Exodus 8:18

_AND THEY DID SO; FOR AARON STRETCHED OUT HIS HAND WITH HIS ROD, AND SMOTE THE DUST OF THE EARTH, AND IT BECAME LICE IN MAN, AND IN BEAST; ALL THE DUST OF THE LAND BECAME LICE THROUGHOUT ALL THE LAND OF EGYPT._ No JFB commentary on these verses....

18._And the magicians did so. _They “did” is here put for “they tried to do;” for they did not succeed, as presently appears. They are therefore said to have done, what they in vain attempted, or what they essayed, but without success. And in this way God took away from Pharaoh whatever excuse remained, under pretext of being deceived; for although he had previously himself sought for these deceptions, still his obstinacy was not without color of excuse, as long as the magicians rivaled Moses in the contention; but when he sees their art fail, he professedly sets himself in opposition to God. Although it was not with reference to him alone that God restrained these impostors, but He exposes them to the ridicule of all, in order to assert altogether for Himself alone the glory of perfect power. Hence we gather how well, according to His inestimable wisdom, He represses whatever license He...

16-19 These lice were produced out of the dust of the earth; out of any part of the creation God can fetch a scourge, with which to correct those who rebel against him. Even the dust of the earth obeys him. These lice were very troublesome, as well as disgraceful to the Egyptians, whose priests were obliged to take much pains that no vermin ever should be found about them. All the plagues inflicted on the Egyptians, had reference to their national crimes, or were rendered particularly severe by their customs. The magicians attempted to imitate it, but they could not. It forced them to confess, This is the finger of God! The check and restraint put upon us, must needs be from a Divine power. Sooner or later God will force even his enemies to acknowledge his own power. Pharaoh, notwithstanding this, was more and more obstinate....

Verse Exodus 8:18. _THE MAGICIANS DID SO_] That is, They tried the utmost of their skill, either to _produce_ these insects or to _remove_ this plague; _but they could not_, no _juggling_ could avail here, because insects must be produced which would _stick to_ and _infix_ themselves in man and beast, which no kind of _trick_ could possibly imitate; and to _remove_ them, as some would translate the passage, was to their power equally impossible. If the magicians even acted by spiritual agents, we find from this case that these agents had assigned limits, beyond which they could not go; for every agent in the universe is acting under the _direction_ or _control_ of the Almighty....

EXPOSITION THE THIRD PLAGUE. The breach of promise on the part of Pharaoh (Exodus 8:15), was punished by the third plague, which was inflicted without being announced. It is disputed among the best critics, whether the plague was really one of "lice"(as given in the Authorised Version) or of mosquitoes. To the present writer the arguments in favour of mosquitoes seem to preponderate; and he believes the _kinnim _to represent those subtle pests. Such is the view of the LXX. translators, of Philo, Artapanus, Origen, Rosenmuller, Gesenins, Geddes, Boothroyd, Keil, and Kalisch. Mosquitoes are, under ordinary circumstances, a terrible annoyance in Egypt, when the inundation is going off, especially about October. Their power to annoy is witnessed to in ancient times by Herodotus (2.95), Philo, and St. Augustine

AND THE MAGICIANS DID SO WITH THEIR ENCHANTMENTS, TO BRING FORTH LICE,.... They made use of their magical art, and juggling tricks they were masters of, to produce the like sort of creatures, or at least to make such appear, or seem to appear, to the eyes of men: BUT THEY COULD NOT; God would not suffer them to do it, to impose upon Pharaoh, and deceive him and the Egyptians any longer; and a stop is put to them, when such small and despicable creatures were produced, the more to put them to shame and confusion, and to show that what they did before was not real, and that what they did in appearance was only by divine permission; SO THERE WERE LICE UPON MAN AND UPON BEAST; these lay in great numbers on both, biting and distressing them in a most terrible manner; for as the magicians could not produce such creatures, it was not in their power to remove them....

CHAPTER 8 THE SECOND, THIRD, AND FOURTH PLAGUES _ 1. The demand and the plague of frogs announced (Exodus 8:1)_ 2. The plague executed (Exodus 8:5) 3. The request of Pharaoh and the frogs removed (Exodus 8:8) 4. The divine command for the third plague (Exodus 8:16) 5. The plague executed (Exodus 8:17) 6. The confession of the magicians (Exodus 8:18) 7. The renewed demand and the plague of the flies announced ...

EXODUS 7:14 TO EXODUS 12:36. THE TEN PLAGUES. How deeply this series of events imprinted itself on the mind and heart of the nation is shown by the fulness with which the three sources report them. J 1° 2° 4° 5° 7° 8° 9° 10° E 1° 7° 8° 9° 10° P 1° 2° 3° 6° 10° 1°, river turned to blood; 2°, frogs; 3°, fice (gnats); 4°, flies; 5°, murrain; 6°, boils; 7°, hail; 8°, locusts; 9°, darkness; 10°, death of firstborn. A sound historical judgment will conclude, both from this fact and from the nature of the occurrences mentioned, as well as from the need for _some_ such group of causes to account for the escape of the tribes, that the traditions have a firm foothold in real events. But since not less than four centuries intervened between the events and the earliest of our sources, it is not to b

DID SO. Hebrew Idiom, attempted to do so. THEY COULD NOT. Not because. question of life, for the frogs had life. GOD SUFFERED THEM to do so in the former cases to show the limits of their power; and, by contrast, to show that His power was unlimited....

Exodus 7:14 to Exodus 11:5 _The first nine Plagues_ The narrative of the Plagues, like that of the preceding Chapter s, is composite. The details of the analysis depend partly upon literary criteria, partly upon differences in the representation, which are not isolated, but recurrent, and which moreover _accompany_the literary differences and support the conclusions based upon them, the differences referred to often also agreeing remarkably with corresponding differences in the parts of the preceding narrative, especially in Exodus 3:1 to Exodus 7:13, which have already, upon independent grounds, been assigned to P, J, and E, respectively. N