Exoduschapter 8
32 verses · Moses, by tradition · 15th or 13th century BC · The Law
“This is the finger of God,” the magicians said to Pharaoh. But Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he would not listen to them, just as the LORD had said.
Introduction
Moses, by tradition, The Law, Exodus Overview.
This chapter carries three plagues in quick succession and shows a pattern that repeats through the rest of the sequence. It was written for Israel as a lesson in how a hard heart behaves under pressure. Each stroke fell on ordinary life in Egypt, on the water, the soil and the houses. Listen for the moment when Pharaoh's own experts give up, and for the bargains the king starts to offer. Notice also the line God draws between Goshen and the rest of the land.
Context
- Who
- Israel after the exodus, hearing how God divided one country in two
- What
- A narrative chapter reporting the plagues of frogs, gnats and flies and Pharaoh's shifting promises.
- Where
- Pharaoh's palace, the land of Egypt at large, and the land of Goshen, which was spared the flies.
- When
- About 1446 BC on the traditional early date, in the months before the exodus.
- Why
- To show the LORD's power over Egypt's land, the failure of its magicians, and the distinction He made for His people.
Historical context
Exodus presents itself as Moses' own writing, at 17:14, 24:4 and 34:27, where he writes at the LORD's command. Moses had fled to Midian and come back at the call given at the bush, and at this chapter he carries the demand to Pharaoh with Aaron beside him.
Show the rest of the historical context, 2 more paragraphs
When the exodus happened is disputed, and no verdict is stamped on it here. The early date puts it at about 1446 BC, read from the four hundred and eighty years of 1 Kings 6:1 by Eugene Merrill, Bryant Wood and Andrew Steinmann. The late date puts it in the thirteenth century BC, read from the store cities of Exodus 1:11 by Kenneth Kitchen and James Hoffmeier. The place is Egypt, the Nile with its canals and ponds, the houses of the court and of the people, and the district of Goshen, where Genesis 47:6 records that Jacob's family was settled. The occasion is the second, third and fourth strokes of the contest over Israel's release.
A first hearer knew that frogs came up out of the river in ordinary years once the flood went down, so the creature was familiar and the scale of it was the horror. The frog-headed goddess Heqet was honoured in Egypt as a deity of birth, which made heaps of dead frogs a humiliation for a household god. Egyptian priests shaved their bodies and washed repeatedly to stay ritually clean, so a plague of biting insects put temple service beyond reach.
Significance
Israel learned that God can draw a line through a country and put them on one side of it. The line is declared at verse 22 and it held, and Egyptian custom held some of the animals Israel sacrificed in honour, so the two peoples could not even worship in the same place.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
They also watched a king promise release while the plague was on him and withdraw the promise as soon as the relief came, twice inside one chapter.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
How it is read
The corpus carries no English text for this chapter, so nothing here is quoted. Rashi comments at sixteen places in it and Ibn Ezra at eight, and both stand by reference alone (Rashi on Exodus 8:2:1, 8:8:1, 8:13:1, 8:17:1 and 8:22:1; Ibn Ezra on Exodus 8:1:1, 8:9:1 and 8:23:1). Sefaria reports no licence for the Rashi version it holds, and CC-BY-NC for the Ibn Ezra translation, so the corpus keeps the reference and the link. One caution belongs on these references. Sefaria numbers the verses of this part of Exodus as a Hebrew Bible numbers them. An English Bible parts from that count here, so a reference followed to Sefaria may land a few verses away. This site says the same of the weekly portions, whose verse ranges are printed in the Hebrew numbering.
