:2 it would have relieved him, and removed his objections, and put a stop to his expostulation with God, who gives an answer to them in the following chapter, without expressing any displeasure at them.

 

John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible.

Exodus 6:1



INTRODUCTION TO EXODUS 6



The Lord encourages Moses to hope for success from his name Jehovah, and the covenant he had made with the fathers of his people, Ex 6:1, orders him to assure the children of Israel that he would deliver them from their bondage and burdens, and bring them into the land of Canaan; but through their distress and anguish they hearkened not to him, Ex 6:6 but Moses is sent again to Pharaoh to demand the dismission of Israel, to which he seems unwilling, and both he and Aaron are charged both to go to the children of Israel, and to Pharaoh, Ex 6:10, next follows a genealogy of the tribes of Reuben, Simeon, and Levi, which seems to be given for the sake of Moses and Aaron, and to show their descent, Ex 6:14, who were the persons appointed of God to be the instruments of bringing the children of Israel out of Egypt, Ex 6:26.



Ver. 1. Then the Lord said unto Moses,.... In answer to the questions put to him, and the expostulations made with him:



now shalt thou see what I will do to Pharaoh: in inflicting punishments on him: for with a strong hand shall he let them go; being forced to it by the mighty hand of God upon him; and it is by some rendered, "because of a strong hand" {s}; so Jarchi; for this is not to be understood of the hand of Pharaoh, but of the hand of God:



and with a strong hand shall he drive them out of his land: not only be willing that they should go, but be urgent upon them to be gone,

Ex 12:33.



{s} hqzx dyb "propter manum validam"; so some in Drusius.





Exodus 6:2



Ver. 2. And God spake unto Moses, and said unto him, I am the Lord. Or Jehovah, the self-existent Being, the Being of beings, the everlasting I am, the unchangeable Jehovah, true, firm, and constant to his promises, ever to be believed, and always to be depended on.





Exodus 6:3



Ver. 3. And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by [the name] of God Almighty,.... Able to fulfil all his purposes, promises, and covenant, with whom nothing is impossible; or Elshaddai, God all-sufficient, who has a sufficiency of happiness in himself, and everything to supply the wants of his creatures in things temporal and spiritual, see Ge 17:1:



but by my name Jehovah was I not known to them; which he had in the preceding verse called himself by. This is not to be understood absolutely; for it is certain that he had made himself known by this name, and this name was known unto Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,

Ge 15:6, and but comparatively, as some think; that is, he was not so much made known to them by the one name as the other; though it may be questioned whether the one was more used in speaking to them than the other; wherefore others think, as Saadiah Gaon, that the word only is to be supplied, as in Ge 32:28 and the sense to be, that by his name Jehovah he was not only made known to them, but by his name Elshaddai, and others also; and others reconcile the difficulty thus, that though the name Jehovah itself was known to the patriarchs, by which they were assured that God is eternal, immutable, and faithful to his promises; yet he was not known as to the efficacy of this name, or with respect to the actual performance of his promise, as he now would be by delivering the children of Israel out of Egypt, and bringing them into the land of Canaan; though perhaps, by reading the words with an interrogation, the clause will appear more plain, "and by my name Jehovah was I not known to them?" {t} verily I was. Josephus {u} says, this name was not before made known to men, and that it was not lawful for a man to speak it; and this is the common notion of the Jews, that it is ineffable, and not lawful to be pronounced, and therefore they put Adonai and Elohim in the room of it, and the vowel points of these words to it, which is a false and superstitious notion: this name was known among the Heathens; it is the same with iaw in the oracle of Apollo {w}; and Diodorus Siculus {x} says, that with the Jews Moses is said to give laws from a God called "IAO", and is the same which in Philo Byblius {y} is called Jevo; and both are no other than a corruption of Jah or Jehovah; and perhaps the tetraktuv of the Pythagoreans {z}, by which they swore, is the same with the tetragrammaton, or this word of four letters, with the Jews.



{t} Vid. Noldium, No. 788. {u} Antiqu. l. 2. c. 12. sect. 4. {w} Cornelius Labeo de oraculo Apoll. Clarii apud Macrob. Saturnal. l. 1. c. 18. {x} Bibliothoc. l. 1. p. 84. {y} Apud Euseb. Praepar. Evangel. l. 1. c. 9. p. 31. {z} Carmin. Aurea Pythagor. l. 47. & Hierocles in ib. p. 225, 277. Porphyr. de Vita Pythagor. p. 189.





Exodus 6:4



Ver. 4. And I have also established my covenant with them,.... With Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and with their posterity, so that it is sure and firm, and shall never be made null and void:



to give them the land of Canaan; or to their children, which were as themselves:



the land of their pilgrimage, wherein they were strangers; not being in actual possession of any part of it, but lived as pilgrims and strangers in it, as their posterity now did in another land not theirs; see Heb 11:9.





Exodus 6:5



Ver. 5. And I have also heard the groaning of the children of Israel,.... For the Lord is not only the eternal and immutable Being in his purposes and promises, and a covenant keeping God; but he is compassionate and merciful, and sympathizes with his people in all their afflictions; he takes notice of their sighs and groans, as he now did those of his people in Egypt:



whom the Egyptians keep in bondage; and which was the reason of their groaning; their bondage being so hard and rigorous, in which they were detained by Pharaoh, who refused to let them go, though Moses in the name of the Lord had required him to do it:



and I have remembered my covenant; concerning bringing them out of Egypt into the land of Canaan, which he would quickly do, and thereby make it appear he was mindful of his covenant, which is indeed never forgotten by him, though it may seem to be.





Exodus 6:6



Ver. 6. Wherefore say unto the children of Israel, I am the Lord,.... Eternal in his being, immutable in his counsels, faithful to his covenant, and able to fulfil it;



and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians; which lay heavy on them, and made them sigh and groan:



and I will rid you out of their bondage; in which they were kept, and by which their lives were made bitter:



and I will redeem you with a stretched out arm; with an arm stretched out from heaven to earth, as Aben Ezra expresses it; even by the exertion of his almighty power, openly and manifestly displayed in the lighting down of his arm upon the enemies of his people, and in delivering them out of their hands:



and with great judgments; upon the Egyptians, by many and sore plagues and punishments inflicted on them.





Exodus 6:7



Ver. 7. And I will take you to me for a people,.... Out of the hands of the Egyptians, and out of their country, to be in a political sense his kingdom and subjects; and in a religious sense a holy people to himself, to fear, serve, worship, and glorify him, by walking according to laws and rules given them by him; and this he did by setting up and establishing a civil and ecclesiastical polity among them:



and I will be to you a God; their King and their God to rule over them, protect and defend them, they being a theocracy; and their covenant God and Father, giving them various spiritual privileges, the adoption, the glory, the covenant, the law, service, and promises:



and ye shall know that I am the Lord your God; by the promises fulfilled, the favours granted, and the deliverances wrought for them:



which bringeth you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians; see the preceding verse Ex 6:6.





Exodus 6:8



Ver. 8. And I will bring you in unto the land,.... The land of Canaan:



concerning the which I did swear; or lift up my hand {a}, which was a gesture used in swearing, Ge 14:22



to give it to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob; see Ex 6:4:



and I will give it you for an heritage; to be possessed as an inheritance by them, so long as they were obedient to his will, or until the Messiah came:



I am the Lord; whose counsels of old are faithfulness and truth; whose promises are yea and amen; whose gifts and calling are without repentance; and who is able also to perform whatever he has said he will do.



{a} ydy ta ytavn "levavi manum meam", Pagninus, Montanus, Munster.





Exodus 6:9



Ver. 9. And Moses spake so unto the children of Israel,.... After this manner, and in the above words, declaring all that the Lord made known to him, and promised to do for them; which one would have thought would have revived their spirits, and refreshed and comforted their hearts under their troubles, and encouraged a lively exercise of faith and hope of deliverance:



but they hearkened not unto Moses; being disappointed of deliverance by him, and their afflictions being increased, and lying heavy upon them, they were heartless and hopeless;



for anguish of spirit; trouble of mind and grief of heart, with which they were swallowed up; or "for shortness of breath" {b}, being so pressed that they could hardly breathe, and so were incapable of attending to what was spoken to them:



and for cruel bondage; under which they laboured, and from which they had scarce any respite, and saw no way of deliverance from it.



{b} xwr ruqm "ob brevem anhelitum", Munster.





Exodus 6:10



Ver. 10. And the Lord spake unto Moses,.... At another time, and renewed his orders to him to go again to Pharaoh, and require their dismission:



saying; as follows:





Exodus 6:11



Ver. 11. Go in,.... Into Pharaoh's palace, and into his presence, to whom access seems not to be very difficult; and perhaps access to princes was not attended with so much ceremony then as it now is:



speak unto Pharaoh king of Egypt; though a king, and a king of so large a country as Egypt, yet do not be afraid to speak to him; speak to him plainly and boldly, not in a supplicatory, but in an authoritative way, in the name of the King of kings:



that he let the children of Israel go out of his land; this demand had been made before, but was rejected with an haughty air, and now it is repeated, before the Lord proceeds to punish him for his disobedience, that his judgments upon him might appear more manifestly to be just and right.





Exodus 6:12



Ver. 12. And Moses spake before the Lord,.... Who appeared in a visible form, and had spoke to him with an articulate voice, and before whom Moses stood, and made the following reply:



saying, behold, the children of Israel have not hearkened unto me; even though he brought a comfortable message to them from the Lord, and delivered many gracious promises of his to them, assuring them of deliverance out of Egypt, and of their possession of the land of Canaan:



how then shall Pharaoh hear me? making a demand upon him to part with a people, from whose labour he receives so much advantage, and has such an addition to his revenues, and who is a mighty king, and haughty monarch. And this is further enforced from his own weakness and unfitness to speak to Pharaoh:



who [am] of uncircumcised lips? had an impediment in his speech, could not speak freely and readily, but with difficulty; perhaps stammered, and so uttered superfluous syllables, repeated them before he could fully pronounce what he aimed at; or in other words, he was not eloquent, which was his old objection, and had been fully answered before: and by this it appears that there was no alteration in the speech of Moses since God spoke with him at Mount Horeb. Some think Moses expected to have had this impediment removed, and tacitly hints at it here, not being so well satisfied with Aaron's being joined with him as his mouth and spokesman, which seemed to carry in it some reflection upon him.





Exodus 6:13



Ver. 13. And the Lord spake unto Moses and unto Aaron,.... No notice is taken of the objection of Moses, having been sufficiently answered before, and Aaron is joined with him in the following charge:



and gave them a charge unto the children of Israel, and unto Pharaoh king of Egypt; that is, to go to the children of Israel and comfort them, and direct them what they should do, and how they should behave under their present circumstances; assuring them of deliverance, and to go to Pharaoh, and to make a fresh demand upon him to let Israel go; and in this work they had a solemn charge from God to continue, and not to desist from it, until they had finished it:



to bring the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt; which they were to be the instruments of: and that it might be known clearly from whom they descended, who had such a charge given them, and such honour put upon them, the following genealogy is recorded.





Exodus 6:14



Ver. 14. These be the heads of their father's houses,.... Not of the families of Moses and Aaron, but of the children of Israel, though only the heads of three tribes are mentioned; and some think that these three are taken notice of, to show that they were not rejected of God, though they seem to be rather cursed than blessed by Jacob; and that though they were guilty of very great crimes, as Reuben of incest, and Simeon and Levi of murder, yet they truly repented, and obtained mercy of God, and were honoured in their offspring, of whom an account is here given; but the two first seem to be taken notice of for the sake of the third, and that order might be observed, and that it might plainly appear that the deliverers of Israel were Israelites:



the sons of Reuben, the firstborn of Israel, Hanoch, and Pallu, Hezron, and Carmi; whose names, and the order in which they are put, are the same as in Ge 46:9 these be the families of Reuben; the heads of them, or from whence they sprung.





Exodus 6:15



Ver. 15. And the sons of Simeon, Jemuel, and Jamin, and Ohad, and Jachin, and Zohar, and Shaul the son of a Canaanitish woman,....

See Gill on "Ge 46:10"



these are the families of Simeon; who gave rise and name to the several families of that tribe now in Egypt.





Exodus 6:16



Ver. 16. And these are the names of the sons of Levi, according to their generations,.... Whose sons, according to the order of their birth, were as follow:



Gershom, and Kohath, and Merari; see Ge 46:11:



and the years of the life of Levi were one hundred and thirty seven years; and exactly the same number of years is assigned him by Polyhistor from Demetrius {c}, an Heathen writer. Jarchi says, that the reason why, the years of the life of Levi are reckoned is to show how long the bondage lasted; for there was no servitude as long as any of the tribes (or of the sons of Jacob) remained, according to Ex 1:6 and the Jewish chronologers {d} affirm that Levi was the last of the patriarchs that died; and that he died in the year of the world 3332, and lived in Egypt ninety four years; and from his time, to the going out of Egypt, were only one hundred and sixteen years; and they further say the bondage could not last longer than one hundred and sixteen years, nor shorter than eighty seven. Bishop Usher {e} places his death in A. M. 2385, and before Christ 1619: according to the Targum of Jonathan, he lived to see Moses and Aaron the deliverers of Israel; but that is false, since Joseph and all his brethren died before Moses was born, Ex 1:6.



