THE SECOND PLAGUE.
Exo 8:1-15.
Although Pharaoh had warning of the first plague, no appeal was
made to him to avert it by submission. But before the plague of
frogs he was distinctly commanded, "Let My people go." It is an
advancing lesson. He has felt the power of Jehovah: now he is to
connect, even more closely, his suffering with his disobedience; and
when this is accomplished, the third plague will break upon him
unannounced--a loud challenge to his conscience to become itself his
judge.
The plague of frogs was far greater than our experience helps us
to imagine. At least two cases are on record of a people being
driven to abandon their settlements because they had become
intolerable; "as even the vessels were full of them, the water
infested and the food uneatable, as they could scarcely set their
feet on the ground without treading on heaps of them, and as they
were vexed by the smell of the great multitude that died, they fled
from that region."
The Egyptian species known to science as the Rana Mosaica, and
still called by the uncommon epithet here employed, is peculiarly
repulsive, and peculiarly noisy too. The superstition which adored a
frog as the "Queen of the two Worlds," and placed it upon the sacred
lotus-leaf, would make it impossible for an Egyptian to adopt even
such forlorn measures of self-defence as might suggest themselves.
It was an unclean pest against which he was entirely helpless, and
it extended the power of his enemy from the river to the land. The
range of the grievance is dwelt upon in the warning: "they shall
come up and enter into thine house, and into thy bedchamber, and
upon thy bed ... and into thine ovens, and into thy
kneading-troughs" (Exo 8:3). The most sequestered and the dryest
spots alike would swarm with them, thrust forward into the most
unsuitable places by the multitude behind.
Thus Pharaoh himself had to share, far more than in the first
plague, the misery of his humblest subjects; and, although again his
magicians imitated Aaron upon some small prepared plot, and amid
circumstances which made it easier to exhibit frogs than to exclude
them, yet there was no comfort in such puerile emulation, and they
offered no hope of relieving him. From the gods that were only
vanities, he turned to Jehovah, and abased himself to ask the
intercession of Moses: "Intreat Jehovah that He take away the frogs
from me and from my people; and I will let the people go."
The assurance would have been a hopeful one, if only the sense of
inconvenience were the same as the sense of sin. But when we wonder
at the relapses of men who were penitent upon sick-beds or in
adversity, as soon as their trouble is at an end, we are blind to
this distinction. Pain is sometimes obviously due to ourselves, and
it is natural to blame the conduct which led to it. But if we blame
it only for being disastrous, we cannot hope that the fruits of the
Spirit will result from a sensation of the flesh. It was so with
Pharaoh, as doubtless Moses expected, since God had not yet
exhausted His predicted works of retribution. This anticipated fraud
is much the simplest explanation of the difficult phrase, "Have thou
this glory over me."
It is sometimes explained as an expression of courtesy--"I obey
thee as a superior"; which does not occur elsewhere, because it is
not Hebrew but Egyptian. But this suavity is quite alien to the
spirit of the narrative, in which Moses, however courteous,
represents an offended God. It is more natural to take it as an open
declaration that he was being imposed upon, yet would grant to the
king whatever advantage the fraud implied. And to make the coming
relief more clearly the action of the Lord, to shut out every
possibility that magician or priest should claim the honour, he bade
the king name an hour at which the plague should cease.
If the frogs passed away at once, the relief might chance to be a
natural one; and Pharaoh doubtless conceived that elaborate and long
protracted intercessions were necessary for his deliverance.
Accordingly he fixed a future period, yet as near as he perhaps
thought possible; and Moses, without any express authority, promised
him that it should be so. Therefore he "cried unto the Lord," and
the frogs did not retreat into the river, but suddenly died where
they were, and filled the unhappy land with a new horror in their
decay.
But "when Pharaoh saw that there was respite, he made his heart
heavy and hearkened not unto them." It is a graphic sentence: it
implies rather than affirms their indignant remonstrances, and the
sullen, dull, spiritless obstinacy with which he held his base and
unkingly purpose.
THE THIRD PLAGUE.
Exo 8:16-19.
There is no sufficient reason for discarding the ordinary opinion
of this plague. Gnats have been suggested (with beetles instead of
flies for the fourth, since gnats and flies would scarcely make two
several judgments), but these, which spring from marshy ground,
would unfitly be connected with the dust whence Aaron was to evoke
the pest. Sir Samuel Baker, on the other hand, has said of modern
Egypt that "it seemed as if the very dust were turned into lice"
(quoted in Speaker's Commentary in loco).
Two features in this plague deserve attention. It came without
any warning whatever. The faithless king who gave his word and broke
it found himself involved in fresh miseries without an opportunity
of humbling himself again. He was flung back into deep waters,
because he refused to fulfil the terms upon which he had been
extricated.
It must be understood that the act of Aaron was a public one,
performed in the sight of Pharaoh, and instantly followed by the
plague. There was no doubt about the origin of the pest, and the new
and alarming prospect was opened up of calamities yet to come,
without a chance to avert them by submission.
Again, it will be observed that the magicians are utterly baffled
just when there is no warning given, and therefore no opportunity
for pre-arranged sleight of hand. And this surely favours the
opinion that they had not hitherto succeeded by supernatural
assistance, for there is no such evident reason why infernal aid
should cease at this exact point.