What the rabbis say
The rabbis take up this chapter through the Mekhilta at four places. The recension of Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai carries it at Additions 8:1 and Additions 8:2, and again at 12:6. The recension of Rabbi Yishmael carries it at Tractate Pischa 18:23. On the frogs they taught in Midrash Aggadah, Exodus 8:2:1 and Midrash Lekach Tov, Exodus 8:3:1. Shemot Rabbah 15:27 and Eikhah Rabbah 1:55 carry the chapter as well.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on Exodus 8:2:1, 8:8:1, 8:13:1, 8:17:1 and 8:22:1, cited by ref alone because Sefaria reports no licence for the version held; Ibn Ezra, Ibn Ezra on Exodus 8:1:1, 8:9:1 and 8:23:1, cited by ref alone under the corpus licence rule; The Midrash, Mekhilta DeRabbi Shimon Ben Yochai, Additions 8:1, Additions 8:2 and 12:6; Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Tractate Pischa 18:23; Midrash Aggadah, Exodus 8:2:1; Midrash Lekach Tov, Exodus 8:3:1; Shemot Rabbah 15:27; Eikhah Rabbah 1:55, cited by ref; The annual cycle, src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, the note that the printed cycle's verse numbers are the Hebrew ones.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Frogs Fill the Whole Land
Exodus 8:1-2
The second plague is announced in the palace, where the first was announced at the river in the morning at 7:15. The nine plagues before the last fall in three sets of three, and each set opens with a warning at the water, then a warning at the court, then a stroke delivered with no warning at all. The demand carries its purpose clause here as it does at 4:23, 7:16, 8:20, 9:1, 9:13 and 10:3, and the Hebrew word behind serve covers the labour of a slave and the worship of God alike.
Exodus 8:1
“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.”
4 more voices on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Exodus 8:1
“ON two or three former occasions I have endeavored to insist upon the fact that God always puts a distinction between Israel and Egypt. He constantly speaks of the Israelites as "My people"—of the Egyptians, he speaks to Pharaoh as being "your people." There is a continual and eternal distinction observed in the Word of God between the chosen seed of promise and the world—the children of the Wicked One. The great objective of God's interference with Egypt was not the blessing of Egypt at large, but the gathering out of His Israel from the midst of the Egyptians.”
Exodus 8:1
“As a judgment of God, however, it produced no good effect, and Moses was commanded to wait on the king and threaten him, in the event of his continued obstinacy, with the infliction of a new and different plague. As Pharaoh's answer is not given, it may be inferred to have been unfavorable, for the rod was again raised.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Exodus 8:1
“Let my people go - God, in great mercy to Pharaoh and the Egyptians, gives them notice of the evils he intended to bring upon them if they continued in their obstinacy. Having had therefore such warning, the evil might have been prevented by a timely humiliation and return to God.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Exodus 8:1
“Note, God does not punish men for sin unless they persist in it. If he turn not, he will whet his sword ( Ps. vii. 12 ), which implies favour if he turn.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
I will plague your whole country with frogs: The second plague comes with a condition, and the frogs follow only if Pharaoh refuses to let Israel go. The frog belonged to the ordinary life of the Nile, so the threat turns a familiar creature into a judgment on the whole land. Adam Clarke reads the conditional wording as proof that Pharaoh still had the power to release the people.
Exodus 8:2
“If thou refuse - Nothing can be plainer than that Pharaoh had it still in his power to have dismissed the people, and that his refusal was the mere effect of his own wilful obstinacy. With frogs - צפרדעים tsepardeim. This word is of doubtful etymology: almost all interpreters, both ancient and modern, agree to render it as we do, though some mentioned by Aben Ezra think the crocodile is meant; but these can never weigh against the conjoint testimony of the ancient versions.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Exodus 8:2
“I will smite all thy borders with frogs--Those animals, though the natural spawn of the river, and therefore objects familiar to the people, were on this occasion miraculously multiplied to an amazing extent, and it is probable that the ova of the frogs, which had been previously deposited in the mire and marshes, were miraculously brought to perfection at once.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Exodus 8:3-4
The Nile that Egypt lived on is made to breed the plague, as it was made to run blood at 7:20. The frogs are tracked from the water into the bedchamber, the bed, the ovens and the kneadingtroughs, so the reach of the thing is measured by naming the places where a household is private. Verse 4 puts Pharaoh himself first, ahead of his people and his servants, so the king is the first body the frogs climb.
