Exodus 8:24

Exo 8:24 And the LORD did so; and there came a grievous swarm [of flies] into the house of Pharaoh, and [into] his servants’ houses, and into all the land of Egypt: the land was corrupted by reason of the swarm [of flies].

Ver. 24. A grievous swarm of flies,] i.e., Numerous and pernicious; yet not so bad as those many noisome thoughts that swarm daily in men’s hearts. There is that Leviathan; there are also creeping things innumerable. And these many times mar and corrupt our prayers, so as that they stink in the nostrils of God.

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.

The fourth plague.

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

Verse 24. The land was corrupted] Every thing was spoiled, and many of the inhabitants destroyed, being probably stung to death by these venomous insects. This seems to be intimated by the psalmist, "He sent divers sorts of flies among them, which DEVOURED them," Ps 78:45.

In ancient times, when political, domestic, and personal cleanliness was but little attended to, and offal of different kinds permitted to corrupt in the streets and breed vermin, flies multiplied exceedingly, so that we read in ancient authors of whole districts being laid waste by them; hence different people had deities, whose office it was to defend them against flies. Among these we may reckon Baalzebub, the fly-god of Ekron; Hercules, muscarum abactor, Hercules, the expeller of flies, of the Romans; the Muagrus of the Eleans, whom they invoked against pestilential swarms of flies; and hence Jupiter, the supreme god of the heathens, had the epithets of Απομυιος and Μυωδης, because he was supposed to expel flies, and defend his worshippers against them. See Dodd.

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

(24) The land was corrupted.—Rather, as in the margin, destroyed. Kalisch observes, “These insects”—i.e., the kakerlaque (Blatta Orientalis), “really fill the land, and molest men and beasts; they consume all sorts of materials, devastate the country, and are in so far more detrimental than the gnats, as they destroy also the property of the Egyptians.”

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

24. grievous] lit. heavy, combining, as Exo_10:14, the ideas of both numerous (Exo_12:38, Gen_50:9, Heb.), and severe (Exo_9:3; Exo_9:18; Exo_9:24). ‘Grievous’ is an archaism, meaning burdensome (ultimately from Lat. gravis1[124]): see DB. s.v.; and cf. Gen_12:10 (AV.), Gen_50:11, 2Co_12:14 AV. (RV. ‘be a burden to’)2[125].

[124] Cf. to grieve, i.e. originally to be a burden or trouble to, to harass (Gen_49:23) from gravare.

[125] Murray quotes from a writer of 1548, ‘Ye shall be grievous to no man with begging’ (cf. the Glossary in the writer’s Jeremiah, p. 373).

and into, &c.] read probably, with LXX. Sam. Pesh., adding only one letter, but improving the sentence, and into his servants’ houses, and into all the land of Egypt; and the land was, &c.

corrupted] rather, ruined,—by the suffering inflicted on men and cattle, and the interruption caused to daily occupations, &c. (v. 21).

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

He and his people not being able to endure this plague of flies any longer; and we read in profane history of such creatures being so troublesome, that people have been obliged to quit their habitations, and seek for new ones; so Pausanias (t) relates of the inhabitants of Myus, that such a number of flies rose out of the lake, that the men were obliged to leave the city, and go to Miletus; so Aelian (u) reports, that the inhabitants of Megara were driven from thence by a multitude of flies, as were the inhabitants of Phaselis by wasps, which creatures also might be in this mixture of insects:

and said, go ye, sacrifice to your God in the land; that is, in the land of Goshen, in the place where they were; he was willing to allow them the liberty of sacrificing to their God, which it seems they had before; but then he would not consent they should go out of the land to do it.

(t) Achaica, sive l. 7. p. 400. (u) De Animal. l. 11. c. 28.

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

The Lord, without the intervention of the rod, lest any inherent power might be supposed to rest in it. (Menochius) --- Corrupted, ravaged; men and beasts being destroyed by their bite or sting. (Psalm lxxvii. 45; Wisdom xvi. 9.)

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).

The Lord did so, immediately by his own word, and not by Moses’s rod, lest the Egyptians should think it was a magician’s wand, and. that all Moses’s works were done by the power of the devil.

A grievous swarm of flies; Heb. a heavy mixture of flies. Heavy, i.e. either great, as this Hebrew word is used, Gen 41:31; Isa 32:2, or mischievous and troublesome; or rather, numerous, as it is taken, Gen 1:9; Num 11:14; 1Ki 3:9, compared with 2Ch 1:10.

The land, i.e. either the fruits or products of the land; or rather, the inhabitants of the land, as the word land is taken, Gen 41:36; 1Sa 27:9 many of the people were poisoned or stung to death by them, as appears from Psa 78:45. See also Wis 16:9.

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

A grievous swarm of flies. Rather "a multitude of beetles." As with the frogs, so with the beetles, it aggravated the infliction, that, being sacred animals, they might not be destroyed or injured. Beetles were sacred to Ra, the sun-god; and one form of Ra, Chepra, was ordinarily represented under the form of a beetle, or as a man with a beetle for his heath The land was corrupted. Rather "destroyed;" i.e. grievously injured, or "devastated"(as Kalisch renders). The beetles seriously damaged the growing crops.

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

There came a grievous swarm of flies - The prince of the power of the air has gloried in being Beel-zebub, the God of flies; but here it is proved that even in that he is a pretender, and an usurper; for even with swarms of flies God fights against his kingdom and prevails.

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