{c} Apud Euseb. Praepar. Evangel. l. 9. c. 21. p. 425. {d} Shalshalet Hakabala, fol. 5. 1. Tzemach David, par. 1, fol. 6. 2. & 7. 1. Seder Olam Rabba, c. 3. p. 9. {e} Annales Vet. Test. p. 17.





Exodus 6:17



Ver. 17. And the sons of Gershom, Libni, and Shimi, according to their families. He had only two sons, from whom came the families of the Libnites and Shimites; see Nu 3:21.





Exodus 6:18



Ver. 18. And the sons of Kohath, Amram, and Izhar, and Hebron, and Uzziel,.... So they are reckoned in 1Ch 6:18 though only the family of the Hebronites are mentioned in Nu 26:58



and the years of the life of Kohath were one hundred and thirty three years. A Jewish chronologer says {f} he died one hundred years before the going out of Egypt: just the same number of years is ascribed to him by Polyhistor from Demetrius, an Heathen historian {g}.



{f} Shalshalet Hakabalaut, ut supra. (fol. 5. 1.) {g} Apud Euseb. ut supra. (Praepar. Evangel. l. 9. c. 21. p. 425.)





Exodus 6:19



Ver. 19. And the sons of Merari, Mahali, and Mushi,.... From whence sprung the families of the Mahalites, and Mushites, Nu 3:33:



these are the families of Levi, according to their generations: the families that descended from him and his sons, according to the order of their birth.





Exodus 6:20



Ver. 20. And Amram took him Jochebed his father's sister to wife,.... This Amram was the first son of Kohath, and the father of Moses, as after related, and so must be the same with the man of the house of Levi, and his wife the daughter of Levi, as in Ex 2:1 and though such a marriage was afterwards prohibited, Moses does not conceal it, though it may seem to reflect some dishonour on him and his family; he writing not for his own glory, but for the sake of truth, and the good of mankind, and especially the church and people of God. Indeed the Vulgate Latin version, and the Septuagint, Samaritan, and Syriac versions, make her to be his first cousin, the daughter of his father's brother, his uncle's daughter: and so does Polyhistor from Demetrius {h}; but in Nu 26:59, she is expressly said to be a daughter of Levi, born to him in Egypt, and therefore must be his father's sister:



and she bare him Aaron and Moses: and Miriam also, though not mentioned, it being for the sake of these two that the genealogy is made:



and the years of the life of Amram were one hundred and thirty seven years: just the age of his grandfather Levi, Ex 6:16. A Jewish chronologer {i} says he died in the thirtieth year of Moses: but the Arabic writers {k} say in the fifty sixth or fifty seventh, and at the end of A. M. 3810. Polyhistor {l} from Demetrius makes his age to be one hundred and thirty six, and him to be the father of Moses and Aaron, and Aaron to be three years older than Moses, exactly according to the Scripture account.



{h} Apud Euseb. ut supra. (Praepar. Evangel. l. 9. c. 21. p. 425.) {i} Shalshalet Hakabala, ut supra. (fol. 5. 1.) {k} Patricides, p. 26. Elmacinus, p. 46. apud Hottinger. Smegma Oriental. l. 1. c. 8. p. 392. {l} Apud Euseb. ut supra.





Exodus 6:21



Ver. 21. And the sons of Izhar, Korah, and Nepheg, and Zichri. These seem to be mentioned for the sake of Korah, concerning whom is a remarkable history in the following book; for the other two are nowhere else spoken of.





Exodus 6:22



Ver. 22. And the sons of Uzziel, Mishael, and Elzaphan, and Zichri. The two first of these were the men that were ordered by Moses to carry out of the camp the two sons of Aaron, who were killed by lightning for offering strange fire, Le 10:4.





Exodus 6:23



Ver. 23. And Aaron took him Elisheba,.... The same name we pronounce Elizabeth; and of this name was the wife of Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, Lu 1:5, this woman Aaron took was



the daughter of Amminadab, the sister of Naashon; a prince of the tribe of Judah, Nu 7:12, her he took to wife; or married; for though intermarriages with the several tribes were not allowed, nor used in after times, that they might be kept distinct, and the inheritances also, yet the tribe of Levi often took wives of other tribes, because they had no inheritance, and were to have none in the land of Canaan, so that confusion in tribes and inheritance was not made hereby; and it is observable, that these marriages were frequently with the tribe of Judah, as signifying the union of the kingly and priestly offices in Christ, who sprung from the tribe of Judah:



and she bare him Nadab, and Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar; the two first of these died by fire from heaven in their father's lifetime, for offering strange fire to the Lord, Le 10:1. Eleazar succeeded his father in the priesthood, Nu 20:26 and of the sons of Ithamar executing the priest's office, see 1Ch 24:2.





Exodus 6:24



Ver. 24. And the sons of Korah,.... The eldest son of Izhar, who, though he proved a bad man, yet many of his posterity were good men, and are often mentioned in general in the titles of some of the psalms of David: the immediate sons of Korah were



Assir, and Elkanah, and Abiasaph. Aben Ezra says, that Samuel the prophet was of the sons of Korah; perhaps what might lead him to it was, because his father's name was Elkanah, the name of one of these sons of Korah, but cannot be this Elkanah:



these are the families of the Korhites; the heads of them, or from whom they descended.





Exodus 6:25



Ver. 25. And Eleazar Aaron's son took him one of the daughters of Putiel to wife,.... This was Aaron's eldest son. The person, whose daughter he married, Dr. Lightfoot {m} conjectures was an Egyptian convert, perhaps of the posterity of Potipherah, among whom Joseph had sowed the seeds of true religion, and supposes that the Egyptians used the name of Puti or Poti, either in memorial of their uncle Put,

Ge 10:6 or in reverence of some deity of that name; but the Targum of Jonathan makes Putiel to be the same with Jethro; and so does Jarchi; but Aben Ezra seems to be most right, who takes him to be of the children of Israel, though the reason of his name is not known, and the daughter of such an one it is most likely a son of Aaron would marry:



and she bore him Phinehas; of whom see Nu 25:11:



these are the heads of the Levites, according to their families; from whence the Levites sprung, and their several families. It may be observed, that Moses says nothing of his own offspring, only of his brother Aaron's, partly out of modesty and humility, and partly because the priesthood was successive in the family of Aaron, but not the civil government in the family of Moses; and that he proceeds no further to give the genealogy of the remaining tribes, his chief view being to show the descent of Aaron and himself, that it might be with certainty known in after times who they were that were instruments of Israel's deliverance out of Egypt, which would be matter of inquiry, and very desirable to be known.



{m} Works, vol. 1. p. 704, 705.





Exodus 6:26



Ver. 26. These are that Aaron and Moses,.... Aaron is set before Moses, because he was the eldest, and because he prophesied in Egypt before Moses, as Aben Ezra observes; though Moses was greater in dignity than he, and therefore the true reason may be the modesty of Moses; though in a following verse Moses is set before Aaron, to show that they were equal, as Jarchi thinks; and perhaps the thing was quite an indifference to the historian, and done without any care and intention, however these words are emphatically expressed, on purpose to point out the persons to future ages:



to whom the Lord said, bring out the children of Israel from the land of Egypt: which is the charge he gave them both, Ex 6:13, and the account of which is returned to again, after an interruption by the genealogy before recorded: Israel were to be brought out,



according to their armies; denoting their numbers, and the order in which they were to march out of Egypt, as they did, not by flight, nor in confusion, but in a formidable manner, and in great composure and order, with these two men, Moses and Aaron, as their generals at the head of them.





Exodus 6:27



Ver. 27. These are they which spoke to Pharaoh king of Egypt,.... In the name of the Lord of hosts; and demanded the dismission of Israel, in order



to bring the children of Israel from Egypt; nor did they desist making application to him, until they had prevailed upon him to let them go:



these are that Moses and Aaron; which is repeated, that it may be observed who were the deliverers of Israel, what their names, of what tribe they were, and from whom they descended, and who sprung from them, at least from Aaron.





Exodus 6:28



Ver. 28. And it came to pass on the day when the Lord spake unto Moses in the land of Egypt. This verse depends upon the following for the sense of it, which shows what it was the Lord said to Moses in the day he spake to him in Egypt, when he was come thither, which is as follows:





Exodus 6:29



Ver. 29. And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, I am the Lord,.... See Ex 6:2:



speak thou unto Pharaoh king of Egypt all that I say unto thee; that he let Israel go; and that in case of refusal, that he would punish him and his people with this and the other plague, one after another, and at last slay him and their firstborn.





Exodus 6:30



Ver. 30. And Moses said before the Lord, behold, I am of uncircumcised lips,.... As he had done, Ex 6:13, and this is only a repetition of what is there said, in order to lead on to what is related in the following chapter:



how shall Pharaoh hearken unto me? so mean a person, and so poor a speaker, and he a mighty king, surrounded with wise counsellors and eloquent orators.

 

John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible.

Exodus 7:1



INTRODUCTION TO EXODUS 7



Moses and Aaron are ordered to go to Pharaoh, and require the dismission of the people of Israel, but they are told before hand that Pharaoh's heart would be hardened, and would refuse to let them go, until the hand of the Lord was stretched out, and great judgments were brought down upon, Egypt, and then they should come forth, Ex 7:1, which orders Moses and Aaron obeyed, and their age is observed, when this was done, Ex 7:6 and they are bid to work a miracle, when Pharaoh should demand one, by turning a rod into a serpent, which they did; but Pharaoh's magicians doing the same in appearance, his heart was hardened, Ex 7:8 and then they are directed to meet him at the river, and require the same as before; and if he refused, to smite the waters of the river with the rod, and turn them into blood, which they did, Ex 7:15, but Pharaoh's magicians doing the same by enchantments, he did not regard it, though the plague lasted seven days, Ex 7:22.



Ver. 1. And the Lord said unto Moses,.... In answer to his objection, taken from his own meanness, and the majesty of Pharaoh, and from his want of readiness and freedom of expression:



see; take notice of, observe what I am about to say:



I have made thee a god to Pharaoh; not a god by nature, but made so; he was so by commission and office, clothed with power and authority from God to act under him in all things he should direct; not for ever, as angels are gods, but for a time; not in an ordinary way, as magistrates are gods, but in an extraordinary manner; and not to any other but to Pharaoh, being an ambassador of God to him, and as in his room and stead to, rule over him, though so great a monarch; to command him what he should do, and control him when he did wrong, and punish him for his disobedience, and inflict such plagues upon him, and do such miracles before him, as no mere man of himself, and none but God can do; and even exercise the power of life and death, as in the slaying of the firstborn, that Pharaoh should stand in as much fear of him, as if he was a deity, and apply to him to remove the plagues upon him, as if he was one:



and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet; to declare the will of God revealed to him by Moses from the Lord; so that this seems to be more than to be the mouth and spokesman of Moses and interpreter and explainer of his words, or to be acting the part of an orator for him; for Moses in this affair being God's viceregent, and furnished with a knowledge of the mind and will of God respecting it, as well as with power to work miracles, and inflict plagues, was made a god to both Pharaoh and Aaron; see Ex 4:6 to Pharaoh in the sense before explained, and to Aaron, he being his prophet, to whom he communicated the secrets of God, and his will and pleasure, in order to make the same known to Pharaoh. Thus highly honoured was Moses to be a god to a sovereign prince, and to have Aaron to be his prophet.





Exodus 7:2



Ver. 2. Thou shalt speak all that I command thee,.... That is, to Aaron his prophet, whatever the Lord made known to him in a private manner as his will to be done:



and Aaron thy brother shall speak unto Pharaoh; whatsoever should be told him by Moses, as from the Lord:



that he send the children of Israel out of his land; this was the principal thing to be insisted upon; and all that was said or done to him was to bring about this end, the dismission of the children of Israel out of Egypt.





Exodus 7:3



Ver. 3. And I will harden Pharaoh's heart,....

See Gill on "Ex 4:21"



and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt; work one miracle and wonderful sign after another, until they are all wrought intended to be wrought; and which he had given Moses power to do, and until the end should be answered and obtained, the letting go of the children of Israel.





Exodus 7:4



Ver. 4. But Pharaoh shall not hearken unto you,.... Regard not what they said, nor answer the demand they made, or obey the command of God delivered by them to him: this the Lord apprised them of, that they might not be discouraged, and conclude their labour would be in vain, their attempts fruitless, and they should never gain their point, but spend their time, and expose themselves to danger to no purpose:



that I may lay mine hand upon Egypt; the inhabitants of Egypt, smiting them with one plague after another, and particularly with the last, slaying their firstborn; every plague was a stroke of his hand, and an effect of his mighty power and vengeance, and more especially that:



and bring forth mine armies; the children of Israel consisting of 600,000 men, besides women and children, Ex 12:37 which, divided into twelve tribes, made twelve fine armies, 50,000 men in a tribe or army upon an average:



and my people the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt; the word "and" need not be supplied; if any supplement is necessary, the word "even" would be better, since this clause is added by way of explanation, showing who are meant by the armies of the Lord, his people to be brought out:



by great judgments; inflicted upon the Egyptians.





Exodus 7:5



Ver. 5. And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord,.... Jehovah, the one only true and living God; this they should know by the judgments executed upon them, and be obliged to acknowledge it:



when I stretch forth mine hand upon Egypt: especially the last time, to destroy the firstborn:



and bring out the children of Israel from among them; by which it would appear that he was mightier than they, and obtained the end for which the plagues were inflicted on them.