It is a mistake to suppose that thereupon they confessed the
mission of the brothers. In their agitation they admitted that, on
their part at least, no divinity had been at work before. But they
rather ascribed what they saw to the action of some vaguely
indicated deity, than confessed it to be the work of Jehovah. Again
it has to be asked whether this resembles more the vainglorious
structure of a myth, or the course of a truthful history.
Nevertheless, their grudging and insufficient avowal was meant to
induce a surrender. But "Pharaoh's heart was strong, and he
hearkened not unto them." To this statement it is not added,
"because the Lord had hardened him," for this had not even yet taken
place; but only, "as the Lord had spoken."
THE FOURTH PLAGUE.
Exo 8:20-32.
When the third plague had died away, when the sense of reaction
and exhaustion had replaced agitation and distress, and when perhaps
the fear grew strong that at any moment a new calamity might befal
the land as abruptly as the last, God orders a solemn and urgent
appeal to be made to the oppressor. And the same occurs three times:
after each plague which arrives unexpectedly the next is introduced
by a special warning. On each of these occasions, moreover, the
appeal is made in the morning, at the hour when reason ought to be
clearest and the passions least agitating; and this circumstance is
perhaps alluded to in the favourite phrase of Jeremiah when he would
speak of condescending earnestness--"I sent my prophets, rising up
early and sending them" (Jer 25:4, Jer 26:5, Jer 29:19, and many
more; cf. also Jer 7:13, and 2Ch 36:15). So far is the Scripture
from regarding Pharaoh as propelled by destiny, as by a machine,
down iron grooves to ruin.
We have now come to the group of plagues which inflict actual
bodily damage, and not inconvenience and humiliation only: the
dogfly (or beetle); the murrain among beasts, which was a precursor
of the crowning evil that struck at human life; and the boils. Of
the fourth plague the precise nature is uncertain. There is a beetle
which gnaws both man and beast, destroys clothes, furniture, and
plants, and even now they "are often seen in millions" (Munk,
Palestine, p. 120). "In a few minutes they filled the whole
house.... Only after the most laborious exertions, and covering the
floor of the house 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 little children or sick
persons, who are unable to rise alone, are then exposed to the
greatest danger of life" (Pratte, Abyssinia, p. 143, in
Kalisch).
Now, this explanation has one advantage over that of dogflies--that
special mention is made of their afflicting "the ground whereon they
are" (Exo 8:21), which is less suitable to a plague of flies. But it
may be that no one creature is meant. The Hebrew word means "a
mixture." Jewish interpreters have gone so far as to make it mean
"all kinds of noxious animals and serpents and scorpions mixed
together," and although it is palpably absurd to believe that
Pharaoh should have survived if these had been upon him and upon his
servants, yet the expression "a mixture," following after one kind
of vermin had tormented the land, need not be narrowed too exactly.
With deliberate particularity the king was warned that they should
come "upon thee, and upon thy servants, and upon thy people, and
into thine houses, and the houses of the Egyptians shall be full of
[them[15]], and also the
ground whereon they are."
It has been supposed, from the special mention of the exemption
of the land of Goshen, that this was a new thing. We have seen
reason, however, to think otherwise, and the emphatic assertion now
made is easy to understand. The plague was especially to be expected
in low flat ground: the king may not even have been aware of the
previous freedom of Israel; and in any case its importance as an
evidence had not been pressed upon him. The spirit of the
seventy-eighth Psalm, though not perhaps any one specific phrase,
contrasts the earlier as well as the later plagues with the
protection of His own people, whom He led like sheep (Psa 78:42-52).
After the appointed interval (the same which Pharaoh had
indicated for the removal of the frogs) the plague came. We are told
that the land was corrupted, but it is significant that more stress
is laid upon the suffering of Pharaoh and his court in the event
than in the menace. It came home to himself more cruelly than any
former plague, and he at once attempted to make terms: "Go ye,
sacrifice to your God in the land." It is a natural speech, at first
not asking to be trusted as before by getting relief before the
Hebrews actually enjoy their liberty; and yet conceding as little as
possible, and in hot haste to have that little done and the relief
obtained. They may even serve their God on the sacred soil, so
completely has He already defeated all His rivals. But this was not
what was demanded; and Moses repeated the claim of a three days'
journey, basing it upon the ground, still more insulting to the
national religion, that "We will sacrifice to Jehovah our God the
abomination of the Egyptians," that is to say, sacred animals, which
it is horror in their eyes to sacrifice. Any faith in his own creed
which Pharaoh ever had is surrendered when this argument, instead of
making their cause hopeless, forces him to yield--adding, however,
like a thoroughly weak man who wishes to refuse but dares not, "only
ye shall not go very far away: intreat for me." And again Moses
concedes the point, with only the courteous remonstrance, "But let
not Pharaoh deal deceitfully any more."
It is necessary to repeat that we have not a shred of evidence
that Moses would have violated his compact and failed to return: it
would have sufficed as a first step to have asserted the nationality
of his people and their right to worship their own God: all the rest
would speedily have followed. But the terms which were rejected
again and again did not continue for ever to bind the victorious
party: the story of their actual departure makes it plain that both
sides understood it to be a final exodus; and thence came the
murderous pursuit of Pharaoh (cf. Exo 15:9), which in itself would
have cancelled any compact which had existed until then.
FOOTNOTES:
[15] The Revised Version
has "swarms of flies," which is clearly an attempt to meet the case.
But it is worth notice that in the Psalms the expression was twice
rendered "divers kinds of flies" (Psa 78:45, Psa 105:31, A.V.) The
word occurs only of this plague.