Exodus 8:26

_AND PHARAOH CALLED FOR MOSES AND FOR AARON, AND SAID, GO YE, SACRIFICE TO YOUR GOD IN THE LAND._ Pharaoh called for Moses and for Aaron, and said, Go ye, sacrifice to your God in the land. Between impatient anxiety to be freed from this scourge, and a reluctance to part with the Hebrew bondsmen, the king followed the course of expediency: he proposed to let them free to engage in their religious rites within any part of the kingdom. But, true to his instructions, Moses would accede to no such arrangement; he stated a most valid reason to show the danger of it. Verse 26. WE SHALL SACRIFICE THE ABOMINATION OF THE EGYPTIANS BEFORE THEIR EYES ... The meaning is, not that the animals offered in sacrifice by the Israelites, being held sacred by the Egyptians, would naturally give offence to the latter; but it was the disregard of certain preparatory and accompanying rites, such as the minute...

26._And Moses said. _The word כון, (101) _kon, _which Moses here uses, has a wide signification; for the Hebrews say of whatever they do not approve, that it is not right ( _rectum._) Therefore almost all the interpreters agree in this, that Pharaoh demanded what was by no means equitable, because he would have exposed the Israelites to be stoned by his people. If this opinion be admitted, we must read the passage connectedly, that it was not in accordance with reason, that the Israelites should sacrifice in Egypt in a strange manner, because the novelty would not be tolerated. There are two clauses in the sentence; one, that it was not right for them to offer in Egypt a sacrifice to God, which was abominable to the inhabitants themselves, or to offer a profane sacrifice of the abominations of the heathen; the other, that there was a danger of the Israelites being

20-32 Pharaoh was early at his false devotions to the river; and shall we be for more sleep and more slumber, when any service to the Lord is to be done? The Egyptians and the Hebrews were to be marked in the plague of flies. The Lord knows them that are his, and will make it appear, perhaps in this world, certainly in the other, that he has set them apart for himself. Pharaoh unwillingly entered into a treaty with Moses and Aaron. He is content they should sacrifice to their God, provided they would do it in the land of Egypt. But it would be an abomination to God, should they offer the Egyptian sacrifices; and it would be an abomination to the Egyptians, should they offer to God the objects of the worship of the Egyptians, namely, their calves or oxen. Those who would offer acceptable sacrifice to God, must separate themselves from the wicked and profane. They must also retire from th...

Verse Exodus 8:26. _WE SHALL SACRIFICE THE ABOMINATION OF THE EGYPTIANS_] That is, The animals which they hold sacred, and will not permit to be slain, are those which our customs require us to sacrifice to our God; and should we do this in Egypt the people would rise in a mass, and stone us to death. Perhaps few people were more superstitious than the Egyptians. Almost every production of nature was an object of their religious worship: the sun, moon, planets, stars, the river Nile, animals of all sorts, from the human being to the monkey, dog, cat, and ibis, and even the onions and leeks which grew in their gardens. Jupiter was adored by them under the form of a _ram_, Apollo under the form of a _crow_, Bacchus under that of a _goat_, and Juno under that of a _heifer_. The reason why the Egyptians worshipped those animals is given by Eusebius, viz., that when the gi...

THE ABOMINATION - i. e. an animal which the Egyptians held it sacrilegious to slay. The ox, bull, or cow, is meant. The cow was never sacrificed in Egypt, being sacred to Isis, and from a very early age the ox was worshipped throughout Egypt, and more especially at Heliopolis and Memphis under various designations, Apis, Mnevis, Amen-Ehe, as the symbol or manifestation of their greatest deities, Osiris, Atum, Ptah, and Isis....

EXPOSITION The fourth plague moves the Pharaoh more than any preceding one. He still cannot bring himself to grant the demand of Moses; but he offers a compromise. The Israelites shall have a respite from their toils, and be permitted to hold their festival, and offer the needful sacrifices in Egypt (Exodus 8:25). When this offer is for good reasons not accepted, he yields even further—he will let the people go and sacrifice _in the wilderness_—only they must not "go far away"(Exodus 8:28). Having made this promise, he obtains for the second time the intercession of Moses and the discontinuance of the plague in consequence of it. But then, as before, when he saw that there was respite (Exodus 8:15), he retracted

AND MOSES SAID, IT IS NOT MEET SO TO DO,.... It being the command and will of God that they should go three days' journey into the wilderness, and sacrifice there; and besides it was dangerous, the Egyptians might be provoked by their sacrifices to fall upon them, and kill them; FOR WE SHALL SACRIFICE THE ABOMINATION OF THE EGYPTIANS TO THE LORD OUR GOD; by which Moses is not to be understood as calling the idols of Egypt an abomination, as being so to God and to all good men, that were not idolaters; for though they were, Moses would scarcely call them so before Pharaoh, when he could have made use of another word as well; but his meaning is, that the Israelites would sacrifice that which would be an abomination, and very detestable to the Egyptians for them to do. And so the Targum of Jonathan; "for the sheep, which are the idols of the Egyptians, we shall take and offer before the L...

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

ABOMINATION. Figure of speech _Metonymy_ (of Adjunct), App-6, put for the act of sacrificing cattle, which was abominated by the Egyptians. SHALL, &c. Figure of speech _Erotesis_ (App-6)....