Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
The fifth plague of pestilence is described, and the sixth of boils, verse 8, and the seventh of hail, thunder, and lightning, verse 23. Softened by these, Pharaoh gives hope of releasing the Hebrews, but when the plagues cease, he hardens himself again.
Vulgate Text: Exodus 9:1-35
1. And the Lord said to Moses: Go in to Pharaoh, and speak to him: Thus says the Lord God of the Hebrews: Let My people go that they may sacrifice to Me. 2. But if you still refuse and hold them back, 3. behold, My hand shall be upon your fields, and upon your horses, and donkeys, and camels, and cattle, and sheep — a very grievous pestilence. 4. And the Lord will make a wondrous thing between the possessions of Israel and the possessions of the Egyptians, so that nothing at all perishes of those things which pertain to the children of Israel. 5. And the Lord appointed a time, saying: Tomorrow the Lord will do this thing in the land. 6. The Lord therefore did this thing the next day: and all the animals of the Egyptians died, but of the animals of the children of Israel nothing at all perished. 7. And Pharaoh sent to see: and there was nothing dead of that which Israel possessed. And the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, and he did not let the people go. 8. And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron: Take handfuls of ashes from the furnace, and let Moses sprinkle it toward heaven in the sight of Pharaoh. 9. And let it become dust over all the land of Egypt: for there shall be boils and swelling blisters on men and beasts in all the land of Egypt. 10. And they took ashes from the furnace, and stood before Pharaoh, and Moses sprinkled it toward heaven: and there arose boils with swelling blisters on men and beasts. 11. And the magicians could not stand before Moses because of the boils that were on them and in all the land of Egypt. 12. And the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he did not hear them, as the Lord had spoken to Moses. 13. And the Lord said to Moses: Rise early in the morning, and stand before Pharaoh, and you shall say to him: Thus says the Lord God of the Hebrews: Let My people go that they may sacrifice to Me. 14. For at this time I will send all My plagues upon your heart, and upon your servants, and upon your people, that you may know that there is none like Me in all the earth. 15. For now, stretching out My hand, I will strike you and your people with pestilence, and you shall perish from the earth. 16. And for this purpose have I raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared throughout all the earth. 17. Do you still hold back My people, and will you not let them go? 18. Behold, tomorrow at this very hour I will rain down a very great hail, such as has not been in Egypt from the day it was founded until the present time. 19. Send therefore now, and gather your cattle and all that you have in the field; for upon every man and beast that shall be found in the field, and not gathered out of the fields, the hail shall fall upon them, and they shall die. 20. He that feared the word of the Lord among the servants of Pharaoh made his servants and his cattle flee into the houses; 21. but he that neglected the word of the Lord left his servants and his cattle in the fields. 22. And the Lord said to Moses: Stretch forth your hand toward heaven, that there may be hail in all the land of Egypt upon men and upon beasts and upon every herb of the field in the land of Egypt. 23. And Moses stretched forth his rod toward heaven, and the Lord sent thunder and hail, and lightning running along the ground: and the Lord rained hail upon the land of Egypt. 24. And the hail and fire were mingled together: and it was of such greatness as never before appeared in all the land of Egypt, since that nation was founded. 25. And the hail struck in all the land of Egypt all things that were in the fields, from man to beast: and the hail struck every herb of the field, and it broke every tree of the region. 26. Only in the land of Goshen, where the children of Israel were, the hail did not fall. 27. And Pharaoh sent and called Moses and Aaron, saying to them: I have sinned this time also: the Lord is just; I and my people are wicked. 28. Pray to the Lord, that the thunderings of God and the hail may cease, that I may let you go, and that you may stay here no longer. 29. Moses said: When I have gone out of the city, I will stretch forth my hands to the Lord, and the thunderings shall cease, and there shall be no more hail, that you may know that the earth is the Lord's. 30. But I know that you and your servants do not yet fear the Lord God. 31. The flax therefore and the barley were hurt, because the barley was green, and the flax was already budding forth: 32. but the wheat and the spelt were not hurt, because they were late crops. 33. And Moses went out from Pharaoh from the city, and stretched forth his hands to the Lord; and the thunderings and hail ceased, nor did rain fall any longer upon the earth. 34. And Pharaoh, seeing that the rain and the hail and the thunderings had ceased, increased his sin; 35. and his heart was hardened, and the heart of his servants, and it was hardened exceedingly: nor did he let the children of Israel go, as the Lord had commanded by the hand of Moses.
