Bibelkommentare

Exodus 9:3. The hand of the Lord — Immediately, without the stretching out of Aaron’s hand; is upon the cattle — Many of which, some of all kinds, should die by a sort of pestilence. The hand of God is to be acknowledged even in the sickness and death of cattle, or other damage sustained in them; for a sparrow falls not to the ground without our Father. And his providence is to be acknowledged with thankfulness in the life of the cattle, for he preserveth man and beast, Psalm 36:6.

Exodus 9:4. Shall nothing die of the children’s of Israel — This was the greater miracle, because the Israelites and the Egyptians were mingled together in the land of Goshen; so that their cattle breathed the same air, and drank the same water. By which it appeared that this pestilence was not natural, but proceeded from the immediate hand of God.

Exodus 9:5. The Lord appointed a set time — This appointing of a set or particular time, both for bringing on the plagues and removing them, and that at as short a distance as the nature of the appointment would admit, and the leaving it once, at least, to Pharaoh himself to fix it, seems to have been intended to prevent the Egyptians, who were possessed with highly superstitious notions of the influence of the heavenly bodies at particular times, from thinking that Moses took advantage of his knowledge of those times to work his miracles.

Exodus 9:6. All the cattle of Egypt died — All that were in the field, Exodus 9:3; or a great number of every kind, so that the Egyptians saw that even the animals which they worshipped as gods could not save themselves. Bishop Warburton, in his Divine Legation of Moses, has given it as his opinion, that, in the early ages, the deities of Egypt were described by hieroglyphics or emblems, in which the pictures or images of beasts, birds, plants, reptiles, and every species of the animal or vegetable creation, were used as symbols or representations of their gods; and that, in process of time, the living animals, or real plants, thus represented, began to be deemed sacred, on account of this circumstance: and he thinks that the animals or plants themselves were not really worshipped till after the time of Moses. We know, however, that the Israelites learned in Egypt to make a god of a calf, from which it seems evident that that animal was worshipped there. But if the bishop’s opinion be right, and animals were not worshipped so early as the time of Moses, they certainly were held in great veneration, as symbols of their gods, and the subjecting them to a pestilence was, in effect, opposing and warring against the deities whom they represented. Not one of the cattle of the Israelites died — The gracious care of God is not only over the persons of those that fear him, but over all that belongs to them. Whatever the poorest Israelite possessed, the Lord was the protector of it, while all that belonged to the king and people of Egypt was exposed to the destructive ravages of those plagues with which divine justice saw fit to punish their idolatries and oppressions of his people. But doth God take care of oxen? Yes, he doth; his providence extends itself to the meanest of his creatures.

Exodus 9:7. Pharaoh sent — It seems as if Pharaoh, notwithstanding all he had seen, could not conceive that such a distinction could be made between cattle feeding together in the same or similar pastures, that those of the Egyptians alone should be stricken, while those of the Israelites were not affected; and therefore he sent expressly to know the truth of it: when behold, (and well might it be said, behold! for it was worthy of both notice and admiration,) there was not one of the cattle of the Israelites dead — But, notwithstanding this most convincing evidence of the distinguishing favour of God toward his people, such was the unwillingness of Pharaoh to part with the advantage which the service of the Israelites was to him, that he could not bring himself to consent to their departure.

Exodus 9:8-10. Take you handfuls of the ashes of the furnace — Sometimes God shows men their sin in their punishment. They had oppressed Israel in the furnaces, and now the ashes of the furnace are made as much a terror to them as ever their task masters had been to the Israelites. “The matter of this plague,” says Ainsworth, “is from the fire, which also being one of the elements they deified, is here made the instrument of evil to them, and reclaimed by Jehovah to his service, in punishment of its deluded votaries, who worshipped the creature more than the Creator.” A former miracle was from water, and the next from air, to show that God rules in all. It became a bile — A sore, angry swelling, or inflammation; breaking forth with blains — Or blisters, quickly raised; upon man and upon beast —

Thus we see that the men themselves were smitten after the cattle, which is agreeable to the method of Providence in punishing, first sending previous afflictions to warn mankind, that they may shun greater evils by timely repentance. This bile is afterward called the botch of Egypt, (Deuteronomy 28:27,) as if it were some new disease, never heard of before, and known ever after by that name.

Exodus 9:11. The magicians could not stand before Moses — We do not read of any attempt they made to vie with Moses in miracles since the plague of the lice. But it would seem from this passage that they still continued about Pharaoh, and endeavoured to settle him in his resolution not to let Israel go: persuading him, perhaps, that although Moses had the better of them for the present, yet they should at last be too hard for him. But now, being on a sudden smitten with these ulcers, in the sight of Pharaoh and his servants, they were rendered so contemptible, that they durst not again look either Moses or Pharaoh in the face; for we hear no more of them after this time. To this, it seems, the apostle refers, (2 Timothy 3:9,) when he says their folly was “manifested unto all men.”

Exodus 9:12. And the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart — Before he had hardened his own heart, and resisted the grace of God; and now God justly gave him up to his own heart’s lusts, to strong delusions, permitting Satan to blind and harden him. Wilful hardness is generally punished with judicial hardness. Let us dread this as the sorest judgment a man can be under on this side hell.