Exodus9chapter 9

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.

festering boils will break out on man and beast: The soot Moses throws into the air becomes fine dust across Egypt, and festering boils break out on people and animals. The sixth plague strikes the body directly, and its link to the act of Moses before Pharaoh is plain to see. Albert Barnes takes the boil to be a burning tumor or carbuncle breaking out in ulcers.

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.

The magicians could not stand before Moses: The magicians, who copied the staff, the blood and the frogs and failed at the gnats, now cannot even stand before Moses, because the boils are on them too. John Wesley links their defeat with 2 Timothy 3:9, where their folly is made plain to all. Adam Clarke observes that they are mentioned no more in the account.

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.

there is no one like Me in all the earth: The warning before the hail states the purpose of the plagues still to come. The LORD will send all His plagues so that Pharaoh may know there is no one like Him in all the earth. Albert Barnes, on verse 13, takes all My plagues to cover every plague that follows, each foreseen and foretold, and reads the warning as a promise of blows in quick succession.

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.

you lord it over My people: The LORD names Pharaoh's fault in one line: he still lords it over Israel and will not let them go. The charge follows verses 15 and 16, where the LORD says He could already have destroyed Pharaoh and has raised him up to display His power. Adam Clarke, on verse 16, renders the verb there as God causing Pharaoh to subsist for this purpose.

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.

give orders now to shelter your livestock: Before the hail falls, the LORD gives Egypt a way of escape: bring people and animals indoors and they will live. The warning shows mercy within judgment, since any Egyptian who heeds the word can save his household. Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, on verse 18, note that hailstones in Egypt are small and weak, which made this storm the more fearful.

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.

disregarded the word of the LORD: The warning divides Pharaoh's own officials. Those who feared the word sheltered their servants and livestock, as verse 20 records, and those who disregarded it left them in the field. Belief in the word of the LORD now decides who lives among the Egyptians themselves. Matthew Henry, on verse 31, links this storm with Psalm 78 and with the seventh bowl in Revelation 16.

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.

the LORD sent thunder and hail: Moses stretches his staff toward heaven, and the LORD answers with thunder, hail and lightning striking the ground. The seventh plague is the first to fall on Egypt from the sky. Adam Clarke notes that the Hebrew for thunder is literally voices, and he reads the fire on the ground as lightning that swept through the land and destroyed what it touched.

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.

stripped every tree: The hail strikes everything left in the field, people and animals alike, beats down the plants and strips the trees. Those who ignored the warning of verse 19 lose what they left outside, and verse 26 records that Goshen alone escaped. John Gill, on verse 24, cites Aben Ezra, who called the fire within the hail a miracle within a miracle.

The only place where it did not hail: Goshen, where the Israelites lived, is the one place in Egypt the hail did not touch. The distinction first made with the flies and the livestock holds again, now under a storm that covers the land. Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, on verse 18, note that no trace of the storm was found in Goshen, which added to the wonder.

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.

there has been enough of God’s thunder and hail: Pharaoh asks Moses to pray and promises that Israel need stay no longer. His word enough shows that the storm has broken his resistance for the moment. Adam Clarke reads the phrase God's thunder, literally the voices of God, as a Hebrew way of saying exceedingly loud thunder, and compares the mountains of God in Psalm 36:6.

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.

Moses agrees to pray, yet he tells Pharaoh that he sees through the confession of verse 27. Pharaoh and his officials still do not fear the LORD, and verse 34 proves Moses right. Adam Clarke, on verse 27, asks who could have imagined that after such a confession Pharaoh would harden his heart again.

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.

the wheat and spelt were not destroyed: Verses 31 and 32 pause the account to explain which crops were lost. Flax and barley were ruined because they were ripe or in bloom, while wheat and spelt ripen later and survived, which leaves food for the locusts of 10:5. Jamieson, Fausset & Brown use the stage of these crops to date the hail to about February, and Adam Clarke takes spelt to mean a bearded grain.

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.

Once the storm stops, Pharaoh and his officials harden their hearts, and the text calls it sin. Adam Clarke reads the hardening as Pharaoh's own act, Origen, on verse 27, holds that God hardened him again and again so that he would not think lightly of his hardness, and Albert Barnes notes that verses 34 and 35 use two different Hebrew verbs for it.

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.