Exodus 8:3
“Into thine house - This appears to have been special to the plague, as such. It was especially the visitation which would be felt by the scrupulously-clean Egyptians. Kneadingtroughs - Not dough, as in the margin. See Exo 12:34.”
The frogs will come up on you: The warning ends by naming whom the frogs will reach: Pharaoh himself, his people and all his officials. The king is named first because the refusal is his, and no rank in Egypt is spared. Albert Barnes, on the verse before, notes that frogs entering the houses would weigh heavily on the scrupulously clean Egyptians.
Exodus 8:4
“And the frogs shall come up both on thee, and upon thy people, and upon thy servants.”
Exodus 8:5-7
The rod is in Aaron's hand again, the same shepherd's staff that became a serpent at 4:2 and swallowed the magicians' rods at 7:12, and it will divide the sea at 14:16 and strike the rock at 17:6. The magicians match this sign as they matched the rod and the blood at 7:11 and 7:22, and it is the third and last time their enchantments keep pace. Their answer to a country full of frogs is to produce more frogs, since they can add to the plague and cannot lift it.
Exodus 8:5
“Stretch forth thine hand - over the streams, over the rivers - The streams and rivers here may refer to the grand divisions of the Nile in the Lower Egypt, which were at least seven, and to the canals by which these were connected; as there were no other streams, etc., but what proceeded from this great river.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
the frogs came up and covered the land: Aaron acts at the word of the LORD, and the frogs rise from the waters of Egypt, the rivers, canals and ponds named in verse 5. The word covered shows that the plague reached the whole land, as the warning of verse 3 had said. Adam Clarke gathers ancient reports of peoples who abandoned their country because of swarms of frogs.
Exodus 8:6
“The frogs came up, and covered the land of Egypt - In some ancient writers we have examples of a similar plague. The Abderites, according to Orosius, and the inhabitants of Paeonia and Dardania, according to Athenaeus, were obliged to abandon their country on account of the great numbers of frogs by which their land was infested.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
the magicians did the same thing: Pharaoh's magicians match the sign by their magic arts and bring up still more frogs. Their success only adds to Egypt's trouble, since they can multiply the frogs and cannot remove them. Albert Barnes sees in this the reason Pharaoh turns next to Moses, and Matthew Henry links these frogs with the unclean spirits like frogs in Revelation 16:13.
Exodus 8:7
“They also brought up frogs, but could not remove those that God sent. The unclean spirits which came out of the mouth of the dragon are said to be like frogs, which go forth to the kings of the earth, to deceive them ( Rev. xvi. 13 ), which probably alludes to these frogs, for it follows the account of the turning of the waters into blood.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 more voice on this verse
Exodus 8:7
“The magicians would seem to have been able to increase the plague, but not to remove it; hence, Pharaoh’s application to Moses, the first symptoms of yielding.”
Exodus 8:8-9
Pharaoh asks for prayer from the men he had dismissed at 5:2 with the words who is the LORD, that I should obey his voice, and he offers to let the people go for the first time. Moses answers with Glory over me and hands the king the choosing of the hour, which the older commentators read as an invitation to name a time no trickery could arrange. The frogs are to go back into the river they came out of rather than to disappear.
Exodus 8:8
“He begs of Moses to intercede for the removal of the frogs, and promises fair that he will let the people go. He that a little while ago had spoken with the utmost disdain both of God and Moses is now glad to be beholden to the mercy of God and the prayers of Moses.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Moses lets Pharaoh choose the hour when the frogs will leave, handing the king the honor of setting the terms. A time fixed by Pharaoh himself would show that the LORD ended the plague by His word. The frogs of the Nile are excepted, so the river keeps its own creatures. Albert Barnes reads the short interval as a test of the supernatural character of the deliverance.
