Exodus 9:31-32

A supplementary notice, which interrupts the connexion between vv.29f. and 33, stating, more explicitly than v.25b, what crops had suffered in the fields. On account of the information on Egyptian matters which it contains, the notice is referred by Di. and others to E. In Egypt, according to a farmer living in the Delta (cited by W. R. Smith, Journ. of Phil.xii. 300), flax blossoms and barley ripens in Jan.; but, he adds, the seasons vary, and so the travellers cited by Kn. mention mostly Feb.: wheat and spelt are ripe, in any case, about a month later. As the wheat and the spelt were not yet up, the hail will be represented as coming in Jan. (Kn.), if not earlier.

Flax was much cultivated in Egypt: for linen was worn constantly by men of rank, and exclusively by the priests (Hdt. ii. 37); wrappings for mummies were also made of it. There are many representations on the Egyptian monuments of the processes by which flax was converted into linen; and the linen itself was often of remarkable transparency and fineness (Erman, pp. 448, 449 f.; Wilk.-B. ii.157 f., 165 f.; cf. Genesis 41:42; Ezekiel 27:7; Hdt. ii. 81, 105).

was bolled was in bud. The Heb. word occurs only here in the OT.; but, as Ges. shews, this is the meaning of gib-ôlin the Mishna.

-Bolled" is a now obsolete expression meaning podded(lit. swollen, akin to bowl, bellows, billow, &c.) for seed. The old verb was bolnen, to swell. Aldis Wright mentions that the later of the Wycliffite versions has in Colossians 2:18 bolnydfor -puffed up," and that in Holland's Pliny- bolledleekes" is the rendering of -porrum capitatum." He adds that -bolled" in the sense of poddedis still in use in Ireland, as it is also in Lincolnshire (Jos. Wright, Dialect Dict.i. 332): cf. the remark on the word in the Preface to RV.