Exodus 8:16-17

The Third Blow: Gnats

8:16 ¹ The Lord said to Moses, “Tell Aaron, ‘Extend your staff and strike the dust of the ground, and it will become ²  gnats ³  throughout all the land of Egypt.’” 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 ⁴  and on animals. All the dust of the ground became gnats throughout all the land of Egypt.

Exodus 9:14

9:14 For this time I will send all my plagues ⁵  on your very self ⁶  and on your servants and your people, so that you may know that there is no one like me in all the earth.

Exodus 9:22

9:22 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Extend your hand toward the sky ⁷  that there may be ⁸  hail in all the land of Egypt, on people and on animals, ⁹  and on everything that grows ¹⁰  in the field in the land of Egypt.”

Exodus 9:25

9:25 The hail struck everything in the open fields, both ¹¹  people and animals, throughout all the land of Egypt. The hail struck everything that grows ¹²  in the field, and it broke all the trees of the field to pieces.

Exodus 10:14-15

10:14 The locusts went up over all the land of Egypt and settled down in all the territory ¹³  of Egypt. It was very severe; ¹⁴  there had been no locusts like them before, nor will there be such ever again. ¹⁵  10:15 They covered ¹⁶  the surface ¹⁷  of all the ground, so that the ground became dark with them, ¹⁸  and they ate all the vegetation of the ground and all the fruit of the trees that the hail had left. Nothing green remained on the trees or on anything that grew in the fields throughout the whole land of Egypt.

Exodus 10:19

10:19 and the Lord turned a very strong west wind, ¹⁹  and it picked up the locusts and blew them into the Red Sea. ²⁰  Not one locust remained in all the territory of Egypt.

Exodus 18:22

18:22 They will judge ²¹  the people under normal circumstances, ²²  and every difficult case ²³  they will bring to you, but every small case ²⁴  they themselves will judge, so that ²⁵  you may make it easier for yourself, ²⁶  and they will bear the burden ²⁷  with you.

Exodus 20:24

20:24 ‘You must make for me an altar made of earth, ²⁸  and you will sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, ²⁹  your sheep and your cattle. In every place ³⁰  where I cause my name to be honored ³¹  I will come to you and I will bless you.

Exodus 34:3

34:3 No one is to come up with you; do not let anyone be seen anywhere on the mountain; not even the flocks or the herds may graze in front of that mountain.”

Exodus 38:24

38:24 All the gold that was used for the work, in all the work of the sanctuary ³²  (namely, ³³  the gold of the wave offering) was twenty-nine talents and 730 shekels, ³⁴  according to the sanctuary shekel.

[8:16]  ¹ sn The third plague is brief and unannounced. Moses and Aaron were simply to strike the dust so that it would become gnats. Not only was this plague unannounced, but also it was not duplicated by the Egyptians.

[8:16]  ² tn The verb is the perfect tense with vav (ו) consecutive, meaning “and it will be.” When הָיָה (hayah) is followed by the lamed (ל) proposition, it means “become.”

[8:16]  ³ tn The noun is כִּנִּים (kinnim). The insect has been variously identified as lice, gnats, ticks, flies, fleas, or mosquitoes. “Lice” follows the reading in the Peshitta and Targum (and so Josephus, Ant. 2.14.3 [2.300]). Greek and Latin had “gnats.” By “gnats” many commentators mean “mosquitoes,” which in and around the water of Egypt were abundant (and the translators of the Greek text were familiar with Egypt). Whatever they were they came from the dust and were troublesome to people and animals.

[8:17]  ⁴ tn Heb “man,” but in the generic sense of “humans” or “people” (also in v. 18).

[9:14]  ⁷ tn The expression “all my plagues” points to the rest of the plagues and anticipates the proper outcome. Another view is to take the expression to mean the full brunt of the attack on the Egyptian people.

[9:14]  ⁸ tn Heb “to your heart.” The expression is unusual, but it may be an allusion to the hard heartedness of Pharaoh – his stubbornness and blindness (B. Jacob, Exodus, 274).

[9:22]  ¹⁰ tn Or “the heavens” (also in the following verse). The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heavens” or “sky” depending on the context.

[9:22]  ¹¹ tn The jussive with the conjunction (וִיהִי, vihi) coming after the imperative provides the purpose or result.

[9:22]  ¹² tn Heb “on man and on beast.”

[9:22]  ¹³ tn The noun refers primarily to cultivated grains. But here it seems to be the general heading for anything that grows from the ground, all vegetation and plant life, as opposed to what grows on trees.