Exodus 8:9
“Glory over me - See the margin, “have honor over me,” i. e. have the honor, or advantage over me, directing me when I shall entreat God for thee and thy servants. When - Or by when; i. e. for what exact time. Pharaoh’s answer in Exo 5:10 refers to this, by tomorrow. The shortness of the time would, of course, be a test of the supernatural character of the transaction.”
Exodus 8:10-11
Given the choice of any hour, Pharaoh chooses one more night with the frogs. Moses grants the day and states the reason for the whole exchange, that thou mayest know that there is none like unto the LORD our God, which is the same purpose given at 7:17, 8:22 and 9:14. Each stroke in this contest is aimed at knowledge before it is aimed at damage.
Exodus 8:10
“But Pharaoh, who was devoted to beliefs and vain superstitions (Egypt being filled with frogs, which produced empty sounds and noisy clamor), when Moses said to him: 'Appoint a time for me to pray for you, and for your servants, and for your people, so that the Lord may exterminate the frogs' (Exod. VIII, 9); though he should have been compelled by such great necessity to pray, and not delay any longer, he replied: 'Tomorrow'; idle and negligent, intending to destroy Egypt by incurring the punishment of delay.”
Ambrose of Milan · written before 397 · On Cain and Abel 1.9.33patristic
Moses promises that the frogs will leave every place Pharaoh named: his houses, his officials and his people. Only the Nile will keep them. The exact promise serves the purpose stated in verse 10, that Pharaoh may know there is no one like the LORD our God. Albert Barnes, on verse 9, notes that the fixed timing would prove the removal came from God.
Exodus 8:11
“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 8:12-14
Moses prays for the man who is holding his people, and Henry takes it as praying for a persecutor. The frogs die where they stand, in the houses and the courts and the fields, and the people gather them into heaps until the land stinks. The relief leaves the evidence lying in the open, so Egypt has to handle what it asked to be rid of.
Exodus 8:12
“Note, We must pray for our enemies and persecutors, even the worst as Christ did. In answer to the prayer of Moses, the frogs that came up one day perished the next, or the next but one.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
the LORD did as Moses requested: The LORD answers the prayer of Moses exactly, and the frogs die in the houses, the courtyards and the fields. They leave by dying where they lie, which prepares for the heaps of the next verse. John Gill notes that the Hebrew word rendered courtyards has also been translated villages, and he takes it of the yards around the dwellings.
Exodus 8:13
“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.”
there was a terrible stench in the land: The dead frogs are gathered into countless heaps, and their rotting fills Egypt with a stench. The relief from the plague leaves its evidence in every district. Adam Clarke sees the heaps as a lasting proof that the plague had come and that the displeasure of the LORD remained, and he reports the guess of Calmet that the later flies bred in them.
Exodus 8:14
“They gathered them together upon heaps - The killing of the frogs was a mitigation of the punishment; but the leaving them to rot in the land was a continual proof that such a plague had taken place, and that the displeasure of the Lord still continued. The conjecture of Calmet is at least rational: he supposes that the plague of flies originated from the plague of frogs; that the former deposited their ova in the putrid masses, and that from these the innumerable swarms afterwards mentioned were hatched.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The change of mind lasted exactly as long as the pressure. Exodus states the hardening nineteen times, and through the first five plagues it puts the act on Pharaoh or leaves the verb stative, at 7:13, 7:14, 7:22, here, 8:19, 8:32 and 9:7. The first place the text says the LORD hardened him is 9:12 at the sixth plague, and from there to the sea the subject never changes back. Sproul reads the whole sequence as one act with two true descriptions, and the free-will reading takes the order as God confirming a man in the direction he had already taken.
Exodus 8:15
“Till the heart is renewed by the grace of God, the impressions made by the force of affliction do not abide; the convictions wear off, and the promises that were extorted are forgotten. Till the disposition of the air is changed, what thaws in the sun will freeze again in the shade. God's patience is shamefully abused by impenitent sinners.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Gnats: the Finger of God
Exodus 8:16-17
The third plague comes with no warning and no audience at the palace, which closes the first set of three: warned at the water, warned at the court, then struck. The dust of the land becomes lice on man and on beast, and dust is what the Nile leaves behind when the water goes down. Aaron's rod has now been laid on the river and on the ground, and those two are what Egypt lived on.
