Exodus 8:5

8:5 The Lord spoke to Moses, “Tell Aaron, ‘Extend your hand with your staff ¹  over the rivers, over the canals, and over the ponds, and bring the frogs up over the land of Egypt.’”

Exodus 8:17

8:17 They did so; Aaron extended his hand with his staff, he struck the dust of the ground, and it became gnats on people ²  and on animals. All the dust of the ground became gnats throughout all the land of Egypt.

Exodus 8:24

8:24 The Lord did so; a ³  thick ⁴  swarm of flies came into ⁵  Pharaoh’s house and into the houses ⁶  of his servants, and throughout the whole land of Egypt the land was ruined ⁷  because of the swarms of flies.

¹ sn After the instructions for Pharaoh (7:25-8:4), the plague now is brought on by the staff in Aaron’s hand (8:5-7). This will lead to the confrontation (vv. 8-11) and the hardening (vv. 12-15).

² tn Heb “man,” but in the generic sense of “humans” or “people” (also in v. 18).

³ tn Heb “and there came a….”

⁴ tn Heb “heavy,” or “severe.”

⁵ tn Here, and in the next phrase, the word “house” has to be taken as an adverbial accusative of termination.

⁶ tn The Hebrew text has the singular here.

⁷ tc Concerning the connection of “the land was ruined” with the preceding, S. R. Driver (Exodus, 68) suggests reading with the LXX, Smr, and Peshitta; this would call for adding a conjunction before the last clause to make it read, “into the house of Pharaoh, and into his servants’ houses, and into all the land of Egypt; and the land was…”