Verse 3: Behold My Hand Shall Be upon Your Fields
BEHOLD MY HAND SHALL BE UPON YOUR FIELDS. — "Hand," that is, my scourge, or, as is explained by apposition, "a very grievous pestilence," which I, by My hand and power alone, not Moses' nor Aaron's — as also the preceding plague — will send forth by infecting the air and bodies. For pestilence is a certain poisonous vapor condensed in the air, hostile to the vital spirit, which can infect every bodily humor; but especially the blood, secondly the bile, thirdly the phlegm, fourthly the black bile: therefore those of sanguine temperament are first subject to the danger of pestilential contagion, then the choleric, then the phlegmatic, finally the melancholic, because a cold and dry humor is unsuited to inflammation and putrefaction and has narrow passages, says Marsilius Ficinus, Antidotes of Epidemics, chapter 2 and following; where he also assigns remedies for pestilence, namely: flight from infected air, recreation and cheerfulness, solid food and drink that strengthens the heart and spirits, avoiding foods that easily spoil and rot; frequently purging putrescible humors with aloe, myrrh, and saffron; using theriac, zedoary, and citron; fumigating with juniper, terebinth, and frankincense; frequently changing and wearing clean garments; often washing the mouth and hands with vinegar, and sometimes with strong wine.
UPON YOUR FIELDS AND UPON YOUR HORSES. — The "and" signifies "that is," as if to say: This plague will be a pestilence upon your fields, that is, upon your horses, sheep, and cattle that are in the fields; for the fields themselves were not touched by this pestilence. So the Hebrew, the Chaldean, and the Septuagint. Hence it is clear that by this pestilence, not men but animals were struck and perished — not indeed all of them, but only those that were in the fields.
Tropologically, this fifth plague of pestilence signifies that God is wont to inflict pestilence and other kinds of death upon transgressors of the fifth commandment, "You shall not kill" — such as these infanticides were. So Rupertus and Prosper, book 1 of On the Promises, chapter 36.
Sheep and Cattle — which the Egyptians nourished not for slaughter and eating, but for services, wool, and trade. For with cattle they plowed, and from sheep they obtained milk and wool.
Origen notes that the Egyptians were punished in their animals because they worshiped them as gods, so that they might be reminded of their folly when they saw them perishing.
Verse 4: Between the Possessions
Between the possessions — between the cattle that the Hebrews and the Egyptians possessed.
SO THAT NOTHING AT ALL PERISHES OF THOSE THINGS WHICH PERTAIN TO THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL. — Behold here God's wondrous providence concerning the Hebrews and the Egyptians: that although the animals of both were intermingled, only those of the Egyptians would be touched by the pestilence, and no contagion from neighboring cattle would harm those belonging to the Hebrews. Hence it is clear that this plague was also sent upon the land of Goshen, where many Egyptians dwelt, yet in such a way that it did not touch the Hebrews. Philo, Josephus, and Abulensis hold the same view about all the other plagues, namely that the waters in Goshen were also turned to blood, and that frogs were there too, but only troubled the Egyptians; likewise the gnats and flies, and therefore in chapter 8, verse 22, it is pointedly said: "I will make wondrous the land of Goshen, in which My people dwell," as if to say: Where My people are, from there I will drive away the flies; but where the Egyptians are, I will make the flies swarm: for this was truly wondrous. So of the ninth plague of darkness it is said, chapter 10, verse 23: "Wherever the children of Israel dwelt, there was light," as if to say: In the same house, in the rooms of the Egyptians there was darkness, but in the rooms of the Hebrews there was light. So the last plague killed the firstborn of the Egyptians, even in the land of Goshen, while the Hebrews there were unharmed. And the reason is that it was fitting that those Egyptians especially should be punished who had oppressed the Hebrews. Such, however, were the inhabitants of Goshen, especially the overseers of the works.