Exodus 8:16
“Smite the dust of the land, that it may become lice - If the vermin commonly designated by this name be intended, it must have been a very dreadful and afflicting plague to the Egyptians, and especially to their priests, who were obliged to shave the hair off every part of their bodies, and to wear a single tunic, that no vermin of this kind might be permitted to harbor about them. See Herod. in Euterp., c. xxxvii., p. 104, edit. Gale.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
All the dust of the earth turned into gnats: The third plague comes with no warning to Pharaoh. Aaron strikes the dust with his staff, and gnats come upon man and beast across Egypt. The Hebrew word has been rendered both lice and gnats, and the Berean Standard Bible reads gnats. Adam Clarke, on verse 16, notes how grievous such vermin would be to Egyptian priests, who shaved their bodies to keep clean of them.
The magicians had matched the rod, the blood and the frogs at 7:11, 7:22 and 8:7, and here their enchantments stop. Clarke puts the difference down to the smallness of the creature, since an insect that fastens on man and beast is past the reach of sleight of hand. By 9:11 they cannot stand before Moses at all, because the boils are on them.
Exodus 8:18
“The magicians did so - That is, They tried the utmost of their skill, either to produce these insects or to remove this plague; but they could not, no juggling could avail here, because insects must be produced which would stick to and infix themselves in man and beast, which no kind of trick could possibly imitate; and to remove them, as some would translate the passage, was to their power equally impossible.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Egypt's own experts say it rather than Israel, and this is the first occurrence of the phrase in Scripture. It returns at 31:18, where the two tables of stone are written with the finger of God, and Luke 11:20 puts it in the mouth of Jesus about casting out devils. The confession changes nothing at court, since Pharaoh's heart was hardened and he hearkened not unto them, and the men he refuses to hear at the end of the verse are his own magicians.
Exodus 8:19
“The finger of God - This expression is thoroughly Egyptian; it need not imply that the magicians recognized Yahweh, the God who performed the marvel. They may possibly have referred it to as a god that was hostile to their own protectors.”
Swarms of Flies; Goshen Spared
Exodus 8:20-21
The fourth plague opens the second set of three with the same staging as the first, at the water in the morning, where 7:15 sent Moses to meet Pharaoh going out to the river. The purpose clause returns word for word, let my people go, that they may serve me. Swarms fill the houses and the ground under them, and the King James italics show that the Hebrew names only swarms, with the word flies supplied by the translators.
Exodus 8:20
“Cometh forth to the water - See the Exo 7:15 note. It is not improbable that on this occasion Pharaoh went to the Nile with a procession in order to open the solemn festival, which was held 120 days after the first rise, at the end of October or early in November. At that time the inundation is abating and the first traces of vegetation are seen on the deposit of fresh soil. The plague now announced may be regarded as connected with the atmosphere, also an object of worship.”
I will send swarms of flies upon you: The fourth plague is announced at the water's edge, as the first was. The swarms will fill the houses of the Egyptians and even the ground where they stand. Jerome took the Hebrew word to mean every kind of fly, while Albert Barnes reports the view that it was the dog fly and the rival view that it was a beetle the Egyptians held sacred.
Exodus 8:21
“Swarms of flies - Generally, supposed to be the dog-fly, which at certain seasons is described as a plague far worse than mosquitos. Others, however, adopt the opinion that the insects were a species of beetle, which was reverenced by the Egyptians as a symbol of life, of reproductive or creative power. The sun-god, as creator, bore the name Chepera, and is represented in the form, or with the head, of a beetle.”
1 more voice on this verse
Exodus 8:21
Kynomyia does not represent "dog fly," as the Latins translated it, with the Greek letter upsilon; according to the sense of the Hebrew the diphthong oi should be written so that the word is koinomyia, that is, "every genus of flies."