Exodus 7:6



Ver. 6. And Moses and Aaron did as the Lord commanded them,.... After this they never showed any reluctance, or made any objection to any message they were sent with, or any work they were ordered to do, but went about it at once, and performed it with all readiness and cheerfulness:



so did they; which is not a superfluous and redundant expression, but very emphatic, showing with what care and diligence they did every thing, and how exactly they conformed in all things to the divine will.





Exodus 7:7



Ver. 7. And Moses was eighty years old,.... At this time, which is observed partly to show how long Israel had been afflicted in Egypt; for their great troubles and miseries began about the time of the birth of Moses, or a little before, as appears from the above history; and partly to show the patience and forbearance of God with the Egyptians, and how just and righteous were his judgments on them; with this perfectly agrees Stephen's account of the age of Moses, Ac 7:23 and Aaron eighty three years old, when they spake unto Pharaoh; so that they were men that had had a large experience of things, and had been long training up for the service designed to be done by them; they were men of wisdom and prudence, of sedate and composed countenances, and fit to appear before a king, whose age and venerable aspect might command attention to them. Aben Ezra observes, that



"in all the Scripture there is no mention of any prophets that prophesied in their old age but these, because their excellency was greater than all the prophets.''



By this it appears that Aaron was three years older than Moses. A Jewish chronologer says {n}, that it is affirmed in an exposition of theirs, that Aaron prophesied to the Israelites in Egypt eighty years, which is making him to be a very young prophet when he first entered into the office. The Arabic writers {o} say, Miriam was at this time eighty seven, so was seven years older than Moses, and four years older than Aaron; see Ex 2:4.



{n} Shalshalet Hakabala, fol. 7. 1. {o} Patricides, p. 26. apud Hottinger. p. 415.





Exodus 7:8



Ver. 8. And the Lord spake unto Moses and unto Aaron,.... After he had given them their commission, and instructions to go to Pharaoh, and a little before they went in to him:



saying, as follows.





Exodus 7:9



Ver. 9. When Pharaoh shall speak unto you, saying, show a miracle for you,.... To prove that they came from God, the Jehovah they said they did, and that they were his ambassadors, and came in his name, and made the demand for him; which when he seriously reflected on things, he would be ready to require, hoping they would not be able to show any, and then he should have somewhat against them, and treat them as impostors:



then thou shalt say unto Aaron, take thy rod; the same that Moses had in his hand at Horeb, and brought with him to Egypt; this he had delivered into the hand of Aaron, who was to be his agent, and with this rod do signs and wonders as he did, and on account of them it is sometimes called the rod of God:



and cast it before Pharaoh, and it shall become a serpent; as it became one before at Horeb, when Moses by the order of God cast it on the ground, and afterwards became a rod again, as it now was, Ex 4:2 Hence Mercury, the messenger of the gods with the Heathens, is represented as having a "caduceus", a rod or wand twisted about with snakes {p}.



{p} Vid. Chartar. de Imag. Deorum, p. 136. imag. 48.





Exodus 7:10



Ver. 10. And Moses and Aaron went in unto Pharaoh,.... Into the palace of Pharaoh boldly, and with intrepidity, clothed with such power and authority, and assured of success;



and they did as the Lord had commanded; they demanded in his name the dismission of the children of Israel, and upon his requiring a miracle to confirm their mission, wrought one as follows:



and Aaron cast down his rod before Pharaoh, and it became a serpent: or a "dragon", as the Septuagint version; this word is sometimes used of great whales, Ge 1:21 and of the crocodile, Eze 29:3 and it is very likely the crocodile is meant here, as Dr. Lightfoot {q} thinks; since this was frequent in the Nile, the river of Egypt, where the Hebrew infants had been cast, and into whose devouring jaws they fell, and which also was an Egyptian deity {r}. Though no mention is made of Pharaoh's demanding a miracle, yet no doubt he did, as the Lord had intimated he would, and without which it can hardly be thought it would be done; and Artapanus {s}, an Heathen writer, expressly asserts it; for he says,



"when the king required of Moses to do some sign or wonder, the rod which he had he cast down, and it became a serpent, to the amazement of all, and then took it by its tail and it be came a rod again;''



which is a testimony from an Heathen of the truth of this miracle.



{q} Works, vol. 1. p. 702. {r} Crocodylen adorat, Juvenal, Sat. 15. {s} Apud Euseb. Praepar. Evangel. l. 9. c. 27. p. 435.





Exodus 7:11



Ver. 11. Then Pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers,.... The cunning men and wizards, a sort of jugglers and deceivers, who pretended to great knowledge of things, to discover secrets, tell fortunes, and predict things to come, and by legerdemain tricks, and casting a mist before people's eyes, pretended to do very wonderful and amazing things; and therefore Pharaoh sent for these, to exercise their art and cunning, and see if they could not vie with Moses and Aaron:



now the magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with their enchantments; or by their secret wiles and juggles, making things seem to appear to the sight when they did not really, but by dazzling the eyes of men by their wicked and diabolical art, they fancied they saw things which they did not; for the word has the signification of flames of fire, or of a flaming sword, or lance, which being brandished to and fro dazzles the sight. The Targum of Jonathan gives the names of two of these magicians, whom he calls Jannes and Jambres, as does the apostle,

See Gill on "2Ti 3:8". Josephus {t} calls these magicians of Egypt priests, and Artapanus {u} says, they were priests that lived about Memphis. According to the Arabs {w}, the name of the place where they lived was Ausana, a city very ancient and pleasant, called the city of the magicians, which lay to the east of the Nile: their name in the Hebrew language is either from a word which signifies a style, or greying tool, as Fuller {x} thinks, because in their enchantments they used superstitious characters and figures; or, as Saadiah Gaon {y}, from two words, the one signifying a "hole", and the other "stopped"; because they bored a hole in a tree to put witchcrafts into it, and stopped it up, and then declared what should be, or they had to say.



{t} Antiqu. l. 2. c. 13. sect. 3. {u} Apud Euseb. ut supra. (Praepar. Evangel. l. 9. c. 27. p. 435.) {w} Arab. Geograph. Climat. 2. par. 4. lin. 21. {x} Miscell. Sacr. l. 5. c. 11. {y} Comment. in Dan. i. 20.





Exodus 7:12



Ver. 12. For they cast down every man his rod, and they became serpents,.... That is, they seemed to be so, as Josephus {z} expresses it, but not really, in which he is followed by many; though some think that the devil assisted in this affair, and in an instant, as soon as the rods were cast down, removed them and put real serpents in their room:



but Aaron's rod swallowed up their rods; that is, the serpent that Aaron's rod was turned into, swallowed up the rods of the magicians, which never were otherwise than rods only in appearance; or if real serpents were put in the room of them, these were devoured by his serpent called his rod, because it was before turned into a serpent, as Aben Ezra observes; though the Targums of Jonathan, Jarchi, and R. Jeshua, suppose this was done after the serpent became a rod again; which makes the miracle the greater and more wonderful, that a rod should devour other rods; and supposing them real serpents, this was what the magicians could not make their rods do, and in which they were outdone by Aaron.



{z} Antiqu. ut supra. (l. 2. c. 13 sect. 3.)





Exodus 7:13



Ver. 13. And he hardened Pharaoh's heart,.... Or, "notwithstanding the heart of Pharaoh was hardened" {a}; though he saw the rods of his magicians devoured by rod; or "therefore" {b} his heart was hardened, because he saw that the rods of his magicians became serpents as well as Aaron's; in which there was a deception of sight, and which was suffered for the hardening of his heart, there being other wonders and miracles to be wrought, for showing forth the divine power, before Israel must be let go:



that he hearkened not unto them; to Moses and Aaron, and comply with their demand, to dismiss the people of Israel:



as the Lord had said; or foretold he would not.



{a} qzxyw "attamen obfirmatum est", Junius & Tremellius. {b} "Itaque", Piscator.





Exodus 7:14



Ver. 14. And the Lord said unto Moses, Pharaoh's heart is hardened,.... Or "heavy" {c}, dull and stupid, stiff and inflexible, cannot lift up his heart, or find in his heart to obey the will of God:



he refuseth to let the people go; which was an instance and proof of the hardness and heaviness of his heart, on which the above miracle had made no impression, to regard what God by his ambassadors had required of him.



{c} dbk "grave", Montanus, Drusius. So Ainsworth.





Exodus 7:15



Ver. 15. Get thee unto Pharaoh in the morning,.... The next morning, a time in which the mind is most composed and sedate, and fit to attend to what may be suggested:



lo, he goeth out unto the water; the river Nile, either to take his morning's walk, and to refresh himself at the waterside, as the Jerusalem Targum; or to observe divinations upon the water, as a magician, as the Targum of Jonathan. So in the Talmud {d} it is said, that the Pharaoh in the days of Moses was a magician. Or rather, as Aben Ezra thinks, which he says is a custom of the kings of Egypt to this day, to go out in the months of Tammuz and Ab, i.e. June, and July, when the river increases, to observe how many degrees it has ascended, by which the fruitfulness of the ensuing season was judged of. See Gill on "Amos 8:8" Or else he went to worship the rising sun, or the Nile, to pay his morning devotions to it: for not only Jarchi, and other Jewish writers, say it was their chief god, but Plutarch {e} also affirms, that nothing was so much honoured with the Egyptians as the Nile; and both Theodoret on this place, and Athanasius {f} elsewhere says, that they reckoned it a god, and worshipped it as such; and it has been usual with other nations to worship rivers, as Aelianus {g} reports:



and thou shall stand by the river's brink against he come; over against the brink of the river Nile, in order to meet him:



and the rod which was turned to a serpent shalt thou take in thine hand; as a terror to Pharaoh, on sight of which he might be put in mind of what had been done, and by means of which he might fear other wonders would be wrought; by this it appears, that after the rod had been turned into a serpent, it became a rod again, as it did at Horeb, Ex 4:4. Moses having previous notice of all this, shows the prescience of God, and his certain knowledge of future contingent events.



{d} T. Bab. Moed. Katon, fol. 18. 1. {e} De lside & Osir. Vide Philo de Vita Mosis, l. 1. p. 617. {f} Contr. Gentil p. 20. & de Incarnatione, p. 73. {g} Var. Hist. l. 2. c. 33.





Exodus 7:16



Ver. 16. And thou shalt say unto him,.... Upon meeting him:



the Lord God of the Hebrews hath sent me unto thee; still appearing in the character of the ambassador of Jehovah, the God of the children of Israel:



saying, let my people go, that they may serve me in the wilderness; the demand is once more renewed, before any punishment is inflicted for refusal, that the patience and forbearance of God might be the more visible, and his judgments appear the more righteous when inflicted, as well as Pharaoh be left more inexcusable. The reason of the demand is observed,



that they may serve me; keep a feast, and sacrifice to him, as is before expressed, and the place where is pointed at:



in the wilderness; at Sinai, in Arabia, where were the mountains of Sinai and Horeb; but the time of their service is not here expressed, as elsewhere, namely, three days:



and, behold, hitherto thou wouldest not hear; and obey the voice of the Lord, upbraiding him with his disobedience, and the hardness of his heart; but signifying it was not now too late, though it was advisable to be quick, or the blow would be given, and the plagues inflicted.





Exodus 7:17



Ver. 17. Thus saith the Lord, in this thou shalt know that I am the Lord,.... By the following instance of his power and vengeance:



behold, I will smite with the rod that is in my hand; which though in the hand of Moses, Ex 7:18 yet he being his ambassador, and representing him, is said to be in the hand of the Lord; and with this he threatens to smite



upon the waters which are in the river; the river Nile, and the canals thereof:



and they shall be turned to blood; and if this river was their god, it would abundantly appear that the God of the Hebrews was Jehovah, and above all gods, and particularly above theirs.





Exodus 7:18



Ver. 18. And the fish that is in the river shall die,.... Their element being changed, and they not able to live in any other but water:



and the river shall stink; with the blood, into which it should be congealed, and with the putrefied bodies of fishes floating in it:



and the Egyptians shall loath to drink of the water of the river; the very colour of it, looking like blood, would set them against it, and create a nausea in them; or "shall be weary" {h}, tired of drinking it in a little time, through the loathsomeness of it; or be weary in digging about it, Ex 7:24 to get some clear water to drink of; or in seeking to find out ways and methods to cure the waters, that so they might be fit to drink of, as Jarchi interprets it.



{h} waln "delassabuntur", Tigurine version, Vatablus. "Defatigabuntur", Cartwright.





Exodus 7:19



Ver. 19. And the Lord spake unto Moses,.... Pharaoh still being obstinate, and refusing to let the people go:



say unto Aaron, take thy rod, and stretch out thine hand upon the waters of Egypt; upon all of them in general, what were in the river Nile, or derived from it, as follows:



upon their streams; the seven streams of the river Nile,

See Gill on "Isa 11:15".



upon their rivers; the canals that were cut out of the river Nile, for the watering of their fields and gardens, for they had no other river:



and upon their ponds, and upon all their pools of waters; which were dug near the river, or to which pipes were laid to convey the water thither:



that they may become blood; and so not fit to drink:



and that there may be blood throughout all the land of Egypt,

both in vessels of wood, and in vessels of stone; in which water were kept in private houses, fetched from the river for the use of families; all which were to be turned into blood everywhere, in all parts of the land, and in all places mentioned, immediately upon Aaron's taking his rod, and smiting the waters with it in that part of the river that was before him.





