3

2 Rod.

Engl. Vers.-Lice. acceptation of kinnim as lice, which is adopted by Josephus, Jonathan, Onkelos, Hesychius, Dioscorides, Taylor, Buxtorf, Le Clerc, and Luther, and defended-but with insufficient arguments-by Bochart and Bryant, is in no way appropriate, whilst the translations of Zunz and Arnheim (noxious insects), and of Johlson and Salomon (vermin), are too indistinct; and the rendering of Philippson, ants, is a conjecture, neither supported by internal probability, nor by any ancient authority.

13. The miracle connected with this plague is expressed in the words: all the dust of the land became gnats through all the land of Egypt, showing the unparalleled quantity of these obnoxious insects, so that they became a perfect and dangerous plague. And this is the climax in the third wonder. Whilst the two first were only disagreeable or troublesome, the third was indeed dangerous for men and beasts, as those insects penetrated into the most delicate and tender parts of the body, the eyes and nostrils. We are further justified in supposing, that this plague also occurred at an unusual season, in the month of February, whilst travellers inform us, "that the gnats generally increase about the time of the drying of the rice, about the end of October, and that they are less numerous in other seasons of the year" (Sonnini, Travels, i. p. 246).

14. And the interpreters of secret signs did so with their hidden arts, namely, they smote the dust as Aaron had done, in order to bring forth gnats. This is the easy and natural interpretation of the verse. Others translate

3 It became lice in man, and in beast.

they tried to do so, which application, although not without parallel, seems less unforced. Arnheim, quoting the explanation of Chiskuni, takes the words "to bring forth," in the sense of leading away: the magicians tried to remove the gnats, but they failed, and thus there were gnats upon men and beasts. However, the magicians had first to prove their power to produce the same miracles as Moses and Aaron, and the Hebrew verb here employed is to be taken as in Gen. i. 12: "and the earth produced grass." — But they could not, according to Nachmanides, because here some new creation was to be effected, whilst the blood was only a change of the same element, and the frogs were only called forth from the waters, where they existed already before. -So there were gnats upon man and upon beast, an emphatical repetition, in order to point once more to the vexatious character of this plague; and we find in these words no allusion that "the gnats came upon the magicians also," as Ebn Ezra believes.

15. The wise men of Pharaoh were now, for the first time, and most reluctantly compelled to acknowledge: this is the finger of God, that is, not by the power of Moses and Aaron has this miracle been produced, but by that of a Deity, mightier than they or ourselves; thus, 1st. They did not admit that Moses and Aaron were more powerfully gifted than they were themselves: and 2nd. They asserted that not the God of the Israelites (Jehovah), indignant at Pharaoh's refusal to allow the departure of His people, had inflicted

the eyes, and on the eye-lids, those most sensitive parts, to which a little moisture attracts them." Let us even hear the evidently exaggerated account of Philo (Vit. Mos. ii. p. 101): "The flies rush on without fear, and if they are driven away they repeat their attacks with tenacious obstinacy till they have satisfied themselves with blood and flesh. Thus, the dog-fly is a bold and insidious insect; for it darts from a distance, like a spear, with a buzzing noise, and, approaching with great violence fixes its sting deeply into the skin." If we compare these descriptions with the essential criteria of the arob above enumerated, it is obvious that it cannot mean dogflies, because, a. these do not cover the ground; b. they do not devour or corrode things; c. they cause no devastations of the land; d. they are neither very different from, nor in any considerable degree more vexatious than the gnats (see our note to ver. 12). Thus the arob does not correspond with that insect in any of its indisputable qualities, and we are necessarily compelled to deviate here from the authority of the Septuagint and Philo.-Passing over the arbitrary and unsupported suppositions of Werner, who explains arob, wolf (see also Rashbam), or of others, who take it as locusts, we believe that all these criteria perfectly apply to the Blatta Orientalis, called in German Schabe or Kakerlake (Tarokan). This will at once be acknowledged as the most appropriate interpretation, if we give here some extracts from descriptions of that insect. Pratte (Travels through Abyssinia, p. 143) narrates: "The Kakerlaks appear in a moment in the houses, and break forth, as if by a spell, suddenly from every aperture and fissure. Shortly before my departure from Adua, they

filled, in a few minutes, the whole house of the resident missionary there. Only after the most laborious exertions, and after covering the floor of the apartments with hot coals, they succeeded in mastering them. If they make such attacks during the night, the inmates are compelled to give up the houses; and even little children, or sick persons, who are unable to rise alone, are then exposed to the greatest danger of life." Hasselquist and Forskal further report, that they inflict very painful bites with their jaws; that they gnaw and destroy clothes, household-furniture, leather, and articles of every kind; and either consume or render unavailable all eatables. "Those who have travelled about the Nile," says Munk (Pal. p. 126, b), know what a molestation those insects are; the houses are infested by them, and they are often seen by millions." These descriptions fully agree with the etymology, and with the narrative of our text. These insects really fill the land, and molest men and beasts; they consume all sorts of materials, devastate the country, and are in so far more detrimental than the gnats, as they destroy also the property of the Egyptians; they form, in this respect, the appropriate transition to the following severer plagues, which first ruin the wealth, and then the lives of the Egyptians. And thus the clear gradation of the plagues will be easily discernible. This beetle is an important emblem in the mythology of the Egyptians, and is found on almost all their sculptural and pictorial monuments. The Egyptian beetle is chiefly distinguished from the common one by a broad band upon the anterior margin of its oval corselet. Kirby (Bridgewater Treatises, ii. p. 357) mentions another etymological derivation:

"It has been suggested to me, that the Egyptian plague of flies was a cock-roach (Blatta Ægyptiaca). The Hebrew name of the animal, which is the same by which the raven is distinguished, furnishes no slight argument in favour of it. The same word also signifies the evening. Now the cock-roach, at this time found in Egypt, is black, with the anterior margin of the thorax white, and they never emerge from their hiding-places till the evening; both of which circumstances would furnish a reason for the name given to it; and it might be called the evening insect, both from its colour, and the time of its appearance." This would, however, be a very indistinct designation, applying with equal, and perhaps greater propriety, to a considerable number of other animals, both insects, birds and wild beasts.-Rise early in the morning, etc. see note on vii. 15. — Whereon they are, that is, the Egyptians, in contradistinction to the Israelites.

