Exodus 10:13

Exo 10:13 And Moses stretched forth his rod over the land of Egypt, and the LORD brought an east wind upon the land all that day, and all [that] night; [and] when it was morning, the east wind brought the locusts.

Ver. 13. An east wind.] The proper and ordinary office whereof is to purge the air.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Exo 10:13. The east wind brought the locusts — From Arabia, where they are in great numbers: and God miraculously increased them. The locusts are usually conveyed by the wind. In the year 1527 great troops of locusts were brought by a strong wind out of Turkey into Poland, which country they wasted; and in 1536 a wind from the Euxine Sea brought such vast numbers into Podolia, that, for many miles round, they destroyed every thing. And “in the year 1650, a cloud of locusts was seen to enter Russia in three different places; and from thence they spread themselves over Poland and Lithuania, in such astonishing multitudes that the air was darkened, and the earth covered with their numbers. In some places they were seen lying dead, heaped upon each other to the depth of four feet; in others they covered the surface like a black cloth; the trees bent with their weight, and the damage which the country sustained exceeded computation.” — Encycl. Brit., vol. 8. p. 162, 3d edit.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

10:13-15 The miraculous nature of the locust plague was indicated by its timing (when Moses raised his staff) and by its extent and intensity (from one end of the country to the other, and there has never been another one like it).

10:13 an east wind: The grasshopper swarms came from the Arabian Desert, across the Red Sea to the east.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

The eighth plague.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

the Lord brought an east wind--The rod of Moses was again raised, and the locusts came. They are natives of the desert and are only brought by an east wind into Egypt, where they sometimes come in sun-obscuring clouds, destroying in a few days every green blade in the track they traverse. Man, with all his contrivances, can do nothing to protect himself from the overwhelming invasion. Egypt has often suffered from locusts. But the plague that followed the wave of the miraculous rod was altogether unexampled. Pharaoh, fearing irretrievable ruin to his country, sent in haste for Moses, and confessing his sin, implored the intercession of Moses, who entreated the Lord, and a "mighty strong west wind took away the locusts."

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 13. The Lord brought an east wind] As locusts abounded in those countries, and particularly in AEthiopia, and more especially at this time of the year, God had no need to create new swarms for this purpose; all that was requisite was to cause such a wind to blow as would bring those which already existed over the land of Egypt. The miracle in this business was the bringing the locusts at the appointed time, and causing the proper wind to blow for that purpose; and then taking them away after a similar manner.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(13) An east wind.—The LXX. translate by νότον, “a south wind,” probably because locusts most commonly enter Egypt from the south, being bred in Nubia or Abyssinia; but the Hebrew (ruakh kddim) is undoubtedly an east wind; and modern travellers tell us that this is a quarter from which locusts arrive in Egypt occasionally (Denon, Voyages en Egypte, p. 286). In such cases they are bred in Northern Arabia.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And Moses stretched forth his rod over the land of Egypt,.... His hand, with his rod in it:

and the Lord brought an east wind upon the land, all that day and all that night; all that day after he had been driven from Pharaoh, and after he had stretched out his hand with his rod in it over Egypt, which was the seventh of the month Abib, and all the night following. This Jehovah did, who holds the winds in his fist, and brings them out of his treasures, whose will they obey, and whose word they fulfil:

and when it was morning; the morrow was come, Exo 10:4 the eighth day of the month Abib:

the east wind brought the locusts; it was usual for these creatures to be taken up and carried with the wind, and brought into countries, as Pliny (g) and other writers attest. In the year 1527, a strong wind brought vast troops of locusts out of Turkey into Poland, which did much mischief; and in the year 1536 a wind from the Euxine Pontus brought such vast numbers of them into Podolia, as that for twenty miles round they devoured everything (h). The word here used commonly signifies the east wind, and so the Jewish writers unanimously interpret it; and if those locusts were brought from the Red sea, into which they were carried, it must be by an east wind, since the Red sea was east of Egypt; but the Septuagint version renders it the "south wind", and which is approved of by De Dieu on the place, and by Bochart (i); and the latter supposes these locusts were brought by a south wind out of Ethiopia, which lay to the south of Egypt, and where in the spring of the year, as it now was, were usually great numbers of locusts, and where were a people that lived upon them, as Diodorus Siculus (k) and Strabo (l) relate; who both say that at the vernal equinox, or in the spring, the west and southwest winds blowing strongly brought locusts into those parts; and the south wind being warm might contribute to the production, cherishing, and increasing of these creatures, and which are sometimes brought by a south wind. Dr. Shaw says (m), the locusts he saw in Barbary, An. 1724 and 1725, were much bigger than our common grasshoppers, and had brown spotted wings, with legs and bodies of a bright yellow; their first appearance was toward the latter end of March, the wind having been for some time from the south.

(g) Nat. Hist. l. 11. c. 29. (h) Frantzii Hist. Animal. Sacr. par. 5. c. 4. p. 794. (i) Hierozoic. par. 2. l. 1. c. 15. col. 101, 102, & l. 4. c. 3. col. 463. Vid. Jablonski de Terra Goshen, Dissertat. 5. sect. 5. (k) Bibliothec, l. 3. p. 162. (l) Geograph. l. 16. p. 531. (m) Travels, p. 187. Edit. 2.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

An east wind - See Exo 10:4. Moses is careful to record the natural and usual cause of the evil, portentous as it was both in extent and in connection with its denouncement.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Wind from "the south," (Septuagint) or "east," (Kadim) or perhaps blowing from the south-east. (Bonfrere) The locusts would come from Ethiopia, or from Arabia, in both which countries they abound. (Ludolf, &c.) They lay their eggs in autumn, and hatch in spring. Frequently they devastate one country after another. They are very large in the East, and sometimes will fasten upon the heads of serpents, and destroy them, as they did on this occasion the Egyptians, Wisdom xvi. 9. --- In Cyrene, bordering upon Egypt, it is requisite to encounter these creatures thrice in the year. (Calmet) (See Leviticus xi. 22.)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Over the land; over divers parts of the land, shaking his rod towards the several quarters of it. An east wind in those parts is a most violent and pernicious wind, Exo 14:21; Num 11:31, and a dry wind, and therefore fit for the engendering of those creatures. This wind brought them from Arabia, where they are in great numbers, as we have seen, Exo 10:12, though God miraculously increased their numbers, and their power of doing mischief.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

13. An east wind — All travellers relate that the wind brings the locusts, but an east wind would have brought them from Arabia across the Red Sea, while the locusts usually come to Egypt from the south or southwest. But Denon (quoted by Knobel) describes a locust cloud which he witnessed coming from the east, producing great havoc in Egypt, and then driven back by a west wind, precisely like the one here mentioned.

Niebuhr describes swarms of locusts coming upon Egypt in December and January, and Lepsius and Tischendorf describe them in March, closely corresponding to the time of this narrative as it is fixed by Exo_9:31-32. After the dreadful destruction by the hail this locust plague must have been fearfully calamitous. This was foreseen by Pharaoh’s counsellors, who looked upon a locust visitation as the destruction of Egypt.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The Lord brought an east wind. Locusts generally come with a wind; and, indeed, cannot fly far without one. An east wind would in this case have brought them from northern Arabia, which is a tract where they are often bred in large numbers. Denon, the French traveller, notes that an enormous cloud of locusts which invaded Egypt during his stay, came from the east. All that day. The rest of the day on which Moses and Aaron had had their interview with the Pharaoh.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The east-wind brought the locusts - From Arabia, where they are in great numbers: And God miraculously increased them.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

ורוח הקדים THE EAST WIND — It was an east wind that brought the locusts because that came (blew) from the direction opposite to it (to Egypt), since Egypt was in the south-west, relative to Palestine, as it is explained in another place (Numbers 34:3).

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.