You will say, why then did Pharaoh not send scouts to Goshen in the preceding plagues, but only now in this fifth one, to discover this distinction between the Hebrews and the Egyptians in this plague? I reply, because before this the roads were impassable on account of the frogs, flies, and gnats occupying everything, and Pharaoh was so distracted by these scourges that he did not think of such an investigation, not even in the preceding plague, in which Moses had predicted to him that the Hebrews would be distinguished from the Egyptians, chapter 8, verse 22.
Verse 6: And All the Animals Died
AND ALL THE ANIMALS DIED — namely those that were then in the fields, as is clear from what was said in verse 3, and this is expressed in the subsequent plague of hail, verse 19. For there the remaining animals of the Egyptians, which were now in the stables and therefore had remained untouched, but had then gone out to graze in the fields, were struck by hail there and perished.
Verse 7: And the Heart of Pharaoh Was Hardened
AND THE HEART OF PHARAOH WAS HARDENED. — Here Pharaoh does not pray for the plague to cease, as he had done before, because the animals were already dead; and therefore, since he had no hope of removing the plague, his hard heart was hardened further by the plague. Indeed, so great a love of commanding the Hebrews and of increasing his wealth through tyranny had settled in Pharaoh's mind, that he did not regard past scourges as scourges; or he did not consider that they had been sent against him because of his tyranny, and he preferred to expose himself to God's uncertain future vengeance rather than to relinquish certain plunder.
Verse 8: The Lord Said to Moses and Aaron
THE LORD SAID TO MOSES (directly) AND TO AARON — indirectly, namely through Moses: for God spoke to Moses alone, as I said above.
TAKE HANDFULS OF ASHES FROM THE FURNACE. — In Hebrew it is: Take for yourselves palms full of soot from the furnace, that is, of ashes which have fallen from fire and coals in the chimney and furnace; but properly in Hebrew, piach signifies that white soot which has not yet fully turned to ash, with which half-dead coals are covered. Fittingly by this soot the burning boils are signified: for these, like ashes, are produced by heat; and it was fitting that the Egyptians, who had tortured the Hebrews with the brick furnace, should most bitterly be tormented by the same thing — for which reason Moses, speaking of the Egyptian slavery in Deuteronomy chapter 4, verse 20, says: "He brought you out from the iron furnace of Egypt."
AND LET MOSES SPRINKLE IT. — Note: Both, namely both Moses and Aaron, are ordered to carry ashes from the furnace, but Moses alone is to sprinkle them into the air; for Aaron, by producing blood and frogs in the waters and drawing gnats from the earth, had already performed his signs. But henceforth greater things are reserved for Moses, namely to work miracles in fire, heaven, and air, as Philo says. Moses therefore here sprinkles ashes toward heaven, to signify that this plague is summoned and sent from heaven by God, and that these scattered ashes, turned to dust, carried partly by wind and partly by angels onto men and animals, would turn into blisters and boils.
Verse 9: And Let the Dust Be upon All the Land of Egypt
"Let there be dust," that is, let it become dust, let it be turned into dust. So the Hebrew, the Chaldean, the Septuagint. Note: This scattered soot was turned into dust, not such as the dust of the earth — for that has no power of burning or producing boils — but such as is usually generated from dissolved soot. This dust, therefore, is burning ash. Second, Moses did not scatter more soot than he and Aaron had scooped up with their hands and brought to Pharaoh, which was a small amount; but God multiplied it as it was scattered in the air, so that like dense snow or frost it fell continually upon the Egyptians and their animals. Third, God impressed upon this ash a fiery and burning power, and carried by wind and angels throughout all Egypt and sprinkled upon men and beasts, it forced and generated boils and pustules by its noxious heat.
