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Selected Verse: Exodus 8:20 - King James

Verse	Translation	Text
Ex 8:20	King James	And the LORD said unto Moses, Rise up early in the morning, and stand before Pharaoh; lo, he cometh forth to the water; and say unto him, Thus saith the LORD, Let my people go, that they may serve me.

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A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882]
PLAGUE OF FLIES. (Exo 8:20-32) Rise up early . . . Pharaoh; lo, he cometh forth to the water, &c.--Pharaoh still appearing obdurate, Moses was ordered to meet him while walking on the banks of the Nile and repeat his request for the liberation of Israel, threatening in case of continued refusal to cover every house from the palace to the cottage with swarms of flies--while, as a proof of the power that accomplished this judgment, the land of Goshen should be exempted from the calamity. The appeal was equally vain as before, and the predicted evil overtook the country in the form of what was not "flies," such as we are accustomed to, but divers sorts of flies (Psa 78:45), the gad fly, the cockroach, the Egyptian beetle, for all these are mentioned by different writers. They are very destructive, some of them inflicting severe bites on animals, others destroying clothes, books, plants, every thing. The worship of flies, particularly of the beetle, was a prominent part of the religion of the ancient Egyptians. The employment of these winged deities to chastise them must have been painful and humiliating to the Egyptians while it must at the same time have strengthened the faith of the Israelites in the God of their fathers as the only object of worship.

A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882]

PLAGUE OF FLIES. (Exo 8:20-32)

Rise up early . . . Pharaoh; lo, he cometh forth to the water, &c.--Pharaoh still appearing obdurate, Moses was ordered to meet him while walking on the banks of the Nile and repeat his request for the liberation of Israel, threatening in case of continued refusal to cover every house from the palace to the cottage with swarms of flies--while, as a proof of the power that accomplished this judgment, the land of Goshen should be exempted from the calamity. The appeal was equally vain as before, and the predicted evil overtook the country in the form of what was not "flies," such as we are accustomed to, but divers sorts of flies (Psa 78:45), the gad fly, the cockroach, the Egyptian beetle, for all these are mentioned by different writers. They are very destructive, some of them inflicting severe bites on animals, others destroying clothes, books, plants, every thing. The worship of flies, particularly of the beetle, was a prominent part of the religion of the ancient Egyptians. The employment of these winged deities to chastise them must have been painful and humiliating to the Egyptians while it must at the same time have strengthened the faith of the Israelites in the God of their fathers as the only object of worship.

Notes on the Bible, by Albert Barnes, [1834]
Cometh forth to the water - See the Exo 7:15 note. It is not improbable that on this occasion Pharaoh went to the Nile with a procession in order to open the solemn festival, which was held 120 days after the first rise, at the end of October or early in November. At that time the inundation is abating and the first traces of vegetation are seen on the deposit of fresh soil. The plague now announced may be regarded as connected with the atmosphere, also an object of worship.

Notes on the Bible, by Albert Barnes, [1834]

Cometh forth to the water - See the Exo 7:15 note. It is not improbable that on this occasion Pharaoh went to the Nile with a procession in order to open the solemn festival, which was held 120 days after the first rise, at the end of October or early in November. At that time the inundation is abating and the first traces of vegetation are seen on the deposit of fresh soil.

The plague now announced may be regarded as connected with the atmosphere, also an object of worship.