Exodus 7:20



Ver. 20. And Moses and Aaron did so, as the Lord commanded,.... Moses delivered the rod to Aaron, who took it and went to the water side:



and he lift up the rod, and smote the waters that were in the river; or "in that river" {i}, the river Nile, on the brink of which Pharaoh then stood:



in the sight of Pharaoh, and in the sight of his servants; his nobles and courtiers who tended him in his walk to the water; for this was done before he returned to his palace:



and all the waters that were in the river were turned into blood; not only the face of the waters looked like blood, but they were really turned into it; and not only the surface of the water, but all the water that was in the river, wherever it flowed, and as far as it flowed in the land of Egypt.



{i} rayb en tw potamw Sept. "in eo rivo", Junius and Tremellius, Piscator.





Exodus 7:21



Ver. 21. And the fish that was in the river died,.... Which was a full proof that the conversion of it into blood was real; for had it been only in appearance, or the water of the river had only the colour of blood, and looked like it, but was not really so, it would not have affected the fishes, they would have lived as well as before; and this plague was the greater affliction to the Egyptians, not as it affected their drink but their food, fish Nu 11:5 being what the common people chiefly lived upon, See Gill on "Isa 19:8" and the river stunk; the blood into which it was turned being corrupted through the heat of the sun, and the dead fishes swimming upon it being putrefied;



and the Egyptians could not drink of the water of the river; and they had no other water to drink of {k}; for rain seldom fell in Egypt, though sometimes it did in some places, See Gill on "Zec 14:18". The water of the river Nile was not only their common drink, but it was exceeding pleasant, and therefore the loss of it was the greater; it was so remarkable for the sweetness and delicacy of its taste, that in the time of Pescennius Niger, when his soldiers murmured for want of wine, he is reported to have answered them,



"what! crave you wine, and have the water of the Nile to drink?''



which Mr. Maillett, who lived sixteen years consul for the French nation at Grand Cairo, confirms, and says, that it is grown to be a common proverb, that whoever has once tasted it will ever after pine for it {l}; with this compare Jer 2:18:



and there was blood throughout all the land of Egypt; in the river, wherever it flowed, in all its streams and channels, and wherever any water was collected out of it, or fetched from it, let it be in what reservoir it would. This is the first plague executed on the Egyptians, and a very righteous one by the law of retaliation for shedding the blood of innocent babes, through casting them into this river; and this will be the second and third vials of God's wrath, which will be poured on antichrist, or mystical Egypt, who will have blood given to drink because worthy, see Re 16:3. Artapanus {m}, an Heathen writer, bears testimony to this miracle, though he does not so fully and clearly express it as it was; he says,



"a little after, that is, after the former miracle of the rod turned into a serpent, the Nile, that river whose swelling waves overflow all Egypt, was smitten with the rod; and the water being gathered and stagnated, boiled up, and not only the fishes were destroyed, but the people perished through thirst.''



{k} Vid. Plin. Nat. Hist. l. 6. c. 29. {l} See the Bishop of Clogher's Chronology of the Hebrew Bible, p. 287. {m} Apud Euseb Praepar. Evangel. l. 9. c. 27. p. 435.





Exodus 7:22



Ver. 22. And the magicians of Egypt did so with their enchantments,.... Who were either in company with Pharaoh and his nobles, or were immediately sent for to try their art, and confront Moses and Aaron with it; and who very probably got a little water in a vessel, and by some juggling trick imposing upon, and deceiving the sight of Pharaoh and his servants, made it look like blood; and the devil might help them to a sufficient quantity of blood, and discolour the water with it, and make it appear as if it was blood, and which was a poor business; had they turned the bloody river into water again, they would have equalled the miracle of Moses and Aaron, and done some service to their country; but to deceive the sight of people, or to spoil a small quantity of water that was good, by mixing it with blood, was but a mean and unworthy action. Should it be asked from whence they had this water, when all was turned into blood? it may be answered, either from Goshen, as the Targum of Jonathan, the waters of the Hebrews not being affected with this plague: though Aben Ezra thinks they were; or from the sea, as Theodoret; but both these places were too far distant to fetch water from, in the time that Pharaoh stayed here before his return home: rather therefore this water was had from some habitation of the Israelites in the city near at hand, where Pharaoh lived, or was dug for immediately by the magicians, as in Ex 7:24 or it may be that all the waters were not immediately turned into blood, but successively and gradually, first the river, and then its streams, &c. so that there might be near at hand a pool of water, not yet turned into blood, and a vessel of water might be fetched from it, on which they exercised their juggling art:



and Pharaoh's heart was hardened: by seeing his magicians do what was similar to what Moses and Aaron had done; and therefore concluded that it was not by the hand of God, but owing to a magic art they were masters of, as his magicians were:



neither did he hearken unto them; to Moses and Aaron, and what they said to him, to let the people go:



as the Lord had said; had before told he would not hearken to them, Ex 7:4.





Exodus 7:23



Ver. 23. And Pharaoh turned, and went into his house,.... Turned away from Moses and Aaron, and turned back from the river to which he came, and went to his palace in the city; it being perhaps now about dinner time, when all before related had passed:



neither did he set his heart to this also: had no regard to this miracle of turning the waters into blood, as well as he had none to the rod being turned into a serpent, and devouring the rods of the magicians; he neither considered the one nor the other, or seriously and closely thought of this, any more than of the other.





Exodus 7:24



Ver. 24. And all the Egyptians digged round about the river,.... On each side of it, in order to get clear water; and Aben Ezra thinks the Hebrews also, who were affected with this, and the two following plagues, the frogs and lice: but it is much more reasonable to conclude that they were free from them all. This they did



for water to drink: for there was none in the river, streams, ponds and pools, or in vessels, in which they used to reserve it, and therefore could come at none but by digging; and whether they obtained any in that way is not said:



for they could not drink of the waters of the river; it being turned into blood, and stunk so exceedingly; and though they might strain it, and make it in some measure, drinkable, and might make use of the juice of herbs, and other things, to extinguish their thirst, and the better sort might have a stock of wine, yet multitudes must be greatly distressed, and many perish, as Philo {n} the Jew says they did.



{n} De Vita Mosis, l. 1. p. 617.





Exodus 7:25



Ver. 25. And seven days were fulfilled,.... Or there were full seven days, a whole week:



after that the Lord had smitten the river, and turned it into blood; here the miracle is ascribed to him; Moses and Aaron, and the rod they used, were only instruments, nothing short of almighty power could do such a miracle; it seems this lasted seven days at least. It began, as Bishop Usher {o} computes it, on the eighteen day of the sixth month, or Adar, part of February and part of March, and ended the twenty fifth of the same. It is not said that Pharaoh requested to have it removed, though Philo {p} says he did; his stubborn heart not being humbled enough as yet to ask such a favour, and therefore perhaps it was taken off without asking for it, to make way for another.



{o} Annal. Vet. Test. p. 20. {p} Ut supra. (De Vita. Mosis, l. 1. p. 617.)

 

John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible.

Exodus 8:1



INTRODUCTION TO EXODUS 8



In this chapter Pharaoh is threatened with the plague of frogs, in case he refused to let Israel go, which accordingly was brought upon him, Ex 8:1 and though the magicians did something similar to it, yet these were so troublesome to Pharaoh, that he promised to let the people go, and sacrifice to God, if they removed; and a time being fixed for the removal of them, it was accordingly done at the entreaty of Moses and Aaron, Ex 8:7 but there being a respite, Pharaoh's heart was hardened, and the plague of lice is ordered, and which was executed; and though this the magicians essayed to do, and could not, but owned it to be the finger of God, yet Pharaoh's heart was hardened, Ex 8:15 wherefore he is threatened with a swarm of flies, which should not infest Goshen, only the places where the Egyptians dwelt, and it was so, Ex 8:20 upon which Pharaoh called for Moses, and declared himself willing the people would sacrifice in the land; but this not being satisfactory, he agreed they should go into the wilderness, but not so far; and on the account of the entreaty of Moses, the plague was removed; but still Pharaoh's heart was hardened, and he would not let the people go, Ex 8:25.



Ver. 1. And the Lord spake unto Moses,.... Either whilst the plague upon the waters continued, or immediately upon the removal of it:



go unto Pharaoh, and say unto him, thus saith the Lord, let my people go, that they may serve me; mentioning neither time nor place, where, when, and how long they should serve him, for which their dismission was required, but insist on it in general.





Exodus 8:2



Ver. 2. And if thou refuse to let them go,.... Will not obey the orders:



I will smite all thy borders with frogs; he gives him warning of the blow before he strikes, which shows his clemency and goodness, his patience and longsuffering; and this he did, not only that he might have time and space for repentance, and thereby avoid the blow; but that when it came, he might be sensible it was not by chance, or owing to second causes, but was from the Lord himself.



I will smite all thy borders with frogs: fill the whole land of Egypt with them, to the utmost borders thereof on every side. Some {q} say the word signifies a large Egyptian fish, which in the Arabic tongue is called Altamsach, that is, a crocodile, with which the Nile abounded; but such a creature could not invade and attack them in the manner as is after related.



{q} R. Chananeel apud Abendana, and some in Aben Ezra in Ioc.





Exodus 8:3



Ver. 3. And the river shall bring forth frogs abundantly,.... The river Nile; and though water, and watery places, naturally produce these creatures, yet not in such vast quantities as to cover a whole country, and so large an one as Egypt, and this done at once, immediately; for they were all produced instantaneously, and in one day were spread all over the nation, and removed the next: and besides what follows is equally miraculous,



which shall go up and come into thine house; which though they may come up out of rivers, and be upon the banks and the meadows adjacent, yet are never known to come into houses, and especially into bedchambers and other places after mentioned, being not a bold but timorous creature, and shuns the sight and company of men; but these came even into the royal palace, nor could his guards keep them out:



and into thy bedchamber, and upon thy bed; and by their leaping upon him, and croaking in his ears, disturb his rest:



and into the house of thy servants, and upon thy people both nobles and common people, and not only get into their houses, but upon their persons, on their hands when about their business, on their laps, and into their bosoms, as they sat; which must be very offensive and troublesome to them, what with their ugly shape, croaking noise and filthy smell, and the disagreeable touch of them, leaping on them, and even upon their food, and all vessels used for the same, which must make it very nauseous and distasteful to them:



and into thy ovens; where they baked their bread, and would be now hindered from the use of them:



and into thy kneadingtroughs; where they kneaded their dough, and made it into loaves, and prepared it for the oven; or the "dough" {r} itself, which they leaped upon and licked, and made it loathsome for use.



{r} Kytwravmb "in tuas pastas", Pagninus; "in farinam tuam aquis conspersam", Tigurine version; "in reliquiis ciborum tuorum", V. L.





Exodus 8:4



Ver. 4. And the frogs shall come up both on thee, and upon thy people, and upon thy servants. No doubt by the interposition of divine power and providence, and it may be by the ministry of angels; so that let them use what care, caution, and diligence they would, there was no keeping them out; but they came upon all the people of the land, high and low, rich and poor, and upon the king's ministers, courtiers, and nobles, and the king himself not excepted; though by this particular enumeration of him, his people, and servants, the children of Israel may be thought to be exempted from this plague, as R. Japhez observes; though Aben Ezra dislikes his remark, but it seems to be just.





Exodus 8:5



Ver. 5. And the Lord spake unto Moses,.... By a secret impulse upon his mind, for he was now in the presence of Pharaoh, who had refused to let Israel go:



say unto Aaron, stretch forth thy hand with thy rod; for Aaron carried the rod, and he was the minister of Moses, who was appointed a god to him; and be was to speak and to do whatever he ordered him from the Lord:



over the streams, over the rivers and over the ponds; the seven streams of the river of Nile, and over the canals cut out of it, and over all places where there was a collection of water for any use for man or beast:



and cause frogs to come up upon the land of Egypt; out of the streams, rivers, and ponds, immediately.





Exodus 8:6



Ver. 6. And Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt,.... That is, towards the waters of the Nile, and towards all places where any water was; for it was not possible he could stretch out his hand over all the waters that were in every place:



and the frogs came and covered the land of Egypt: they came up at once, and in such multitudes everywhere, that the whole land was full of them; this was done on the twenty fifth of Adar, or February, the same day the former plague ceased; so Artapanus {s}, the Heathen historian says, that Moses by his rod produced frogs, locusts, and lice. And the story which Heraclides Lembus {t} tells seems to be hammered out of this account of Moses, that in Paeonia and Dardania such a number of frogs fell from heaven, as filled the public roads and private houses; at first the inhabitants killed them, and keeping their houses shut, bore it patiently some time; but when it signified nothing, and their household goods were covered with them, and they found them boiled and roasted with their food, and lay in such heaps that they could not tread for them, and were so distressed with the smell of the dead ones, they forsook their country.



{s} Apud Euseb. ut supra. (Praepar. Evangel. l. 9. c. 27. p. 425.) {t} Apud Athenaei Deipnosophist. l. 8. c. 2.





Exodus 8:7



Ver. 7. And the magicians did so with their enchantments, &c] By their secret wiles and juggling tricks:



and brought up frogs upon the land of Egypt, that is, some few, as a proof of their art and skill, and to show that Moses and Aaron did but what they could do; but what they did either were only in appearance, deceiving the sight of Pharaoh and his people, or real frogs were brought to them by the help of devils, but not in such numbers: and besides, this was adding to the plague, and not diminishing it; had they done anything to the purpose, they should have removed it at once, or destroyed the frogs; but that they could not do, of which Pharaoh being sensible, he therefore entreated for the removal of them by Moses and Aaron. To this plague there seems to be some reference at the pouring out of the sixth vial, Re 16:13.