FOR THERE SHALL BE ON MEN AND BEASTS — not all, but very many, says Cajetan; for the rest perished when struck by the subsequent plague of hail. BOILS AND SWELLING BLISTERS. — Blisters, says Pererius, are certain swellings raised on the skin by heat that elevates and dissolves, which contain watery humors dissolved by the heat of fire from the thinner and more delicate parts of the flesh; then, as the heat further dried out the skin of men and animals, it was consumed and contracted, and finally burst; this bursting of the opened flesh was called a wound; but after the rupture, the flesh thus opened and gaping, gradually rotting and consumed, became an ulcer. But such watery blisters cause little pain and are minor punishments. Furthermore, these blisters of the Egyptians did not generate the boils, but rather the boils generated the blisters, as is clear from the Hebrew text, which reads thus: there shall be a boil or abscess sprouting blisters, or swellings, or eruptions — that is, there shall be an inflated, swollen, and erupting boil or abscess. Hence our translator shortly after renders it: "Boils of swelling blisters." These blisters, therefore, were nothing other than the boils themselves, swollen and distended with burning heat and pus, which tormented the Egyptians with great pain. Hence Josephus says that the bodies of the Egyptians were ulcerated internally in the skin; hence also Scripture says here, verse 11: "The magicians could not stand before Moses because of the boils that were on them." Philo adds: "It appeared," he says, "to be one single boil from the crown of the head to the soles of the feet, with those that were scattered throughout the limbs joining together in one continuous spreading sore." Hence Moses, in Deuteronomy chapter 28, threatens this plague as a most grievous one against violators of the law, saying: "The Lord will strike you with the boil of Egypt, and the part of the body through which excrement is discharged, and with scab and itch, so that you cannot be cured."
Tropologically, this plague, says Origen, has boils and blisters with burning: in the boils is rebuked deceitful malice; in the blisters, swelling and inflated pride; in the burning, the madness of wrath and fury. For truly one who is swollen with pride and raging is insane. Sapor, king of the Persians, called himself king of kings, participant of the stars, brother of the sun and moon, as Herodotus testifies in book 2 and Pliny in book 2; was he not foolish? Menecrates the physician asked this one reward from those he cured, that once healed they would declare themselves his slaves and call him Jupiter.
Hence he wrote to the king with this title: "Jupiter Menecrates to King Agesilaus, greetings"; to which the king replied in this form: "King Agesilaus to Menecrates — a sound mind." Nestorius the heretic, having been made bishop of Constantinople, the next day delivered a speech to the people full of arrogance, in which he promised to give heaven to everyone: the orthodox derided his foolishness. Domitian was the first Emperor to order himself to be called Lord and God, says Eusebius. The Romans laughed at the man's pride. Rightly did Aesop, when asked by Chion "what Jupiter does," reply: "He brings low the exalted, and raises up the humble." And Innocent III, the Pope, in his book On the Wretchedness of Man: "Pride," he says, "overthrew the tower of Babel, confused languages, prostrated Goliath, hanged Haman, killed Nicanor, destroyed Antiochus, drowned Pharaoh, slew Sennacherib. Alas! Whence comes this pride of man? — whose life is consumed by laborious suffering, whose suffering is concluded by the more painful necessity of death; for whom existence is but a moment, life a shipwreck, and the world an exile; for whom death either presses near, or threatens its approach."