Commentary on the Old Testament, by Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch [1857-78]
As the Egyptian magicians saw nothing more than the finger of God in the miracle which they could not imitate, that is to say, the work of some deity, possibly one of the gods of the Egyptians, and not the hand of Jehovah the God of the Hebrews, who had demanded the release of Israel, a distinction was made in the plagues which followed between the Israelites and the Egyptians, and the former were exempted from the plagues: a fact which was sufficient to prove to any one that they came from the God of Israel. To make this the more obvious, the fourth and fifth plagues were merely announced by Moses to the king. They were not brought on through the mediation of either himself or Aaron, but were sent by Jehovah at the appointed time; no doubt for the simple purpose of precluding the king and his wise men from the excuse which unbelief might still suggest, viz., that they were produced by the powerful incantations of Moses and Aaron. Exo 8:20-22 The fourth plague, the coming of which Moses foretold to Pharaoh, like the first, in the morning, and by the water (on the bank of the Nile), consisted in the sending of "heavy vermin," probably Dog-Flies. ערב, literally a mixture, is rendered κυνόμυια (dog-fly) by the lxx, πάμμυια (all-fly), a mixture of all kinds of flies, by Symmachus. These insects are described by Philo and many travellers as a very severe scourge (vid., Hengstenberg ut sup. p. 113). They are much more numerous and annoying than the gnats; and when enraged, they fasten themselves upon the human body, especially upon the edges of the eyelids, and become a dreadful plague. כּבד: a heavy multitude, as in Exo 10:14; Gen 50:9, etc. These swarms were to fill "the houses of the Egyptians, and even the land upon which they (the Egyptians) were," i.e., that part of the land which was not occupied by houses; whilst the land of Goshen, where the Israelites dwelt, would be entirely spared. הפלה (to separate, to distinguish in a miraculous way) is conjugated with an accusative, as in Psa 4:4. It is generally followed by בּין (Exo 4:4; Exo 11:7), to distinguish between. עמד: to stand upon a land, i.e., to inhabit, possess it; not to exist, or live (Exo 21:21). Exo 8:23 "And I will put a deliverance between My people and thy people." פּדוּת does not mean διαστολή, divisio (lxx, Vulg.), but redemption, deliverance. Exemption from this plague was essentially a deliverance for Israel, which manifested the distinction conferred upon Israel above the Egyptians. By this plague, in which a separation and deliverance was established between the people of God and the Egyptians, Pharaoh was to be taught that the God who sent this plague was not some deity of Egypt, but "Jehovah in the midst of the land" (of Egypt); i.e., as Knobel correctly interprets it, (a) that Israel's God was the author of the plague; (b) that He had also authority over Egypt; and (c) that He possessed supreme authority: or, to express it still more concisely, that Israel's God was the Absolute God, who ruled both in and over Egypt with free and boundless omnipotence. Exo 8:24-27 This plague, by which the land was destroyed (תּשּׁחת), or desolated, inasmuch as the flies not only tortured, "devoured" (Psa 78:45) the men, and disfigured them by the swellings produced by their sting, but also killed the plants in which they deposited their eggs, so alarmed Pharaoh that he sent for Moses and Aaron, and gave them permission to sacrifice to their God "in the land." But Moses could not consent to this restriction. "It is not appointed so to do" (נכון does not mean aptum, conveniens, but statutum, rectum), for two reasons: (1) because sacrificing in the land would be an abomination to the Egyptians, and would provoke them most bitterly (Exo 8:26); and (2) because they could only sacrifice to Jehovah their God as He had directed them (Exo 8:27). The abomination referred to did not consist in their sacrificing animals which the Egyptians regarded as holy. For the word תּועבה (abomination) would not be applicable to the sacred animals. Moreover, the cow was the only animal offered in sacrifice by the Israelites, which the Egyptians regarded as sacred. The abomination would rather be this, that the Iran would not carry out the rigid regulations observed by the Egyptians with regard to the cleanness of the sacrificial animals (vid., Hengstenberg, p. 114), and in fact would not observe the sacrificial rites of the Egyptians at all. The Egyptians would be very likely to look upon this as an insult to their religion and their gods; "the violation of the recognised mode of sacrificing would be regarded as a manifestation of contempt for themselves and their gods" (Calvin), and this would so enrage them that they would stone the Israelites. The הן before נזבּח in Exo 8:26 is the interjection lo! but it stands before a conditional clause, introduced without a conditional particle, in the sense of if, which it has retained in the Chaldee, and in which it is used here and there in the Hebrew (e.g., Lev 25:20). Exo 8:28-32 These reasons commended themselves to the heathen king from his own religious standpoint. He promised, therefore, to let the people go into the wilderness and sacrifice, provided they did not go far away, if Moses and Aaron would release him and his people from this plague through their intercession. Moses promised that the swarms should be removed the following day, but told the king not to deceive them again as he had done before (Exo 8:8). But Pharaoh hardened his heart as soon as the plague was taken away, just as he had done after the second plague (Exo 8:15), to which the word "also" refers (Exo 8:32).

Commentary on the Old Testament, by Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch [1857-78]

As the Egyptian magicians saw nothing more than the finger of God in the miracle which they could not imitate, that is to say, the work of some deity, possibly one of the gods of the Egyptians, and not the hand of Jehovah the God of the Hebrews, who had demanded the release of Israel, a distinction was made in the plagues which followed between the Israelites and the Egyptians, and the former were exempted from the plagues: a fact which was sufficient to prove to any one that they came from the God of Israel. To make this the more obvious, the fourth and fifth plagues were merely announced by Moses to the king. They were not brought on through the mediation of either himself or Aaron, but were sent by Jehovah at the appointed time; no doubt for the simple purpose of precluding the king and his wise men from the excuse which unbelief might still suggest, viz., that they were produced by the powerful incantations of Moses and Aaron.

