Exodus 8:18

8:18 When ¹  the magicians attempted ²  to bring forth gnats by their secret arts, they could not. So there were gnats on people and on animals.

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 ³  and on animals. All the dust of the ground became gnats throughout all the land of Egypt.

Exodus 12:30

12:30 Pharaoh got up ⁴  in the night, ⁵  along with all his servants and all Egypt, and there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was no house ⁶  in which there was not someone dead.

[8:18]  ¹ tn The preterite with vav (ו) consecutive is here subordinated to the main clause as a temporal clause.

[8:18]  ² tn Heb “and the magicians did so.”

[8:17]  ³ tn Heb “man,” but in the generic sense of “humans” or “people” (also in v. 18).

[12:30]  ⁵ tn Heb “arose,” the verb קוּם (qum) in this context certainly must describe a less ceremonial act. The entire country woke up in terror because of the deaths.

[12:30]  ⁶ tn The noun is an adverbial accusative of time – “in the night” or “at night.”

[12:30]  ⁷ sn Or so it seemed. One need not push this description to complete literalness. The reference would be limited to houses that actually had firstborn people or animals. In a society in which households might include more than one generation of humans and animals, however, the presence of a firstborn human or animal would be the rule rather than the exception.