Jerome · written before 420 · LETTER 106.86patristic
Exodus 8:22-23
For the first time the text says outright that a plague will stop at a border, and the border is Goshen, where Genesis 47:6 settled Jacob's family. The stated reason is knowledge again, to the end thou mayest know that I am the LORD in the midst of the earth. Clarke observes that the word rendered division at verse 23 is peduth, which elsewhere carries the sense of a redemption, so the line drawn between the two peoples is described with a word for ransom.
Exodus 8:22
“I will sever in that day - הפליתי hiphleythi, has been translated by some good critics, I will miraculously separate; so the Vulgate: Faciam mirabilem, “I will do a marvellous thing.” And the Septuagint, παραδοξασω, I will render illustrious the land of Goshen in that day; and this he did, by exempting that land, and its inhabitants the Israelites, from the plagues by which he afflicted the land of Egypt.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
I will make a distinction between My people: The LORD sets a line between Israel and Egypt, and Goshen is spared the flies. This is the first exemption the text records, and it is given a date, tomorrow, so that its arrival can be tested against the word. Adam Clarke notes that the Hebrew word here means a redemption, and he reads the distinction as God redeeming His people from the plagues sent on Egypt.
Exodus 8:23
“And I will put a division - פדת peduth, a redemption, between my people and thy people; God hereby showing that he had redeemed them from those plagues to which he had abandoned the others.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The swarm reaches Pharaoh's house first, then his servants' houses, then the whole country, which is the order the warning gave at verse 21. The land was corrupted, and Psalm 78:45 looks back at it and says the flies devoured them. Israel in Goshen sits inside the same country and outside the same plague.
Exodus 8:25-26
This is the first of Pharaoh's counteroffers, and every one that follows works the same way, by granting the worship and keeping the people. Sacrifice inside Egypt would leave Israel where it is and turn the service into a licensed local custom, which is the shape of the offers at 10:11 and 10:24 as well. Moses refuses on a practical ground, that what Israel offers is an abomination to the Egyptians, and Genesis 46:34 had already recorded that every shepherd is an abomination unto them.
Exodus 8:25
“To your God - Pharaoh now admits the existence and power of the God whom he had professed not to know; but, as Moses is careful to record, he recognizes Him only as the national Deity of the Israelites. In the land - i. e. in Egypt, not beyond the frontier.”
would be detestable to the Egyptians: Moses refuses the offer of verse 25 to sacrifice inside Egypt. Israel's offerings would be detestable to the Egyptians, and a public sacrifice could provoke them to stone the worshippers. Adam Clarke takes the detestable things to be animals Egypt held sacred, while Ambrose of Milan links the verse with the statement in Genesis that shepherds were detestable to the Egyptians.
Exodus 8:26
“You tell me that you have felt a difficulty in the text We shall sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians to the Lord our God. But you had the means of solving it, for it is written in the book of Genesis, that a shepherd is an abomination to the Egyptians, and this not on account of the shepherd himself, but of his flocks. For the Egyptians were tillers of the ground, but Abraham and Jacob, and afterwards Moses and David, were shepherds, and in this function exercised a certain kingly discipline.”
Ambrose of Milan · written before 397 · Letter 27.1-3patristic
1 more voice on this verse
Exodus 8:26
“We shall sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians - That is, The animals which they hold sacred, and will not permit to be slain, are those which our customs require us to sacrifice to our God; and should we do this in Egypt the people would rise in a mass, and stone us to death. Perhaps few people were more superstitious than the Egyptians.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Exodus 8:27-28
Moses holds to the distance first named at 3:18 and repeated at 5:3, and adds that the form of the sacrifice belongs to God to set rather than to Pharaoh. The king's second offer keeps the shape of a concession and hides a limit inside it, only ye shall not go very far away, which would leave the people within reach. He closes with intreat for me, the second time in one chapter that he asks for prayer from the men he is refusing.