Second, St. Prosper, part 1 of the Promises, chapter 36, and Rupertus: Those who violate, he says, the sixth commandment, "You shall not commit adultery," and burn with lust — these, burning with sulfurous fire and covered in sores, will carry an eternal conflagration in soul and body. "For all who commit adultery are like an oven heated by the baker," says Hosea, chapter 7. But St. Augustine applies this plague to murderers who burn with wrath, though he here inverts the order of the commandments of the Decalogue. "You shall not kill" is not the sixth but the fifth commandment of the Decalogue.
Verse 11: The Magicians Could Not Stand before Moses
THE MAGICIANS COULD NOT STAND BEFORE MOSES BECAUSE OF THE BOILS. — This is the third victory of Moses against the magicians. For first he defeated them when his serpent devoured their serpents. Second, when he produced gnats, which the magicians could not produce. Third, here by tormenting them with boils he completely overcame them. So Rupertus. Hence it appears that the magicians, though defeated, had up to this point resisted Moses with words and slanders and every effort of theirs, and thus had hardened Pharaoh more and more: for although they recognized God in the third sign, they did not glorify or worship Him as God. Calvin adds that the magicians had equally accomplished by their incantations all the signs that Moses had performed up to this point, namely the blood, frogs, gnats — or, as Calvin prefers, lice — the flies, pestilence, and boils. Whence does Calvin say this, except from his own spirit of delusion? For Scripture plainly asserts the contrary, namely that they failed at the third sign and could not produce gnats, by which it sufficiently indicates that they could not accomplish or produce any further sign.
Verse 12: And the Lord Hardened the Heart of Pharaoh
AND THE LORD HARDENED THE HEART OF PHARAOH. — Here for the first time God is said to have hardened Pharaoh's heart, namely when the magicians, who had up to this point encouraged and hardened him, had now, completely defeated and afflicted, given up. See what was said in chapter 7, verse 3.
Verse 14: At This Time I Will Send All My Plagues upon Your Heart
AT THIS TIME I WILL SEND ALL MY PLAGUES UPON YOUR HEART — as if to say: I have begun to press upon you, O Pharaoh, and I will continue; for it is fixed in My purpose not to desist, but to send one plague after another upon you, until I drown you, ever more rebellious and resistant, in the waters of the Red Sea.
ALL MY PLAGUES — not those I am able to send, but those I have determined to send for your destruction.
UPON YOUR HEART — as if to say: The preceding plagues did not sting you; come then, with My weapons I will strike your very heart, and I will send those things which will wound, touch, and anguish your heart.
Verse 15: Now Stretching out My Hand I Will Strike You
NOW STRETCHING OUT MY HAND I WILL STRIKE YOU AND YOUR PEOPLE WITH PESTILENCE. — "With pestilence," by which I will kill your firstborn in the last plague, says Pererius. But it is uncertain whether the firstborn were killed by this pestilence, and that plague occurred not now but after three other plagues. Moreover, Pharaoh did not perish by this plague; yet this is what is said here, for it follows: "and you shall perish from the earth."
Second, others translate from the Hebrew: And indeed, if I had wished, I could have killed you with pestilence (by which I killed your cattle), and you would have perished from the earth; but I have therefore raised you up and preserved you, that I might show My power in you. So the Chaldean. But the Hebrew does not have "if," and asserts rather than conditionally threatens Pharaoh with pestilence and destruction. I say therefore: pestilence here signifies every kind of destruction which God subsequently sent upon Pharaoh, as if to say: I will add plagues to plagues until you are cut off from the earth. This is clear from what precedes, to which this is connected by the causal particle "for"; for verse 14 preceded: "At this time I will send all My plagues upon your heart." By pestilence, therefore, is meant destruction and death; for thus the Hebrew deber, meaning pestilence, is translated by our Interpreter in Psalm 77:50, when he says: "He shut up their cattle in death (in Hebrew, in pestilence)"; and Hosea 13:14: "I will be your death (in Hebrew deber, that is, pestilence), O death." So commonly we call traitors "plagues of the Republic." So Terence in the Adelphi calls that pimp "the plague of young men." In a similar way, "sword" among the Hebrews signifies any kind of destruction and death, as I said in chapter 5, verse 21.