Exodus 8:8



Ver. 8. Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron,.... He sent for them:



and said, entreat the Lord, that he may take away the frogs from me and from my people; he begins now to know the Lord, whom he knew not before, by the judgments he executed on him, to acknowledge his hand in those judgments, and tacitly to own that none else could remove them; and his proud heart was so far humbled, as to beg the favour of Moses and Aaron to intercede with the Lord to cause this plague to cease, which was intolerable: and it may be observed from other instances in history, somewhat similar to this, that whole cities and countries have been deserted by their inhabitants on a like occasion, as those of Paeonia and Dardania, in the account above given; and Justin reports {u} of the Abderites, a people of Thrace, that because of the multitude of frogs and mice, were obliged to leave their native country, and seek new habitations; and Diodorus Siculus {w} and Aelianus {x} relate much the same of a people called Autariatae; and Varro {y} affirms, that in a city in France, the inhabitants of it were drove away by frogs; which instances, as they show how very distressing such a calamity is, so they serve to illustrate and confirm the truth of the divine history, cavilled at by infidels, when anything is related in it exceeding the common and ordinary course of things:



and I will let the people go, that they may do sacrifice unto the Lord; as had been frequently required of him, Ex 5:1.



{u} E Trogo, l. 15. c. 2. {w} Bibliothec. l. 3. p. 164. {x} De Animal. l. 17. c. 41. {y} Apud Plin. Nat. Hist. l. 8. c. 29.





Exodus 8:9



Ver. 9. And Moses said unto Pharaoh, glory over me,.... If thou canst; take every advantage against me of lessening my glory, and increasing thine own; or vaunt or boast thyself against me, as the phrase is rendered, Jud 7:2 or take this honour and glory to thyself over me, by commanding me, and fixing a time to pray for thee, and I will obey thy orders; which agrees with the Septuagint, Syriac, and Vulgate Latin versions, and the paraphrase of Onkelos, "appoint", or "order for me"; that is, when I shall pray for thee; or do me this honour, to believe me in the sight of the people, to declare before them that thou dost believe that upon my prayer for thee this plague shall be removed:



when shall I entreat for thee, and for thy servants, and for thy people, to destroy the frogs from thee and thy houses, that they may remain in this river only? Moses agreed to entreat the Lord for him as he desired, but leaves it with him to fix the time for doing it; and this he did, that it might appear that the removal of the frogs, as well as the bringing of them, would not be owing to chance or to any natural cause, but to the Lord himself; and though Moses had no direction from the Lord for this, that is recorded, yet he might presume upon it, since he was made a god to Pharaoh, and had power to do as he pleased; and also he knew the mind and will of God, and might have now a secret impulse upon his spirit, signifying it to him: and besides, he had the faith of miracles, and strongly believed that God would work this by him, and at whatsoever time should be fixed.





Exodus 8:10



Ver. 10. And he said, tomorrow,.... Which according to Bishop Usher was the twenty sixth day of Adar, or February. It may seem strange that Pharaoh, and his people, being so greatly distressed with this plague, should not desire that the Lord would be entreated to do it immediately, and not put it off to another day: two reasons are usually given; one is, he might hope that it would by that time go off of itself, and then he should not be beholden to the Lord, nor to Moses; and the other is, that he thought an affair of this kind could not be done immediately, but that it required time for making the intercession, and performing rites and ceremonies, which he supposed might be used, as were by his magicians; and it might be now the evening of the day, and therefore deferred it till tomorrow:



and he said, be it according to thy word, as if he had said, it shall be done as thou hast desired, and at the time fixed:



that thou mayest know that there is none like unto the Lord our God; that can send plagues, and remove them at his pleasure, which the deities he worshipped, and the magicians he employed, could not do.





Exodus 8:11



Ver. 11. And the frogs shall depart from thee, and from thy houses, and from thy servants, and from thy people,.... Signifying there should be a full and clear riddance of them:



they shall remain in the river only; the river Nile.





Exodus 8:12



Ver. 12. And Moses and Aaron went from Pharaoh,.... To the place where they used to pray to the Lord, and meet with him, and receive messages from him; this they did the same day the plague was inflicted, the day before the morrow came when the frogs were to be removed:



and Moses cried unto the Lord: prayed unto him with great fervency, and with a loud voice, most fervently entreating that the frogs might be removed on the morrow, as he had promised, that so he might not be covered with shame and confusion before Pharaoh; his faith of the miracle being wrought did not hinder the use of prayer to God for it:



because of the frogs which he had brought against Pharaoh; as an army: or "put upon" {z} him, as a judgment on him; or rather the sense is, as it may be rendered, "because of the business of the frogs, which he had proposed or promised to Pharaoh" {a}; that is, for the taking of them away, he had proposed to Pharaoh to fix the time when he should entreat the Lord for the removal of them; and he having fixed on the morrow, Moses promised it should be done according to his word; and now he is importunate with the Lord, that it may be done as he had promised.



{z} herpl Mv "posuit", Parhoni, Pagninus, Montanus; "imposuerat", Junius & Tremellius. {a} "Super causa vel negotio ranarum quod proposuerat Pharaoni", Fagius.





Exodus 8:13



Ver. 13. And the Lord did according to the word of Moses,.... He heard his prayers, and fulfilled what he had promised Pharaoh:



and the frogs died out of the houses, and out of the villages, and out of the fields; the word for "villages" signifies "courts" {b}, and may be so rendered here; and the sense is, that they not only died out of their dwelling houses, but out of their courtyards, and even out of their gardens, orchards, and fields, so that there were none near them to give any manner of trouble and offence. And their dying, and remaining dead upon the spot, were clear proofs that they were real frogs that were produced, and not in appearance only, as the frogs of the magicians might be; God could have caused them to return to the river from whence they came, or have annihilated them, or removed them out of sight in an instant; but the killing of them, and letting them lie dead, proved the truth of the miracle, and gave apparent evidence of it both ways, both in the bringing and removing them.



{b} truxh Nm "ex atriis", Montanus, Tigurine version, Piscator.





Exodus 8:14



Ver. 14. And they gathered them together upon heaps,.... Swept them up, and laid them in heaps out of the way:



and the land stank; with the stench of the dead frogs, which was another proof and evidence of the reality of the miracle; and that dead frogs will cause such an ill smell appears from the above account of what befell the inhabitants of Paeonia and Dardania, unless that should be the same with this, only the names of places and some circumstances altered; See Gill on "Ex 8:16".





Exodus 8:15



Ver. 15. But when Pharaoh saw that there was respite,.... From his affliction, as the Targum of Jonathan adds; the plague was removed, and he found himself and his people at ease: or there was a "breathing" {c}; before he and his people were so oppressed, that they could scarce breathe, but now being delivered from the judgment on them with which they were straitened, were enlarged and at liberty, and in easy circumstances: he hardened his heart; See Gill on "Ex 7:14".



and hearkened not unto them; to Moses and Aaron, to let the children of Israel go, as they had required, and he had promised:



as the Lord had said; had foretold that he would not hearken to them, nor let Israel go as yet.



{c} hxwrh "respiratio", Pagninus, Montanus, Tigurine version, Junius and Tremellius, Piscator, Drusius.





Exodus 8:16



Ver. 16. And the Lord said unto Moses,.... On the twenty seventh day of the month, according to Bishop Usher, the same day the flogs were removed; no warning is given him of the next plague, at least there is no account of any:



say unto Aaron, stretch out thy rod, and smite the dust of the land; in some one part of the land, that place nearest to him where there was a quantity of dust; for it cannot be imagined that he should smite all the dust of the land in every part of it, but smiting one part served for the whole:



that it may become lice throughout all the land of Egypt: not gnats, as some, nor flies, as others, but lice, though perhaps not of the common and ordinary sort, but new and extraordinary, and it may be of different sorts, suitable to different creatures.





Exodus 8:17



Ver. 17. And they did so,.... As follows:



for Aaron stretched out his hand with his rod; as directed and ordered:



and smote the dust of the earth, and it became lice in man and in beast; which shows it was a miraculous operation, since lice do not usually spring from dust, but thrive in the sweat of bodies, and the nastiness of them, through sloth and idleness; and moreover, this was like the creation of man at first, which was out of the dust of the earth, and alike the effect of almighty power:



all the dust of the land became lice throughout all the land of Egypt; that is, the greatest part of it, not that every atom of dust became lice, nor was the land of Goshen, in which the Israelites dwelt, infected with this plague, unless where any of the Egyptians were; though Dr. Lightfoot {d} thinks, that lice were in Goshen as in other parts of Egypt, there being no severing between Goshen and Egypt mentioned until the next plague; and since Israel had partook of many of the sins of Egypt, they must partake of some of her punishments; and he thinks this is the reason that the plague of lice is not reckoned among the plagues of Egypt in Ps 78:44 because it was common to Israel, and to the Egyptians, and which is the sense of Aben Ezra on Ex 7:24. The account that Artapanus {e}, the Heathen historian, gives of this plague, is this;



"Moses smote the earth with a rod, and produced a certain flying animal, which greatly distressed the Egyptians, and raised ulcers in their bodies, which no physicians could cure.''



And so Origen {f} describes this creature as



"having wings and flying in the air, but so subtile and minute as to escape the eye, unless very sharp sighted; but when it lights upon a body, it stings most bitterly, so that what a man cannot see flying, he feels stinging.''



Both seem to design the gnat, but this sort of vermin do not stick in and abide with men or beasts, as these here are said to do, but buzz about and bite, and then are gone.



{d} Works, vol. 1. p. 705, 706. {e} Apud Euseb. ut supra. (Praepar. Evangel. l. 9. c. 27. p. 435.) {f} In Exod. Homil. 4. fol. 35. col. 2.





Exodus 8:18



Ver. 18. And the magicians did so with their enchantments, to bring forth lice,.... They made use of their magical art, and juggling tricks they were masters of, to produce the like sort of creatures, or at least to make such appear, or seem to appear, to the eyes of men:



but they could not; God would not suffer them to do it, to impose upon Pharaoh, and deceive him and the Egyptians any longer; and a stop is put to them, when such small and despicable creatures were produced, the more to put them to shame and confusion, and to show that what they did before was not real, and that what they did in appearance was only by divine permission;



so there were lice upon man and upon beast; these lay in great numbers on both, biting and distressing them in a most terrible manner; for as the magicians could not produce such creatures, it was not in their power to remove them.





Exodus 8:19



Ver. 19. Then the magicians said unto Pharaoh, this is the finger of God,.... This is to be ascribed to a power superior to human, to a divine power; so long as they could do something similar, or impose upon the senses of men, and make them believe they did the like, they would not acknowledge divine omnipotence; but when they no longer could deceive the sight of Pharaoh and the Egyptian, then they own the effects of a superior power: and this they did partly to detract from the power of Moses and Aaron, because they would not have them pass for more skilful persons in the magic art than themselves; and therefore suggest, that this was done not by virtue of any human skill and art, but by the power of the Supreme Being; and partly to detract from the honour of the God of Israel; for they do not say this is the finger of Jehovah, whom they accounted, as Dr. Lightfoot {g} observes, as a petty trivial god, but this is the finger of Elohim, the Supreme Deity. It is conjectured by some {h}, that in memory of this plague the Egyptian priests scrape their whole bodies, lest there should be a louse or any unclean thing on them when they worship their gods, as Herodotus {i} relates:



and Pharaoh's heart was hardened, and he hearkened not unto them; either not unto the magicians owning the hand of God, and his divine power in the plague inflicted; or to Moses and Aaron demanding the dismission of the people of Israel, which latter seems to be confirmed by the usual phrase, as follows,



as the Lord had said; see Ex 7:4.



{g} Ut supra. (Works, vol. 1. p. 705, 706.) {h} Vid. Scheuchzer. Physica Sacra, vol. 1. p. 132. {i} Euterpe, sive, l. 2. c. 37.





Exodus 8:20



Ver. 20. And the Lord said unto Moses, rise up early in the morning,.... Of the day following, the twenty eight of Adar, or February, according to Bishop Usher; this was the fittest time to meet with Pharaoh, and the most likely to make impressions on him:



and stand before Pharaoh: meet him as he comes along, and stop him, and stand before him as having something to say to him; this was using great boldness and freedom with a king; but as Moses was ordered to do it by the King of kings, it became him to obey him:



lo, he cometh forth to the water; See Gill on "Ex 7:15"



and say unto him, thus saith the Lord, let my people go, that they may serve me; which had often been required before, but to no purpose, and in case of refusal he is threatened as follows.





Exodus 8:21



Ver. 21. Else, if thou wilt not let my people go,.... But remainest obstinate and inflexible:



behold, I will send swarms of flies upon thee; the word used is generally thought to signify a "mixture", and is interpreted by many a mixture of various creatures; the Targum of Jonathan paraphrases it a mixture of wild beasts, and so Josephus {k} understands it of all sorts of beasts, of many forms, and such as were never seen before; according to Jarchi, all sorts of evil beasts are meant, as serpents and scorpions, mixed together; and so Aben Ezra says it signifies evil beasts mixed together, as lions, wolves, bears, and leopards; but it is not likely the houses should be filled with these, or the ground covered with them, as after related: and besides, they would soon have destroyed, all the inhabitants of the land, since as it follows they are said to be upon them; rather a mixture of insects is intended; the Septuagint; version renders it the "dog fly", and so Philo the Jew {l}; which, as Pliny {m} says, is very troublesome, to dogs especially, about their ears, and this version Bochart {n} approves of:



and upon thy servants, and upon thy people, and into thy houses; they should be sent unto and settle first on his own person, and also on his ministers and courtiers, and upon all his subjects in general, and get into their houses, and be very troublesome guests there:



and the houses of the Egyptians shall be full of the swarms of flies, and also the ground whereon they are; their number would be so very great.