Exodus 8:27
“And sacrifice to the Lord - as he shall command us - It is very likely that neither Moses nor Aaron knew as yet in what manner God would be worshipped; and they expected to receive a direct revelation from him relative to this subject, when they should come into the wilderness.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
but you must not go very far: Pharaoh grants the sacrifice in the wilderness but limits the distance, and in the same breath asks Moses to pray for him. The limit keeps Israel within his reach. Adam Clarke reads it as Pharaoh's unwillingness to lose the profit of Israel's labor, since the Israelites served as slaves of the state.
Exodus 8:28
“I will let you go only ye shall not go very far away - Pharaoh relented because the hand of God was heavy upon him; but he was not willing to give up his gain. The Israelites were very profitable to him; they were slaves of the state, and their hard labor was very productive: hence he professed a willingness, first to tolerate their religion in the land, (Exo 8:25); or to permit them to go into the wilderness, so that they went not far away, and would soon return.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Exodus 8:29-30
Moses names the pattern to the king's face before it repeats, having watched the same promise made at verse 8 and withdrawn at verse 15. He then goes out and prays for him anyway, which is what he did at verse 12. The chapter records no answer from Pharaoh to the charge.
Exodus 8:29
“Pharaoh does but say, Entreat for me (though it is with regret that he humbles so far), and Moses promises immediately, I will entreat the Lord for thee, that Pharaoh might see what the design of the plague was, not to bring him to ruin, but to bring him to repentance.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Then Moses left Pharaoh and prayed: Moses keeps his word from verse 29 and prays as soon as he leaves Pharaoh. He had just warned the king against acting deceitfully again, and he still intercedes for him. Matthew Henry, writing on the frogs in verse 8, remarks that the proud king who had scorned God and Moses was now glad to depend on the prayers of Moses.
Exodus 8:30
“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 8:31-32
The removal is total, which makes the lifting as plain a sign as the plague was. Pharaoh hardened his heart at this time also, and the phrase at this time also is the text keeping count, since he had done the same at verse 15 when the frogs went. Two plagues have now been taken away at his own asking and neither taking away moved him.
Exodus 8:31
“The Lord did according to the word of Moses - How powerful is prayer! God permits his servant to prescribe even the manner and time in which he shall work. He removed the swarms - Probably by means of a strong wind, which swept them into the sea.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Exodus 8:31
“All thy borders - All the land that is within thy borders. Under which are comprehended all other rivers and waters. Glory over me - That is, I yield to thee.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Pharaoh hardened his heart this time as well: When the flies are gone, Pharaoh breaks his promise and hardens his heart again, as he did after the frogs in verse 15. Readers explain this hardening in more than one way. Adam Clarke holds that it was Pharaoh's own obstinacy, which God used to show His power, while Matthew Henry, on 9:12, speaks of wilful hardness punished with judicial hardness from God.