18, 19. The special providence of God, in favour of His people, will manifest itself in this plague still more openly and obviously than in the preceding three calamities, by exempting them entirely from the obnoxious insects, which will prove so troublesome to the persons, and so destructive to the property of their Egyptian neighbours. This fact will impress upon the latter the twofold truth: 1st. That the Israelites are the people of God who sends the plagues over Egypt, on account, and in favour of, His people; 2nd. That He is the omnipotent Lord of the Universe; "that thou mayest know that I am the Lord in the midst of the earth;" or as Rashi explains, “although my glory is in heaven, my will is omnipotent on earth," similar to the expression in verse 6 (compare ix. 14,29),

and that, therefore, the idols of the Egyptians are as impotent as the arts of the magicians are fallacious and powerless. Bruce, however, who has thoroughly investigated this subject (Travels, i. p.5; v. p. 191), explains the fact mentioned in these verses, in the following manner: "It is well known, that the land of Goshen was a land of pasture, which was not tilled or sown, because it was not overflowed by the Nile. But the land overflowed by the Nile was the black earth of the valley of Egypt. Now sandy plains, or pasture-ground, are, even now, always exempted from similar plagues, which are invariably limited to the black soil, and, even at present, the former kinds of territory are the usual refuge of all cattle from the destructive influence of those insects." But all this does not remove the miraculous character of the promise made to the Israelites with regard to this plague, as the latter were not limited to Goshen only, but lived scattered through all parts of Egypt; and here also they were to remain free from the calamity (ver. 19; see note on i. 7).— To-morrow shall this sign be. In this, as in all similar cases, God fixed the time of the plague before its occurrence, not only to afford Pharaoh an opportunity of repenting, but to preclude at once the insinuation that it happened by chance, or in natural course, and to convince the obdurate mind of Pharaoh still more forcibly of God's unlimited power; compare ix. 5.

20. The predicted calamity took place at the appointed time; and enormous swarms of voracious beetles molested the palace of Pharaoh and the dwellings of all his people, and devastated the land of Egypt. Referring to our exposition on ver. 16, we find the wonder of this plague

in the following data: 1. That, as it occurred at the command of God, so it disappeared at the prayer of Moses (ver. 28). 2. That those insects infested the land in prodigious numbers, and with a violence unheard of before or after that time; and 3. That the Israelites, whether living in Goshen or dispersed throughout Egypt, were perfectly free from the calamity. Gesenius, who takes arob as dogfly, is obliged to suppose the wonder to have consisted in the circumstance, that those insects, which usually molest beasts only, changed their nature and attacked men also (ver. 17); and Rosenmüller, who is well aware that the dog-flies do not devastate the land, explains that by the words the land, the inhabitants of the land are to be understood. The forced character of either opinion is too obvious to require comment.

21. This plague was so fearful, and so decidedly more alarming than the preceding miracles, that the magicians did not even try their arts to produce similar effects, and Pharaoh was once more compelled to send for Moses and Aaron, and to offer them concessions: Go you, sacrifice to your God in the land, that is, in Egypt; naturally fearful, lest the Israelites if once beyond his boundaries, would not return to resume their slavish works, so cruelly and unjustly imposed upon them.

22. Moses objects, they could not venture to sacrifice in Egypt, for the people would stone them, if they sacrificed the abominations of the Egyptians before their eyes; that is, if they killed and offered those animals which it was, in the eyes of the Egyptians, an abominable crime to kill, because they were objects of holy veneration. The bull,

the cow, the sheep, and the goat, the usual sacrifices of the Hebrews, were among the sacred animals of the Egyptians; although we know that none of these animals-perhaps with the only exception of the cow, which was sacred to Isis (Herod. ii. 4)—was universally worshipped by the Egyptians; but that the same animals which were considered inviolable in some districts, were killed and eaten in others. So, for instance, the Thebans abstained from eating mutton, but killed goats; whilst the Mendesians held the goats sacred, but killed sheep. The probable cause of these surprising discrepancies is, that each district, or nomos, formed originally an independent state, mostly founded by priests, the centre of which was the temple, and that even after the amalgamation of those different provinces and tribes under one common rule, they retained the religious customs of their ancestors, which were still clearly discernible in later times. It is not the place here, psychologically to investigate into the origin, extent, and internal character of so extraordinary a phenomenon as the animal worship, which was not limited to Egypt alone, but was, and partially is still, prevalent throughout the whole of Africa; to enquire whether the leading principle in declaring an animal sacred, was its usefulness or its dangerousness, its majestic appearance or its beauty, or the contrary;-it is sufficient to be conscious of the truth, that the monstrosity of animal worship is so distant from civilised or refined notions, that we experience the greatest difficulty in attempting to represent or to analyse to ourselves its character and tendency. (Compare our supplementary note on ii.