And you shall perish from the earth. — The Hebrew has all these things in the past tense: "Behold, now I have stretched out My hand, I have struck, and you have perished," as if to say: So certainly have I decreed to destroy you, as if I had already struck you and you had already perished. See with what a grave threat God tests and pounds the most hardened heart of Pharaoh, that it might be softened; but in vain: for as if it were diamond, it became harder still by the pounding.
Verse 16: For This Purpose Have I Raised You Up
AND FOR THIS PURPOSE HAVE I RAISED YOU UP, THAT I MIGHT SHOW MY POWER IN YOU. — Some explain it thus: For this reason I have hardened you, so that I might have occasion to punish you continually, and thus to display My power. But this is the blasphemous heresy of Calvin.
I say therefore that for "I have set you up," the Hebrew is heemadticha, that is, "I have made you stand," which signifies two things. First, "I established you": whence our translator rendered it "I have set you up," and Paul, Romans 9:17, "I have raised you up." Second, "I have sustained you"; for he who sustains another makes him stand and establishes him, so that he may remain firm. Whence the Chaldean translates it, "I have endured you"; and the Septuagint, "you have been preserved." Saint Augustine reads it in either way here, Question XXXII, as does Saint Ambrose on Romans chapter 9. And both readings are true; for the latter completes the former in this way: first, "I set you up and established you" as king, namely; second, "I sustained you" as king, so that you would continue in your kingdom. The meaning therefore is, as if God said: I, God, constituted you, O Pharaoh, as king, sustained you, preserved you, and permitted you to rise up as a tyrant against My people; so that I in turn might rise up against you as an enemy with so many most powerful plagues, and finally engulf you in the Red Sea, so that all might acknowledge, fear, and worship My justice and power. So say Chrysostom and Photius on Romans chapter 9.
IN ORDER THAT I MAY SHOW IN YOU MY STRENGTH. — Note: This was not the first and principal, but one among other causes, and indeed the last cause, why God established Pharaoh as king. For the first cause was that Pharaoh might act well and govern the people well, and thus by acting well might be adorned with present and eternal rewards; for to these ends every person is created. Whence God also sustained Pharaoh when he sinned with much patience, so that he might correct his hardness, his life, and his ways. For as the Apostle says, Romans 2: "The patience and kindness of God leads you to repentance," that is, endeavors to lead you. Therefore God scourged Pharaoh, so that by these scourges he might be softened and bend himself to obedience to God. But because he through his own hardness resisted God, therefore God decreed to add plagues upon plagues, and finally to engulf him with his people in the Red Sea, to this end: that these plagues and disasters might set God's power before the eyes of all, and might strike the fear of God into the impious and rebellious, just as those plagues struck this fear into the Canaanites, Joshua 2:9, and the Philistines, 1 Samuel 4:8. For God would never have endured such great and such prolonged stubbornness of Pharaoh, unless He had planned to draw forth so great a good of vengeance from his wickedness; for as Boethius says, book IV of the Consolation of Philosophy, prose 6: "The divine power alone is that for which even evil things are good, since by making competent use of them, it draws forth the effect of some good; for a certain order embraces all things, so that whatever has departed from the assigned plan of order falls back, though into a different one, yet still into an order: lest anything be permitted to rashness in the kingdom of providence."
Note: God long sustained Pharaoh and other hardened sinners, and sustains them daily. First, to show how great an evil is hardness of heart, and how utterly hard and inflexible such people are to all things. Second, to give them a longer space for repentance, Romans 2:4. Third, to show His power and long-suffering toward them, Wisdom 12:10. Fourth, so that by comparison with them the wondrous mercy of God toward the elect might appear, Romans 9:22.
