Exodus9chapter 9

Exodus 9:1-2

The fifth plague opens with the summons into the palace, which is the middle slot in each of the three groups of three: a warning at the water in the morning, a warning in the palace, then a stroke with no warning at all. The demand is the one Moses has carried since 4:23, freedom for a purpose, and let my people go, that they may serve me falls seven times in the book at 4:23, 7:16, 8:1, 8:20, 9:1, 9:13 and 10:3. The Hebrew root behind serve is the root Exodus 1:13 and 1:14 use five times over for the bondage, so the question between God and Pharaoh is whom Israel will serve rather than whether Israel will serve.

Exodus 9:3-4

The phrase the hand of the LORD occurs here for the first time in Scripture, and the word murrain occurs here and nowhere else in the King James Bible. No rod is lifted and no hand is stretched out for this plague, so it is the first stroke that arrives with no visible instrument in front of it. The severing between the cattle of Israel and the cattle of Egypt is the second of three such divisions, after the flies at 8:22 and before the hail at 9:26.

Exodus 9:5-6

A time is fixed in advance and the plague keeps it, which is the same device used at the frogs, where Pharaoh himself named the hour at 8:9 and 8:10. Verse 6 says all the cattle of Egypt died, and cattle stand in the field again thirteen verses later at 9:19 and 9:25. Verse 3 supplies the limit the summary leaves out, since the hand of the LORD is on the cattle which is in the field, and John Gill and Keil read the all of verse 6 inside that boundary.

Exodus 9:7

Pharaoh sends men to check whether the division held, and the report comes back that it did. Matthew Henry reads the inquiry as proof that he understood the claim well enough to test it, which makes the refusal that follows a refusal against evidence he gathered himself. This is the seventh statement about his heart and the last one before the subject changes at verse 12.

Exodus 9:8-9

The sixth plague falls with no warning and no demand, closing the second group of three in the shape the third plague used to close the first at 8:16. Adam Clarke connects the furnace to the brick kilns the Hebrews worked at, so the dust thrown into the air is the dust of the bondage. Moses does the sprinkling, and from here the hand stretched out over Egypt is his rather than Aaron's, at 9:22, 10:12, 10:21 and 14:16.

Exodus 9:10-11

The magicians reach the end of their part in three stages. They copied the rod, the blood and the frogs at 7:11, 7:22 and 8:7, they failed at the lice and told Pharaoh this is the finger of God at 8:19, and now they cannot stand in the room because the boils are on them. Egypt's own experts leave the account here and the book does not mention them again.

Exodus 9:12

This is the first place in Scripture that says the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart, and the order of the statements carries the argument. God says twice in advance that he will do it at 4:21 and 7:3, then through the first five plagues the act is put on Pharaoh or left stative at 7:13, 7:14, 7:22, 8:15, 8:19, 8:32 and 9:7. From this verse the LORD is the subject at 10:1, 10:20, 10:27, 11:10, 14:4, 14:8 and 14:17, with verses 34 and 35 of this chapter the last place Pharaoh hardens himself. R. C. Sproul reads the sequence as one act with two true descriptions, sovereignty and responsibility both real, while the free-will reading holds that God confirmed a man in the direction he had already taken, and three different Hebrew verbs stand behind the English harden across the book.

Exodus 9:13-14

The seventh plague opens the third group of three with the morning warning, the slot the blood and the flies held at 7:15 and 8:20. What follows is the heaviest language yet, all my plagues upon thine heart, and the stated aim is knowledge rather than damage, that thou mayest know that there is none like me in all the earth. The book gives that reason again and again, at 7:5, 8:10, 8:22, 9:29 and 14:18.

Exodus 9:15

The verse describes a stroke that was available and was not used, since a pestilence that cut Pharaoh off from the earth would have ended the contest in one morning. John Calvin reads the delay as forbearance rather than weakness, and the pacing is what verse 16 then explains. Egypt gets nine warnings before the night of the firstborn.

Exodus 9:16-17

Romans 9:17 quotes this verse as scripture speaking to Pharaoh, and Romans 9:18 draws from it the line whom he will he hardeneth. The Hebrew verb behind raised thee up has been read as brought onto the stage and as kept alive to this point, and Paul follows the Septuagint's wording. The stated purpose is that a name be declared throughout all the earth, and the account never records the name of the king who asked at 5:2 who is the LORD.

Exodus 9:18-19

The word hail occurs here for the first time in Scripture, and the plague is dated a day ahead as the murrain was at verse 5. Then comes something none of the earlier plagues carried, an instruction to Egyptians on how to get out from under it, since cattle and servants brought home under a roof will live. The judgment announces its own exit before it falls.

Exodus 9:20-21

The phrase feared the word of the LORD occurs once in the whole King James Bible and this is the verse. Egypt divides here along a line that is not national, since some of Pharaoh's own servants act on what Moses said while others leave their men and their animals standing in the field. The narrator records the split and says nothing about it, and a mixed multitude goes up with Israel at 12:38 without being identified.

Exodus 9:22-23

The rod lifted here is the shepherd's staff of Exodus 4:2 that became a serpent at the bush, and it is the one instrument the book uses. It stretches over the locusts at 10:13, divides the sea at 14:16, and strikes the rock at 17:5 and 17:6, where God calls it the rod wherewith thou smotest the river. Fire runs along the ground with the hail, and Revelation 8:7 sounds the first trumpet with hail and fire mingled.

Exodus 9:24-26

Two measures of scale stand together, that there had been nothing like it in Egypt since it became a nation and that Goshen had none of it at all. This is the third division in three chapters, after the flies at 8:22 and the cattle at 9:4, and here the exemption is drawn on the map. Every herb of the field is smitten and every tree broken, which is what makes the locusts of the next chapter a second stroke on what the hail left, at 10:5 and 10:15.

Exodus 9:27-28

I have sinned occurs here for the first time in Scripture and the mouth it comes out of is Pharaoh's. He grants the whole case, that the LORD is righteous and that he and his people are wicked, and then asks for one thing, that the thunder stop. He says it again at 10:16 and takes it back both times, which is why Matthew Henry reads the words as a man conceding the weather rather than repenting.

Exodus 9:29-30

Moses grants the request and gives the reason for granting it, that thou mayest know how that the earth is the LORD's, which is the same reason given at 8:22 and 9:14. He will not pray inside the city, and Adam Clarke reads that as keeping the answer clear of the idolatry the city was full of. Then he tells Pharaoh plainly that neither he nor his servants will yet fear the LORD God, and the word fear is the word used of the servants who obeyed at verse 20.

Exodus 9:31-32

The narrator stops the account to say which crops were standing, and this is the only agricultural date in the whole plague narrative. Barley in the ear and flax in bud puts the hail near the end of the Egyptian winter, which is where Clarke and Keil place it in January or February, and the wheat and the rie were still low enough to come through. What survived here is what the locusts eat in the next chapter.

Exodus 9:33-34

The prayer is answered exactly as it was promised, and the moment the pressure lifts Pharaoh sins yet more. Verse 34 is the last time in the book that Pharaoh is the one hardening his heart, and the servants are named with him, though some of them had feared the word at verse 20. From chapter 10 forward the subject of that verb is the LORD.

Exodus 9:35

The chapter closes on the same stative sentence that closed the fifth plague at verse 7, and between those two ends stands verse 12. The refrain as the LORD had spoken by Moses ties the outcome back to 4:21 and 7:3, which were said before the first plague fell. Three plagues remain, and the demand of verse 1 is repeated unchanged at 10:3.