{k} Antiqu. l. 2. c. 14. sect. 3. {l} De Vita Mosis, l. 1. p. 622. {m} Nat. Hist. l. 11. c. 34. {n} Hierozoic. par. 2. l. 4. c. 15. col. 555.





Exodus 8:22



Ver. 22. And I will sever in that day the land of Goshen, in which my people dwell,.... Distinguish it from other parts of the land of Egypt:



that no swarms of flies shall be there; which was a very wonderful thing, and so the word may be rendered. "I will marvellously sever or separate" {o}, and so the Targum of Jonathan, "I will do wonders or miracles in that day": as they were to make such a difference in one part of the country from another, and so near as Goshen was to the place where Pharaoh lived, and to bound and limit such sort of creatures as flies, which move swiftly from place to place, and particularly to keep the land of Goshen clear of them; when, as Bishop Patrick observes, it was a country that abounded with cattle, whose dung is apt to breed flies:



to the end thou mayest know that I am the Lord in the midst of the earth; he is God over all the earth, and rules as a King in the midst of it, and does whatsoever he pleases in it; see Ps 74:12 and in the midst of the land of Goshen where his people dwelt, and over whom he was King in a peculiar manner, and took a peculiar care of them, to protect and defend them; and which must the more vex and distress the Egyptians, when they saw the Israelites clear of those plagues they were afflicted with.



{o} ytylphw "faciamque mirabilem", V. L. "miraculose agam", Fagius; "marvellously sever", Ainsworth.





Exodus 8:23



Ver. 23. And I will put a division between my people and thy people,.... Or, a "redemption" {p}; for by distinguishing them in his providence from the Egyptians, he might be said to redeem or deliver them; thus God makes a difference between his chosen people and the rest of the world, through his Son's redemption of them by his blood, out of every kindred, tongue, people, and nation:



tomorrow shall this sign be: which, according to Bishop Usher, must be the twenty nineth day of Adar or February.



{p} twdp "redemptionem", Pagninus, Montanus, &c.





Exodus 8:24



Ver. 24. And the Lord did so,.... And this he did immediately of himself without any means; not by the rod of Aaron, to let the Egyptians see that there was nothing in that rod, that it had no magic virtue in it, and what was done by it was from the Lord himself, who could as well inflict plagues without it as with it; see Ps 105:31 and there came a grievous swarm of flies; or a "heavy" {q} one, which was both very numerous, and very troublesome and distressing:



into the house of Pharaoh, and into the houses of his servants, and into all the land of Egypt: into the palace of Pharaoh, and into the palaces of his nobles, ministers, and courtiers, and into the dwelling places of all his subjects, throughout the whole land, excepting the land of Goshen:



the land was corrupted by reason of the swarm of flies; Josephus {r} says, the land lay neglected and uncultivated by the husbandmen; it may be, the air was infected by the flies, which produced a pestilence that took off many of the inhabitants; so among the Eleans, as Pliny {s} reports, a multitude of flies produced a pestilence; however, it is certain many of the inhabitants of Egypt perished by them; they might sting them to death, suck their blood, and poison them with their envenomed stings; see Ps 78:45.



{q} dbk "gravis", Montanus, "gravissime", V. L. {r} Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 2. c. 14. sect. 3.) {s} Nat. Hist. l. 10. c. 28.





Exodus 8:25



Ver. 25 And Pharaoh called for Moses and for Aaron,.... He and his people not being able to endure this plague of flies any longer; and we read in profane history of such creatures being so troublesome, that people have been obliged to quit their habitations, and seek for new ones; so Pausanias {t} relates of the inhabitants of Myus, that such a number of flies rose out of the lake, that the men were obliged to leave the city, and go to Miletus; so Aelian {u} reports, that the inhabitants of Megara were driven from thence by a multitude of flies, as were the inhabitants of Phaselis by wasps, which creatures also might be in this mixture of insects:



and said, go ye, sacrifice to your God in the land; that is, in the land of Goshen, in the place where they were; he was willing to allow them the liberty of sacrificing to their God, which it seems they had before; but then he would not consent they should go out of the land to do it.



{t} Achaica, sive l. 7. p. 400. {u} De Animal. l. 11. c. 28.





Exodus 8:26



Ver. 26. And Moses said, it is not meet so to do,.... It being the command and will of God that they should go three days' journey into the wilderness, and sacrifice there; and besides it was dangerous, the Egyptians might be provoked by their sacrifices to fall upon them, and kill them;



for we shall sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians to the Lord our God; by which Moses is not to be understood as calling the idols of Egypt an abomination, as being so to God and to all good men, that were not idolaters; for though they were, Moses would scarcely call them so before Pharaoh, when he could have made use of another word as well; but his meaning is, that the Israelites would sacrifice that which would be an abomination, and very detestable to the Egyptians for them to do. And so the Targum of Jonathan;



"for the sheep, which are the idols of the Egyptians, we shall take and offer before the Lord our God.''



Herodotus {w} says, it was not accounted with the Egyptians lawful to sacrifice any creature but swine, and male oxen, and calves, such as were clean; but nevertheless, as after these times the Egyptians did offer such creatures as oxen, sheep, and goats, at least some of them did, Bishop Patrick thinks this may only refer to the rites and ceremonies of sacrificing, and to the qualities and condition of the beasts that were offered, about which the Egyptians in later ages were very curious; however, be it which it will, something might be done which would displease the Egyptians, and therefore it was best to sacrifice out of their land:



lo, shall we sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians before their eyes, and will they not stone us? rise up in a body in great wrath, and fall upon us and slay us, by taking up stones and casting at us, or by some means or another dispatch us while offering; just as Pilate mingled the blood of the Galilaeans with their sacrifices, Lu 13:1 and the Egyptians were a people that greatly resented any indignity done to their deities, and would prosecute it with great wrath and fury; as appears from an instance which Diodorus Siculus {x} reports he was an eyewitness of, as that a certain Roman having killed a cat, (which is an Egyptian deity,) the mob rose about his house, so that neither the princes sent by the king of Egypt to entreat them, nor the common dread of the Roman name, could deliver the man from punishment, though he did it imprudently, and not on purpose.



{w} Euterpe, sive l. 2. c. 41, 42, 45. {x} Bibliothec. l. 1. p. 75.





Exodus 8:27



Ver. 27. We will go three days' journey into the wilderness,.... As was first insisted on, and from which demand they should not depart:



and sacrifice unto the Lord our God, as he shall command us; both what sacrifices shall be offered, and the manner in which they shall be done, both which seemed for the present in a good measure undetermined and unknown; and therefore it was possible, and very probable, that in one or the other they should give offence to the Egyptians, should they sacrifice among them, being at all events resolved to do as the Lord should command them.





Exodus 8:28



Ver. 28. And Pharaoh said, I will let you go, that ye may sacrifice to the Lord your God in the wilderness,.... He does not say three days, though as he allowed them to go into the wilderness and sacrifice, they could not go and come again in less time; nor would Moses have accepted of the grant, as it seems by what follows he had, if he had obliged them to less time:



only you shall not go very far away; his meaning is, as Aben Ezra observes, that they should go no further than three days' journey; he was jealous that this was only an excuse to get entirely out of his dominions, and never return more. He might have heard of their claim to the land of Canaan, and of their talk, and hope, and expectation, of going and settling there; and so understood this motion of theirs, to have leave to go into the wilderness for three days, to sacrifice to the Lord, was only a pretence; that their real intention was to proceed on in their journey to Canaan; however, being in this great distress, he made as if he was willing to grant what they desired, and very importunately urged they would pray he might be delivered from this plague:



entreat for me; the words seem to be spoken in haste, and with great eagerness and vehemence.





Exodus 8:29



Ver. 29. And Moses said, behold, I go out from thee,.... Directly, immediately, to the place where he was wont to meet the Lord, and receive orders and instructions from him:



and I will entreat the Lord that the swarms of flies may depart from Pharaoh; for as he sent them, he only could remove them, and he could do the one as easily as he did the other:



from his servants, and from his people, tomorrow; that there might be a thorough and clear riddance of them from him and all his subjects, and out of every part of his kingdom; which should be done, and was done on the morrow, that is, on the thirtieth day of Adar, answering to part of our February, and part of our March, so that this must be about the middle of March:



but let not Pharaoh deal deceitfully any more, in not letting the people go to sacrifice to the Lord; as in the plague of frogs, refusing to let them go when it was past; which Moses calls an illusion, a mocking of them, and dealing deceitfully, to which he here refers; see Ex 8:15.





Exodus 8:30



Ver. 30. And Moses went out from Pharaoh, and entreated the Lord. He did as he promised he would, and prayed to the Lord to remove the flies from Pharaoh and his people.





Exodus 8:31



Ver. 31. And the Lord did according to the word of Moses,.... Did as he entreated him to do, as follows:



and he removed the swarms of flies from Pharaoh, from his servants, and from his people; by what means is not said, whether by destroying them at once, as the frogs, or by driving them away with a wind, as the locusts afterwards:



there remained not one; the meaning is not, not one swarm of flies, but not one fly, there was not one left; which looks as if it was in the latter way that they were removed, since, if in the former, they would have remained, though dead, as the frogs did, for a little while.





Exodus 8:32



Ver. 32. And Pharaoh hardened his heart at this time also,.... As he did before, when he found the plague was removed, and the flies were gone:



neither would he let the people go; through pride and covetousness, being loath to have the number of those under his dominion so much diminished, and to lose so large a branch of his revenues arising from the labour of these people.

 

John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible.

Exodus 9:1



INTRODUCTION TO EXODUS 9



This chapter relates the plague of murrain upon the cattle, and which yet was not upon the cattle of the Israelites, Ex 9:1 and the plague of boils and blains on man and beast, Ex 9:8 and Pharaoh's heart being hardened, Moses is sent to him with a message from the Lord, threatening him that all his plagues should come upon him, and particularly the pestilence, if he would not let Israel go; and signifying, that to show his power in him, and declare his name throughout the earth, had he raised him up, and a kind of amazement is expressed at his obstinacy and pride, Ex 9:12, and he is told that a terrible storm of hail should fall upon the land, and destroy all in the field; wherefore those that regarded the word of the Lord got their cattle within doors, but those that did not took no care of them, Ex 9:18 and upon Moses's stretching out his hand, when ordered by the Lord, the storm began, and destroyed every thing in the field throughout the land, excepting the land of Goshen, Ex 9:22 upon which Pharaoh sent for Moses and Aaron, acknowledged his sin, and the justice of God, begged they would entreat for him, which Moses did; but when the storm was over, Pharaoh's heart was still more hardened, and he refused to let the people go, Ex 9:27.



Ver. 1. Then the Lord said unto Moses,.... The same day the plague of the flies was removed:



go in unto Pharaoh boldly, without any fear of him or his court:



and tell him, thus saith the Lord God of the Hebrews: speak in the name of Jehovah, the God whom the Hebrews worship, and who owns them for his people, and has a special love for them, and takes a special care of them, and is not ashamed to be called their God, as poor and as oppressed as they be:



let my people go, that they may serve me; this demand had been often made, and, though so reasonable, was refused.





Exodus 9:2



Ver. 2. For if thou refuse to let them go,.... Continue to refuse, as he had done:



and wilt hold them still; in the land, and under his dominion and oppression.





Exodus 9:3



Ver. 3. Behold, the hand of the Lord,.... Which was stronger than his, with which he held the Israelites:



is upon thy cattle which is in the field: this takes in all in general, of which the particulars follow, though limited to such as were in the field, and so did not take in what were at home in their out houses and stables:



upon the horses: of which there was great plenty in Egypt, as appears from various places of Scripture:



upon the asses; used for carrying burdens from place to place:



and upon the camels; used the like purposes, and to ride upon, and particularly to travel with through desert places for commerce, being able to proceed on without water for a considerable time:



upon the oxen, and upon the sheep; oxen were for labour to plough with, and sheep for their wool, and all of them to trade with: there shall be



a very grievous murrain: or "pestilence" {y}, a very noisome one, and which would carry off great numbers; the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan render it a "death", as the Jews commonly call a pestilence, whether on man or beast, because it generally sweeps away large numbers.



{y} rbd "pestis", V. L. Pagninus, Montanus, Piscator; "pestilentia", Drusius; so Tigurine version.





Exodus 9:4



Ver. 4. And the Lord shall sever between the cattle of Israel and the cattle of Egypt,.... Make such a difference and distinction between them, that the murrain should not be on the one, when it was on the other, and which was a very marvellous thing; and especially in the land of Goshen, where the Egyptians had much cattle, and Pharaoh himself, see Ge 47:6 and yet, though the cattle of Israel breathed in the same air, drank of the same water, and fed in the same pastures, they had not the murrain as the cattle of Egypt had; and the word here used signifies a marvellous separation, as has been observed on Ex 7:22:



and there shall nothing die of all that is the children's of Israel; not an horse, nor an ass, nor an ox, nor a sheep.