Exo 8:20-22

The fourth plague, the coming of which Moses foretold to Pharaoh, like the first, in the morning, and by the water (on the bank of the Nile), consisted in the sending of "heavy vermin," probably Dog-Flies. ערב, literally a mixture, is rendered κυνόμυια (dog-fly) by the lxx, πάμμυια (all-fly), a mixture of all kinds of flies, by Symmachus. These insects are described by Philo and many travellers as a very severe scourge (vid., Hengstenberg ut sup. p. 113). They are much more numerous and annoying than the gnats; and when enraged, they fasten themselves upon the human body, especially upon the edges of the eyelids, and become a dreadful plague. כּבד: a heavy multitude, as in Exo 10:14; Gen 50:9, etc. These swarms were to fill "the houses of the Egyptians, and even the land upon which they (the Egyptians) were," i.e., that part of the land which was not occupied by houses; whilst the land of Goshen, where the Israelites dwelt, would be entirely spared. הפלה (to separate, to distinguish in a miraculous way) is conjugated with an accusative, as in Psa 4:4. It is generally followed by בּין (Exo 4:4; Exo 11:7), to distinguish between. עמד: to stand upon a land, i.e., to inhabit, possess it; not to exist, or live (Exo 21:21).

Exo 8:23

"And I will put a deliverance between My people and thy people." פּדוּת does not mean διαστολή, divisio (lxx, Vulg.), but redemption, deliverance. Exemption from this plague was essentially a deliverance for Israel, which manifested the distinction conferred upon Israel above the Egyptians. By this plague, in which a separation and deliverance was established between the people of God and the Egyptians, Pharaoh was to be taught that the God who sent this plague was not some deity of Egypt, but "Jehovah in the midst of the land" (of Egypt); i.e., as Knobel correctly interprets it, (a) that Israel's God was the author of the plague; (b) that He had also authority over Egypt; and (c) that He possessed supreme authority: or, to express it still more concisely, that Israel's God was the Absolute God, who ruled both in and over Egypt with free and boundless omnipotence.

Exo 8:24-27

This plague, by which the land was destroyed (תּשּׁחת), or desolated, inasmuch as the flies not only tortured, "devoured" (Psa 78:45) the men, and disfigured them by the swellings produced by their sting, but also killed the plants in which they deposited their eggs, so alarmed Pharaoh that he sent for Moses and Aaron, and gave them permission to sacrifice to their God "in the land." But Moses could not consent to this restriction. "It is not appointed so to do" (נכון does not mean aptum, conveniens, but statutum, rectum), for two reasons: (1) because sacrificing in the land would be an abomination to the Egyptians, and would provoke them most bitterly (Exo 8:26); and (2) because they could only sacrifice to Jehovah their God as He had directed them (Exo 8:27). The abomination referred to did not consist in their sacrificing animals which the Egyptians regarded as holy. For the word תּועבה (abomination) would not be applicable to the sacred animals. Moreover, the cow was the only animal offered in sacrifice by the Israelites, which the Egyptians regarded as sacred. The abomination would rather be this, that the Iran would not carry out the rigid regulations observed by the Egyptians with regard to the cleanness of the sacrificial animals (vid., Hengstenberg, p. 114), and in fact would not observe the sacrificial rites of the Egyptians at all. The Egyptians would be very likely to look upon this as an insult to their religion and their gods; "the violation of the recognised mode of sacrificing would be regarded as a manifestation of contempt for themselves and their gods" (Calvin), and this would so enrage them that they would stone the Israelites. The הן before נזבּח in Exo 8:26 is the interjection lo! but it stands before a conditional clause, introduced without a conditional particle, in the sense of if, which it has retained in the Chaldee, and in which it is used here and there in the Hebrew (e.g., Lev 25:20).

Exo 8:28-32

These reasons commended themselves to the heathen king from his own religious standpoint. He promised, therefore, to let the people go into the wilderness and sacrifice, provided they did not go far away, if Moses and Aaron would release him and his people from this plague through their intercession. Moses promised that the swarms should be removed the following day, but told the king not to deceive them again as he had done before (Exo 8:8). But Pharaoh hardened his heart as soon as the plague was taken away, just as he had done after the second plague (Exo 8:15), to which the word "also" refers (Exo 8:32).

Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible, by John Wesley [1754-65]
Rise up early - Those that would bring great things to pass for God and their generation must rise early, and redeem time in the morning. Pharaoh was early up at his superstitious devotions to the river; and shall we be for more sleep, and more slumber, when any service is to be done which would pass well in our account in the great day?

Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible, by John Wesley [1754-65]

Rise up early - Those that would bring great things to pass for God and their generation must rise early, and redeem time in the morning. Pharaoh was early up at his superstitious devotions to the river; and shall we be for more sleep, and more slumber, when any service is to be done which would pass well in our account in the great day?

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