Verse 17: Do You Still Hold Them Back?
DO YOU STILL HOLD THEM BACK? — In Hebrew, "you still trample," that is, as the Chaldean renders it, you hold them subject, so unjustly and firmly do you press upon them and constrain them, that you are unwilling to release them even for three days?
Verse 18: Behold, I Will Rain Down Tomorrow at This Very Hour
BEHOLD, I WILL RAIN DOWN TOMORROW AT THIS VERY HOUR. — God does not delay the punishment of sin. Behold, for you the hour of vengeance follows upon the hour of guilt: therefore every pleasure of sin is but for an hour; our life too is but for an hour; and the occasion and time for meriting eternal rewards is also but for an hour. Hence among the pagans, Hora was the goddess of providence, who would not suffer people to be negligent and slothful: and from exhorting and inciting she was also called Horta. For the goddess Horta, when she lived, was called Hersilia and was the wife of Romulus. Plutarch relates that the temple of this goddess was customarily never closed, for the reason that she was always exhorting that something noble be done, and admonishing that one must never cease. So says Giraldus, Syntagma 1.
A VERY GREAT HAIL (that is, most abundant), SUCH AS HAS NOT BEEN IN EGYPT FROM THE DAY IT WAS FOUNDED — that is, from when it began to be inhabited by Mizraim (for hence Egypt is called Mizraim in Hebrew, and today is called Misra by the Turks and its inhabitants), the son of Ham, its first founder, or rather colonizer. For thus it is explained at verse 24, where it says: "From the time that nation was founded," namely 627 years ago; for Egypt began to be inhabited soon after the dispersion of nations made at Babel, Genesis 11. That dispersion occurred around the year 470 after the flood, as I said there, namely 122 years before the birth of Abraham; for Abraham was born in the year 292 after the flood; in the 100th year of Abraham, Isaac was born; from the birth of Isaac to the departure of the Hebrews from Egypt, 403 years elapsed, as I said on Genesis 15:13. Therefore from the dispersion at Babel, when Egypt began to be inhabited, to this year when the Hebrews departed from Egypt, 627 years elapsed. For add the 122 years from Babel to Abraham, and 100 to Isaac, and 403 to the departure, and you will have 627. Moses adds this aptly with regard to the Egyptians; for the Egyptians boasted of their antiquity, and fabulously claimed for themselves an age of thirteen thousand years, and moreover, as Diodorus Siculus says, book I, chapter 2, they boasted that the first human beings were created in Egypt, on account of the Nile's fertility and convenience.
Some explain it thus: there was never such a hail in that land from the time it was called Egypt, and whence its inhabitants were called Egyptians; but they err: for that land was called Egypt from Aegyptus, the brother of Danaus and son of Belus the Egyptian, whom he succeeded in the kingdom after his death, having expelled his brother Danaus, who withdrew to Greece — and from him they were called the Danaans — which Eusebius and Saint Augustine, City of God XVIII, 11, relate as having occurred when Joshua, who succeeded Moses, was ruling among the Hebrews, that is, 800 years after the flood. Therefore not then, but after those times, was it called Egypt.
Verse 19: Gather Your Livestock
GATHER YOUR LIVESTOCK. — Behold the clemency of God, who even when angry tempers His wrath with mercy, and thereby moderates and mitigates the punishment. So says Saint Augustine, Question XXXIII.
Verse 23: The Lord Sent Thunder
THE LORD SENT THUNDER. — "The Lord" sent it not by Himself, but through an angel; for the sweet disposition of divine providence delights in its own order, so as to use ministering spirits, namely angels, as far as their powers allow — namely where He wills something to be done that does not transcend the limits of nature, such as this thunder was: to produce hail and lightning through natural causes, that is, by applying active forces to passive ones. For when a hot and dry exhalation in the clouds encounters a moist and cold one, it breaks through the latter by violent eruption, and from this collision arises the crash that is called thunder, and the ignition and inflammation of the exhalation, which is called lightning. So says Aristotle, book II of the Meteorology, chapters 1 and 8.