[9:25]  ¹³ tn The exact expression is “from man even to beast.” R. J. Williams lists this as an example of the inclusive use of the preposition מִן (min) to be rendered “both…and” (Hebrew Syntax, 57, §327).

[9:25]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “all the cultivated grain of.”

[10:14]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “border.”

[10:14]  ¹⁷ tn This is an interpretive translation. The clause simply has כָּבֵד מְאֹד (kaved mÿ’od), the stative verb with the adverb – “it was very heavy.” The description prepares for the following statement about the uniqueness of this locust infestation.

[10:14]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “after them.”

[10:15]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “and they covered.”

[10:15]  ²⁰ tn Heb “eye,” an unusual expression (see v. 5; Num 22:5, 11).

[10:15]  ²¹ tn The verb is וַתֶּחְשַׁךְ (vattekhshakh, “and it became dark”). The idea is that the ground had the color of the swarms of locusts that covered it.

[10:19]  ²² tn Or perhaps “sea wind,” i.e., a wind off the Mediterranean.

[10:19]  ²³ tn The Hebrew name here is יַם־סוּף (Yam Suf), sometimes rendered “Reed Sea” or “Sea of Reeds.” The word סוּף is a collective noun that may have derived from an Egyptian name for papyrus reeds. Many English versions have used “Red Sea,” which translates the name that ancient Greeks used: ejruqrav qalavssa (eruqra qalassa).

[18:22]  ²⁵ tn The form is the perfect tense with the vav (ו) consecutive, making it equivalent to the imperfect of instruction in the preceding verse.

[18:22]  ²⁶ tn Heb “in every time,” meaning “in all normal cases” or “under normal circumstances.” The same phrase occurs in v. 26.

[18:22]  ²⁷ tn Heb “great thing.”

[18:22]  ²⁸ tn Heb “thing.”

[18:22]  ²⁹ tn The vav here shows the result or the purpose of the instructions given.

[18:22]  ³⁰ tn The expression וְהָקֵל מֵעָלֶיךָ (vÿhaqel me’aleykha) means literally “and make it light off yourself.” The word plays against the word for “heavy” used earlier – since it was a heavy or burdensome task, Moses must lighten the load.

[18:22]  ³¹ tn Here “the burden” has been supplied.

[20:24]  ²⁸ sn The instructions here call for the altar to be made of natural things, not things manufactured or shaped by man. The altar was either to be made of clumps of earth or natural, unhewn rocks.

[20:24]  ²⁹ sn The “burnt offering” is the offering prescribed in Lev 1. Everything of this animal went up in smoke as a sweet aroma to God. It signified complete surrender by the worshiper who brought the animal, and complete acceptance by God, thereby making atonement. The “peace offering” is legislated in Lev 3 and 7. This was a communal meal offering to celebrate being at peace with God. It was made usually for thanksgiving, for payment of vows, or as a freewill offering.

[20:24]  ³⁰ tn Gesenius lists this as one of the few places where the noun in construct seems to be indefinite in spite of the fact that the genitive has the article. He says בְּכָל־הַמָּקוֹם (bÿkhol-hammaqom) means “in all the place, sc. of the sanctuary, and is a dogmatic correction of “in every place” (כָּל־מָקוֹם, kol-maqom). See GKC 412 §127.e.

[20:24]  ³¹ tn The verb is זָכַר (zakhar, “to remember”), but in the Hiphil especially it can mean more than remember or cause to remember (remind) – it has the sense of praise or honor. B. S. Childs says it has a denominative meaning, “to proclaim” (Exodus [OTL], 447). The point of the verse is that God will give Israel reason for praising and honoring him, and in every place that occurs he will make his presence known by blessing them.

[38:24]  ³¹ tn These words form the casus pendens, or independent nominative absolute, followed by the apodosis beginning with the vav (ו; see U. Cassuto, Exodus, 469).

[38:24]  ³² tn Heb “and it was.”

[38:24]  ³³ sn There were 3000 shekels in a talent, and so the total weight here in shekels would be 87,730 shekels of gold. If the sanctuary shekel was 224 grs., then this was about 40,940 oz. troy. This is estimated to be a little over a ton (cf. NCV “over 2,000 pounds”; TEV “a thousand kilogrammes”; CEV “two thousand two hundred nine pounds”; NLT “about 2,200 pounds”), although other widely diverging estimates are also given.