Exodus 8:32
“Pharaoh hardened his heart at this time also - See Exo 8:15. This hardening was the mere effect of his self-determining obstinacy. He preferred his gain to the will and command of Jehovah, and God made his obstinacy the means of showing forth his own power and providence in a supereminent degree.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
How this psalm is built
The form: A plague account in narrative prose, carrying the second, third and fourth strokes, as Keil and Delitzsch classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| The demand repeated with its purpose attached | Each announced plague in this chapter opens with the same demand and the same reason for it, at verse 1 and again at verse 20. Keil and Delitzsch list the same purpose clause at 4:23, 7:16, 8:1, 8:20, 9:1, 9:13 and 10:3. The Hebrew word behind the demand covers the labour of a slave and the worship of God alike, so the demand is about whom Israel serves.Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch. | Exodus 8:1, Exodus 8:20 |
| The sentence about Pharaoh's heart that closes each stroke | All three plagues end on a statement about the king's heart, at verse 15, verse 19 and verse 32. Verses 15 and 32 put the act on Pharaoh himself, and verse 19 leaves the verb without an agent. The words this time as well at verse 32 are the account keeping count, since he had done the same when the frogs went at verse 15. | Exodus 8:15, Exodus 8:19, Exodus 8:32 |
| The places the frogs are tracked into | Verse 3 measures the plague by naming places. It names the palace, the bedroom, the bed, the houses of the officials and the people, and the ovens and kneading bowls. Adam Clarke and John Gill read the reach of the thing as fixed by the naming of the places where a household is private. Verse 4 then puts Pharaoh himself ahead of his people and his officials.Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible. | Exodus 8:3, Exodus 8:4 |
| The king who asks for prayer and the answer given to his face | Twice in this chapter Pharaoh summons Moses and asks him to pray, at verse 8 and at verse 28. Moses hands him the choosing of the hour at verse 9, and Matthew Henry and John Gill read that as an invitation to name a time no trickery could arrange. At verse 29 Moses names the king's pattern to his face before it repeats, then goes out and prays for him.Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible. | Exodus 8:8, Exodus 8:9, Exodus 8:28, Exodus 8:29 |
| The word behind the line drawn at Goshen | Verse 22 says the flies will stop at the border of Goshen, and verse 23 says God will put a distinction between the two peoples. Adam Clarke observes that the Hebrew word standing there is peduth, which elsewhere carries the sense of a ransom. The line between Egypt and Israel is therefore described with a word for redemption.Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible. | Exodus 8:22, Exodus 8:23 |
The chapter stands in the middle of the contest that runs from the first stroke on the river to the night of the firstborn. The demand has been made and refused, the water has been struck, and the question now is how far the strokes will go. What runs through the chapter is knowledge. The stated aim at verse 10 is that Pharaoh may know there is no one like the LORD, and at verse 22 that he may know the LORD is in the land.
9 more paragraphs on the patterns
The second thread is the division. Verse 22 is the first place the text says outright that a plague will stop at a border. The same division is stated of the livestock at 9:4, of the hail at 9:26 and of the darkness at 10:23. It ends at the door of a house at 12:13, where the blood is the sign.
The third thread is the counteroffer. Every offer Pharaoh makes grants the worship and keeps the people, at verse 25, verse 28, 10:11 and 10:24, and Moses refuses each one.
The New Testament's use
The words the magicians speak at verse 19 are the first occurrence of that phrase in Scripture. It stands again at 31:18, where the two tablets are written with the finger of God, and Luke 11:20 puts it in the mouth of Jesus about casting out demons. The confession comes from Egypt's own experts, and the men Pharaoh refuses to hear at the end of verse 19 are those same experts. Psalm 78:45 looks back at the flies of this chapter and says they devoured the people.
The debated point
Who hardens Pharaoh's heart is one of the four debated readings the dossier for this book carries, and the dossier names the holders on each side. One reading holds that Pharaoh hardens his own heart first and repeatedly, and that God's hardening confirms a choice the king had already made. The dossier names its holders as the majority evangelical reading, which rests on the order of the statements. This chapter supplies three of them, at verses 15, 19 and 32, and the first place the text makes the LORD the subject is 9:12.
The other reading holds that God's hardening is sovereign and purposeful from the start, part of raising Pharaoh up to display His own power. The dossier names it as a reading leaning on Paul's use of Pharaoh in Romans 9:17 and 9:18, held within parts of the Reformed tradition. R. C. Sproul, in Chosen by God, reads the whole sequence as one act with two true descriptions, sovereignty and responsibility each real. No verdict is stamped here.
Where to go deeper
The sequence these three strokes belong to is argued at The Ten Plagues. The deliverance they move toward is argued at The Exodus. The country they fall on is set out at Egypt.
Keep studying
Studies1
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The form and classifications
Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments; Ambrose of Milan, Letter 27; Chuck Missler, Learn the Bible in 24 Hours; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jerome, Letter 106; John Calvin, Commentary on the Four Last Books of Moses Arranged in the Form of a Harmony; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.