Exodus 9:5



Ver. 5. And the Lord appointed a set time,.... For the coming of this plague, that it might plainly appear it came from him, and was not owing to any natural cause:



saying, tomorrow the Lord shall do this thing in the land; thus giving him time and space, as he had often done before, to consider the matter well, repent of his obstinacy, and dismiss the people of Israel, and so prevent the plague coming upon the cattle, as threatened.





Exodus 9:6



Ver. 6. And the Lord did that thing on the morrow,.... Brought a murrain, or a pestilential disease on the cattle. This, according to Bishop Usher, was on the second day of the seventh month, which afterwards became the first month, the month Abib, which answers to part of March and part of April, and seems to be about the seventeenth of March:



and all the cattle of Egypt died; not all absolutely, for we read of some afterwards, Ex 9:9 but all that were in the field, Ex 9:3 and it may be not strictly all of them, but the greatest part of them, as Aben Ezra interprets it; some, and a great many of all sorts, in which limited sense the word "all" is frequently used in Scripture:



but of the cattle of the children of Israel died not one; at least of the murrain, or by the hand of God, and perhaps not otherwise, which was very wonderful, since such a disorder is usually catching and spreading.





Exodus 9:7



Ver. 7. And Pharaoh sent,.... Messengers to the land of Goshen, to see whether the murrain was upon the cattle of Israel or not, and whether any of them died or not. The Targum of Jonathan is,



"he sent to Pelusium to see''



and inquire about this matter; that is, to Raamses, for so that paraphrase calls Raamses in Ex 1:11 a city built by the Israelites, and where many of them might dwell. This Pharaoh did, not merely out of curiosity, but to know whether the divine prediction was accomplished, and that he might have wherewith to confront it, could he find the murrain was upon any of the cattle of Israel, or any died of it; and if they did not, his view might be to convert them to his own use, and make up his loss, and the loss of his people, in a good measure in this way, and perhaps this may be the reason why he so little regarded this plague:



and, behold, there was not one of the cattle of the Israelites dead; which was very wonderful, and therefore a "behold", a note of admiration, is prefixed to it, yet it made no impression on Pharaoh:



and the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, and he did not let the people go; though this plague was so heavy upon him and his people, and the loss they sustained so great: in the other plagues of the water, the frogs, lice, and flies, though very troublesome and terrible, yet the loss was not very great; but here much damage was done to their property, yet this did not make his heart relent, or cause him to yield to let Israel go.





Exodus 9:8



Ver. 8. And the Lord said unto Moses and unto Aaron,.... This very probably was the day following, on the third day of the month Abib, about the eighteenth of March, that orders were given to bring on the following plague:



take to you handfuls of ashes of the furnace; either in which the bricks were burnt, or rather in which food was boiled, since it can scarcely he thought there should be brickkiln furnaces so near Pharaoh's court; though perhaps some reference may be had to them, and to the labour of the children Israel at them, and as a just retaliation for their oppression of them in that way. These ashes were such as were blown off the coals, and though fresh, yet not so hot but that they could take and hold them in their hands:



and let Moses sprinkle it towards the heaven, in the sight of Pharaoh; this was to be done before Pharaoh, that he might be an eyewitness of the miracle, he himself seeing with his own eyes that nothing else were cast up into the air but a few light ashes; and this was to be done towards heaven, to show that the plague or judgment came down from heaven, from the God of heaven, whose wrath was now revealed from thence; and Moses he was to do this; he alone, as Philo {z} thinks, or rather both he and Aaron, since they were both spoken to, and both filled their hands with ashes; it is most likely that both cast them up into the air, though Moses, being the principal person, is only mentioned.



{z} De Vita Mosis, l. 1. p. 622.





Exodus 9:9



Ver. 9. And it shall become small dust in all the land of Egypt,.... Which ashes, thrown up into the air, should be so multiplied and spread as to be over all the land of Egypt, and come down like showers of snow or sleet everywhere, only of a hot and scalding nature; or these handfuls of ashes were to be cast up into the air, and come down in the above manner, about Pharaoh's court, as a sign and token of what would be the case all over the kingdom:



and shall be a boil breaking forth [with] blains; that is, these ashes becoming a small dust, and falling down like the dew, snow, or sleet, yet hot and burning, should produce sore boils, burning ulcers, hot carbuncles, rising up in pustules, blisters, and buboes, which last word is pretty near in sound with the Hebrew word here used:



upon man, and upon beast, throughout all the land of Egypt; so that, as the last plague affected their property, substance, and riches, which in those times greatly lay in cattle, this, besides that, would affect their persons, and give them exceeding great pain, though it might not issue in death.





Exodus 9:10



Ver. 10. And they took ashes of the furnace,.... Which was near at hand, perhaps in Pharaoh's kitchen:



and stood before Pharaoh; not in his palace, or in any covered room, but in some place open to the heaven, a courtyard or garden adjoining to the palace: and Moses sprinkled it up towards heaven; cast it up in the air; this being again ascribed to Moses, seems to confirm the notion of those who think he only did it; but, for the reasons before given, both may be thought to be concerned:



and it became a boil breaking forth with blains, upon man, and upon beast; these failing down in the manner before described, on whomsoever they lighted, whether man or beast, produced sore boils and inflammations, and raised blisters and blotches; and hence arose those lying scandalous stories of the Israelites being a scabby people, and of their being driven out of Egypt on that account, affirmed by Manetho, Lysimachus, Diodorus Siculus, Tacitus, Justin, and others;

See Gill on "Ex 4:6" with this plague the first vial poured forth on mystical Egypt, or antichrist, has some agreement, Re 16:2.





Exodus 9:11



Ver. 11. And the magicians could not stand before Moses, because of the boils,.... Which were on them as on others, and which with all their art and skill they could not keep off; and which were so sore upon them, and painful to them, that they were obliged to withdraw, and could not stand their ground, confronting Moses, contesting and litigating with him; for it seems, though they had not acted, nor attempted to act in imitation of Moses and Aaron, since the plague of the lice, yet they still continued about Pharaoh, lessening as much as in them lay the miracles wrought by them, and suggesting that they had done the most and the worst they could, and so contributing to harden the heart of Pharaoh against the people of Israel; wherefore they were righteously punished with boils for so doing, and for their contempt of the messengers and miracles of God, and for their imposition upon men, and their deception of them:



for the boil was upon the magicians, and upon all the Egyptians; but not upon Moses and Aaron, nor upon any of the Israelites, and was afterwards called peculiarly the botch of Egypt, De 28:27.





Exodus 9:12



Ver. 12. And the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh,.... He having often, and so long hardened his own heart, God gave him up to judicial hardness of heart, to his own corruptions, the temptations of Satan, and the lying magicians about him, to make an ill use of everything that offered to him, and put a wrong construction on all that befell him, so that whatever was said to him, or inflicted on him, made no impression to any purpose:



and he hearkened not unto them; to Moses and Aaron, and to the Lord by them:



as the Lord had spoken to Moses; both that he would harden his heart, and he should not hearken to them; all this was no other than what the Lord had said should be, Ex 4:21.





Exodus 9:13



Ver. 13. And the Lord said unto Moses, rise up early in the morning, and stand before Pharaoh,.... Who it seems used to rise early in the morning, and so was a fit time to meet with him, and converse with him; it might be one of the mornings in which he used to go to the water early, though not mentioned, unless that was every morning:



and say unto him, thus saith the Lord God of the Hebrews, let my people go, that they may serve me; thus had he line upon line, and precept upon precept, so that he was the more inexcusable, see Ex 9:1.





Exodus 9:14



Ver. 14. For I will at this time send all my plagues upon thine heart,.... Not meaning particularly the plague of the hail, which next follows, so called, because it consisted of various things, as hail, rain, lightning, and thunder, as Aben Ezra, and who observes, that Pharaoh was more terrified with this plague than with any other; but rather all the plagues yet to come, for by them are not meant all the plagues that were in the power of God to inflict, which how many and great they are none can say, but all that he had determined in his mind to bring upon him; and these should not so much affect and afflict his body, as the boils and ulcers had the magicians, but should reach his heart, and fill him with horror and terror:



and upon thy servants, and upon thy people; even all that he intended to bring not only upon himself, but upon his subjects, both high and low:



that thou mayest know, that there is none like unto me in all the earth; for the perfections of his nature, and the works of his hands, particularly his providential dealings with the sons of men, and especially with him.





Exodus 9:15



Ver. 15. For now will I stretch out my hand, that I may smite thee and thy people with pestilence,.... Which yet we never find was done; for though this by many is referred to the slaying of the firstborn, yet it is not certain that this was done by the pestilence: besides, Pharaoh was not then smitten, nor his people, only their firstborn; wherefore these words are to be rendered, not in the future, but in the imperfect or preterpluperfect tense, thus; "for when now I stretched out my hand, or if now I had stretched out my hand to smite thee and thy people with pestilence" {a}; that is, at the time when he smote the cattle with the murrain or pestilence, when he could as well have smote him and his people with it; there was no want of power in God to do it, and had he done it, it would have been all over with him and them:



and thou shall be cut off from the earth; or "thou hadst been, or wouldest have been cut off from the earth" {b} must have perished out of it, and been no more in the land of the living.



{a} ytxlv hte yk "modo enim cum extendi", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Drusius, "vel si extendissem", Fagius, Cocceius; so Jarchi, Gersom, Targ. Onk. & Jon. {b} dxktw "sic fuisses excisus", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Drusius, Cocceius.





Exodus 9:16



Ver. 16. And in very deed, for this cause have I raised thee up,.... Or but truly or verily {c}; instead of smiting thee with the pestilence, and cutting thee off out of the land of the living, "I have raised thee up"; made thee to stand {d}, to continue in being; I have preserved thine from perishing by the former plagues, and have reserved thee for greater judgments and sorer punishments. It may take in all that God did to him; the constitution and appointment of him to all this in his eternal mind; his bringing him into being, and raising him up to kingly dignity; preserving him from perishing by the pestilence, boils and blains, and keeping him for future evils, and all upon this account for the following reasons:



for to shew in thee my power; in working miracles, inflicting judgments one after another, and especially in destroying him and his host in the Red sea:



and that my name may be declared throughout all the earth; as it has been more by that last action than by all the rest of the plagues; though, in all, his sovereignty, wisdom, power, patience, longsuffering, and justice, are most visibly displayed and glorified.



{c} Mlwaw "veruntamen", Junius & Tremellius, Psicator, Drusius, Fagius; so Ainsworth. {d} Kytdmeh "stare fecite", Pagninus, Montanus, Vatablus.





Exodus 9:17



Ver. 17. As yet exaltest thou thyself against my people, that thou wilt not let them go?] And so against God himself, disobeying his commands, despising his messengers, and slighting his miracles, and hardening his heart against him, and refusing to let Israel go, after all; thereby showing the most intolerable pride and insolence not only against the Lord's poor people, but against himself, for what is done to them he takes as done to himself; or "dost thou still tread upon my people?" {e} trample them under foot, and make an highway or causeway of them.



{e} ymeb llwtom Kdwe "adhuc tu calcas populum meum?" some in Drusius; so Jarchi.





Exodus 9:18



Ver. 18. Behold, tomorrow about this time,.... It was now the fourth day of the month Abib, and the fifth when the following was inflicted:



I will cause it to rain a very grievous hail; which should fall very thick, and the hailstones be very numerous and heavy, and the storm last long:



such as hath not been in Egypt since the foundation thereof, even until now; not since the earth or land itself was founded, for that was founded when the rest of the world was, and the sense then would be the same as since the foundation of the world; and so the Targum of Jonathan seems to understand it, paraphrasing the words,



"from the day that men were made, even until now.''



And a like expression is used of a storm of hail, thunder, and lightning, and earthquakes yet to come, which will be such as has not been since men were upon the earth, with which this plague may be compared, Re 16:19, but here is meant since Egypt was inhabited, or rather formed into a kingdom, and founded as such, which had been many hundreds of years before this time; there was a king of Egypt in Abraham's time; the first founder of this empire, and king of it, was Mizraim, the son of Ham, from whom it had its name, by which it is usually called in Scripture. This supposes that it did sometimes rain in Egypt, contrary to a vulgar notion, or otherwise there would have been no room for the comparison; though it must be owned that rain is rare in Egypt, especially in some parts of it; See Gill on "Zec 14:18".





Exodus 9:19



Ver. 19. Send therefore now, and gather thy cattle, and all that thou hast in the field,.... The servants that were at work there: this is said to denote both the certainty of the plague, and the terribleness of it, that all, both men and beast, would perish by it, if care was not taken to get them home; and also to show the wonderful clemency and mercy of God to such rebellious, hardened, and undeserving creatures, as Pharaoh and his people were; in the midst of wrath and judgment God remembers mercy:



for upon every man and beast which shall be found in the field, and shall not be brought home; and there sheltered in houses, barns, and stables:



the hail shall come down upon them, and they shall die; the hailstones that would fall would be so large and so heavy as to kill both men and beasts, like those which fell from heaven upon the Canaanites in the days of Joshua, which killed more than the sword did, Jos 10:11.





Exodus 9:20



Ver. 20. He that feared the word of the Lord among the servants of Pharaoh,.... Who, if they had not the true fear of God, and were not sincere proselytes, yet had a servile fear of him, and dreaded his word, his threatening, his denunciations of judgments and predictions of future punishments; of which they had had many instances wherein they were fulfilled, and therefore had reason to fear that this also would, even the word that had been just now spoken:



made his servants and cattle flee into the houses; called home his servants, and drove his cattle in great haste out of the fields, and brought them home as fast as he could, and housed them; in which he acted the wise and prudent part, and showed a concern for his servants and his cattle, as well as believed the word of the Lord.





Exodus 9:21



Ver. 21. And he that regarded not the word of the Lord,.... Or "set not his heart" {f} "unto it", took no notice of it, but treated it with the utmost contempt; and of this sort it may be thought there were the far greatest number: everyone of this cast



left his servants and cattle in the field; let them remain there, and took no care of them, nor thought about them, and so took no methods to preserve them; in which he acted a foolish part, to his own detriment and loss.



{f} wbl Mv al "non posuit cor suum", Pagninus, Montanus, Piscator, Fagius.





Exodus 9:22



Ver. 22. And the Lord said unto Moses,.... When the morrow was come, the fifth day of the month Abib:



stretch forth thine hand toward heaven; with his rod in it, as appears from the next verse, to show that the following plague would come from the heaven, that is, the air, and from God, who dwells in the heaven of heavens:



that there may be hail in all the land of Egypt; not only in that spot, and near it, where Moses stood, and from that part of the heaven towards which he stretched forth his hand, but from the whole heaven all over the land of Egypt; which shows it to be an unusual and extraordinary hail, for a hail storm seldom reaches far, a mile it may be, or some such space; but never was such an one heard of as to reach through a whole country, and so large an one as Egypt:



upon man and upon beast; such as belonged to those who would take no warning, nor attend to the word of the Lord to fetch home their servants and cattle:



and upon every herb of the field throughout the land of Egypt; it should fall so thick, that scarce an herb would escape it.





Exodus 9:23



Ver. 23. And Moses stretched forth his rod toward heaven,.... The same which Aaron had made use of before, but was now in the hand of Moses, and whose rod it properly was:



and the Lord sent thunder and hail, and the fire ran along upon the ground, hot thunderbolts, which struck their flocks, Ps 78:48 and hail which fell so thick and weighty as to destroy both men and cattle, and break trees in pieces, and spoil the corn, the grass, and the tender herb; and fire, that is lightning, which descended so low, and in such quantities, as ran along the ground, and consumed all it met with. Artapanus {g}, an Heathen writer, who speaks of this storm of hail, says, that Moses, besides the hail, caused earthquakes by night, so that those that escaped the earthquakes were taken away by the hail, and those that escaped the hail perished by the earthquakes, which he says overthrew all the houses, and most of the temples:



and the Lord rained hail upon the land of Egypt; upon Egypt, where rain was not common, and on all the land of Egypt, when in some parts of it it was scarce known, and hail as thick as rain; ice, snow, and hail, are most rarely if ever seen there, the air not being cold enough for the production of them {h}. This was the Lord's immediate doing, when there was no likelihood of it, nor any appearance of second causes concurring to produce it, and came at the exact time he had foretold it should; all which were very extraordinary.



{g} Apud Euseb. Praepar. Evangel. l. 9. c. 27. p. 435, 436. {h} Vid. Scheuchzer. Physica Sacra, vol. 1. p. 139.





Exodus 9:24



Ver. 24. So there was hail, and fire mingled with the hail,.... Which was a miracle within a miracle, as Aben Ezra observes; and very wonderful indeed it was, that the hail did not quench the fire, nor the fire melt the hail, as Philo the Jew {i} remarks:



very grievous, such as there was none like it in all the land of Egypt, since it became a nation; See Gill on "Ex 9:18".



{i} De Vita. Mosis, l. 1. p. 620.





Exodus 9:25



Ver. 25. And the hail smote throughout all the land of Egypt,.... It was in all the land, and it smote and did mischief in all parts of it, only in Goshen, after excepted:



all that was in the field, both man and beast; which they that neglected the word of the Lord took no care to fetch home, these were all smitten and destroyed by the hail: and the hail smote every herb of the field; that is, the greatest part of them, for some were left, which the locusts afterwards ate, Ex 10:15, and brake every tree of the field; and the vines and fig trees, Ps 78:47.





Exodus 9:26



Ver. 26. Only in the land of Goshen, where the children of Israel [were], was there no hail. So that such Egyptians as might dwell among them, they, their servants, their cattle, and their fruits, escaped this plague; and oftentimes do wicked men fare the better for the people of God that are among them.





Exodus 9:27



Ver. 27. And Pharaoh sent,.... Not persons to observe whether there was any hail fell in the land of Goshen, though there are some {k} that so supply the words; but it cannot be thought that Pharaoh would send, or that any would go thither amidst such a storm of thunder and hail; but he sent messengers,



and called Moses and Aaron; who might be in his palace, at least not very far off:



and said unto them, I have sinned this time; not but that he had sinned before, and must be conscious of it, particularly in breaking his promise so often; but now he acknowledged his sin, which he had never done before: and this confession of sin did not arise from a true sense of it, from hatred of it, and sorrow for it as committed against God; but from the fright he was in, the horror of his mind, the dread of the present plague being continued; and the terror of death that seized him, the rebounding noise of the thunder in his ears, the flashes of lightning in his face, and the hailstones beating upon the top of his house, and against the windows and sides of it, frightened him exceedingly, and forced this confession from him:



the Lord is righteous, and I and my people are wicked; which was well spoken, had it been serious and from his heart; for God is righteous in his nature, and in all his works, and in all those judgments he had inflicted upon him; and he and his people were wicked in using the Israelites in such a cruel manner, and in detaining them when it had been promised them again and again that they should have leave to go, and especially in rebelling against God, and disobeying his commands.



{k} "Misisset qui observarent", Junius & Tremellius.





Exodus 9:28



Ver. 28. Entreat the Lord, for it is enough,.... Hail, thunder, and lightning enough; or pray that this may be enough, and thought sufficient, and that there may be no more; or "entreat the Lord, and much" {l}; pray, and pray much, pray earnestly and without intermission until the plague ceases:



that there be no more mighty thunderings and hail; or "voices of God" {m}; for thunder is the voice of God, and these thunderings or voices were very loud, the claps were very terrible to hear, and the hail was very grievous and heavy, and the whole was very amazing and frightful, and the more to Pharaoh, who perhaps had never heard the voice of thunder, or seen an hail storm before, even a common one, these being rare in the land of Egypt:



and I will let you go, and ye shall stay no longer; go the three days' journey into the wilderness, directly and immediately; he would not put it off, on any account, and much less refuse to let them go at all, as he had often done.



{l} brw-yryteh "orate multam", Rivet. {m} Myhla tlq "voces Dei", Montanus, Drusius.





Exodus 9:29



Ver. 29. And Moses said unto him, as soon as I am gone out of the city,.... Zoan or Tanis, for it was in the field of Zoan where these wonders were wrought, Ps 78:12, the reason why he went out of the city to pray, Jarchi says, was because it was full of idols; but the truer reason was, that he might be private and alone while he was praying to God; and perhaps he went out also to show that he was not frightened at the storm, or afraid of being destroyed by it, and was confident of preservation in the midst of it, in the open field, by the power of God, whom he served:



I will spread abroad my hands unto the Lord; which was a prayer gesture directed to by the light of nature, and was used very anciently, and by the Heathens, as well as others; of which the learned Rivet has given many instances in his comment on this text:



and the thunder shall cease, neither shall there be any more hail; this he had faith in, and full assurance of before he prayed for it; he knew the mind and will of God, and not only he knew what he could do, but what he would do, and which he tells Pharaoh of before hand; which was a full proof that he was a god to Pharaoh, as the Lord said he had made him, Ex 7:1



that thou mayest know how that the earth is the Lord's; that the whole earth is his, and therefore he can do, and does in it whatever he pleases; as the heavens also are his, and therefore can cause thunder, lightning, hail, and rain, and stop them when he thinks fit; or that the land of Egypt particularly was his, and not Pharaoh's, and therefore could destroy, or save it at his pleasure; and particularly it being his, Pharaoh had no right to detain his people in it against his will, who was Lord of it.





Exodus 9:30



Ver. 30. But as for thee, and thy servants,.... Notwithstanding the confession of sin he had made, and his earnest request that the Lord might be entreated to remove this plague, and though he had been assured it would be removed:



I know that ye will not yet fear the Lord God: they had not feared him yet; the confession of sin made did not arise from the true fear of God, but from a dread of punishment, and when delivered from this plague, the goodness of God would have no such effect as to cause him and his servants to fear the Lord; or "I know, that before ye were afraid of the face of the Lord God" {n}, which Kimchi {o} and Ben Melech interpret thus,



"I know that thou and thy servants, before I pray for you, are afraid of the face of the Lord God, but after I have prayed, and the thunders and rain are ceased, ye will sin again;''



and so they did.



{n} Nwaryt Mrj "priusquam timeretis", Tigurine version. {o} Sepher Shorash, rad. Mrj.





Exodus 9:31



Ver. 31. And the flax and the barley was smitten,.... With the hail, thunder, and lightning, and were beat down, bruised, broken, and blasted, and destroyed; of the former there were great quantities produced in Egypt, which was famous for linen, much was made there, and there were many that wrought in fine flax, see Isa 19:9 and the latter were used not only to feed their cattle, but to make a drink of, as we do, ale and strong beer; and so the Egyptians use it to this day, as Dr. Shaw {p} says, both to feed their cattle, and after it is dried and parched, to make a fermented, intoxicating liquor, called "bonzah"; probably the same with the barley wine of the ancients, and a species of the "sicar", or strong drink of the Scriptures:



for the barley [was] in the ear, and the flax [was] bolled; or in the stalk, quite grown up, and so the ears of the one were beat off, and the stalks of the other battered with the hail, and broken and destroyed.



{p} Travels, tom. 2. c. 2. sect. 5. p. 407. Ed. 2.





Exodus 9:32



Ver. 32. But the wheat and the rye were not smitten,.... Bruised, broken, beat down, and destroyed by hail: the word by us rendered "rye", and by other "fitches" or "spelt", is thought by Dr. Shaw {q} to be "rice", of which there were and still are plantations in Egypt; whereas rye is little, if at all known in those countries, and besides is of the quickest growth; and he observes that rice was the "olyra" of the ancient Egyptians, by which word the Septuagint render the Hebrew word here; and from Pliny {r} we learn, that "olyra", and "oryza", or rice, are the same, and which with the Greeks is "zea", by which some translate the word here:



for they were not grown up; and so their leaves, as the same traveller observes, were at that time of so soft and yielding a nature, that the hail by meeting with no resistance, as from the flax and barley, did them no harm; and so the Septuagint and Vulgate Latin versions render it: "they were late"; and so the Targum of Jonathan and Jarchi interpret it: for the wheat harvest with the Jews, and so with the Egyptians, was later than the barley harvest, there being about a month's difference between them: some render the word "dark or hidden" {s} because, as Aben Ezra says, they were now under ground; and if this was the case, indeed the reason is clear why they were not smitten; but this was not the case, for, according to Pliny {t}, there was but one month's difference in Egypt between the barley and the wheat; but rather they are said to be so, because the ear was as yet hid, and was not come forth; it just began to spindle, or, as the above traveller explains it, they were of a dark green colour, as young corn generally is, as contradistinction to its being of a bright yellow or golden colour, when it is ripe; for, adds he, the context supposes the wheat and the rice not only to have been sown, but to have been likewise in some forwardness, as they well might be in the month of Abib, answering to our March.



{q} Travels, tom. 2. c. 2. sect. 5. p. 407. Ed. 2. {r} Nat. Hist. l. 18. c. 7. 9. {s} tlypa "caliginosa", Montanus, Vatablus; "latuerant", Tigurine version; "latentia", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Drusius. {t} Ut supra. (Nat. Hist. l. 18. c. 7. 9.)





Exodus 9:33



Ver. 33. And Moses went out of the city from Pharaoh,.... Into the field, where, being retired from company, he could freely, and without being disturbed, pray unto God:



and spread abroad his hands unto the Lord; denoting the spreading of cases before God, and expectation, hope, and readiness to receive favours from him:



and the thunder and hail ceased; immediately upon the entreaty of Moses; see the power and prevalence of prayer: a like instance we have in Elijah, Jas 5:17 and the rain was not poured upon the earth; so that there was rain as well as hail, which was restrained and entirely ceased.





Exodus 9:34



Ver. 34. And when Pharaoh saw that the rain, and the hail, and the thunders were ceased,.... And there was a clear sky and a fine serene heaven, the black clouds were dispersed and gone, and he heard no more the clattering of the hailstones, and the terrible claps of thunder, and saw no more the flashes of lightning, but all was calm and composed:



he sinned yet more, and hardened his heart, he and his servants; instead of giving glory to God, who had heard the prayers of Moses and Aaron for them, and had delivered them from their frights and fears, and the terror and horror they were in, and of letting the people of Israel go, see Re 16:21.





Exodus 9:35



Ver. 35. And the heart of Pharaoh was hardened,.... Instead of being softened, as it seemed to be when under the plague, it became harder and harder when delivered from it:



neither would he let the children of Israel go; though he had so absolutely promised it, and assured them that he would not keep them, and that they should not stay any longer:



as the Lord had spoken by Moses; that so his heart would be hardened until the signs and wonders were multiplied upon him, God designed to perform, Ex 4:21.

 

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