AND HAIL AND LIGHTNING RUNNING ALONG THE GROUND. — This was the seventh plague in Egypt, the plague of hail; for as it says in Psalm 148: "Fire, hail, snow, ice, stormy winds fulfill His word"; and although these things arise from natural causes, yet often, when God in His wrath directs and sharpens those causes, they rage more fiercely.
Note: For "lightning," the Hebrew has esh, that is, "fire," by which understand fiery exhalations, including lightning bolts, which by flashing, burning, melting, splitting, and demolishing everything in their path, inflicted the gravest harm on Egypt. Hence Ovid calls lightning bolts "three-forked" and "three-pronged," as if they had three edges with which they cut and cleave all things, as in Metamorphoses II: "That Father and ruler of the gods, whose right hand is armed with three-forked fires, who shakes the world with a nod."
Verse 24: And the Hail and Fire Mingled Together
AND THE HAIL AND FIRE MINGLED TOGETHER RAGED. — In Hebrew it reads: "there was fire taking hold of itself," or "received within the hail"; the Septuagint has: "there was hail and fire burning in the hail." This therefore was a remarkable prodigy, that fire was mingled together with the hail and rain, as is stated at verse 34. Whence Wisdom 16 says of it: "It was wonderful that in water, which extinguishes all things, fire had even greater force, and blazed beyond the power of fire; and the snow and ice endured the force of fire and did not melt."
In this plague, therefore, three elements raged against the Egyptians: the air through thunder, water through hail, fire through lightning — so that even unwillingly the Egyptians would be compelled to acknowledge that they were fighting against the all-powerful Lord of the elements and of the world. For according to the saying of Wisdom 5, the whole world fought on behalf of God against the senseless, and every creature armed itself against the impious. God therefore here showed that there are not some gods of heaven, others of the air, others of water, others of earth, as the pagans believed, and the Syrians, who said the God of Israel was a God of the mountains, not of the valleys; but that He is the true Creator and Lord of all, says Theodoret.
Note five wonderful and horrifying things in this plague. First, that these things occurred in Egypt, where rain, thunder, and hail are rare and slight. Second, that this hail was of unusual magnitude, like stones, says Philo, and dense like rain, as is evident here at verse 18. Third, that, as Philo says, the hail was mixed with fire, by which nevertheless it neither melted, nor did it extinguish the lightning, but both were borne along together with the same force. Fourth, these thunderclaps were unusual and terrifying, which wonderfully struck the Egyptians with fear. The hail laid low and destroyed crops, harvests, and fruits, and even animals — not those at home, but those in the fields; the lightning bolts struck trees and every harder thing, as well as animals and people. Of these, says Philo, if any survived, they carried about their burnt wounds to the terror of those who saw them. But this does not seem true; for the Lord, at verse 19, predicted that all things would die. Whence at verse 25 it says: "And the hail struck in all the land of Egypt everything that was in the fields, from man to beast, and the hail struck every herb of the field, and broke every tree of the region." Fifth, that the land of Goshen alone was immune from this plague.
Mystically, Saint Augustine says: "The seventh commandment is 'You shall not steal,' and the seventh plague was hail upon the fruits: what you steal contrary to God's commandment by theft, you lose from heaven; for no one has unjust gain without just loss; he who steals acquires a garment, but by heavenly judgment loses faith: where there is gain, there is loss; visibly gain, invisibly loss. Gain with its own blindness, loss because one lives without equity; therefore those who by their own judgment steal outwardly, by the just judgment of God are pelted with hail inwardly: because they are struck in the soul with the guilt of eternal death."
Whence, second, this fiery hail, or this hail-producing fire, was a type of the fire of hell, which will hail down upon and blast the damned. Who would not fear this fire, this hail? Saint Jerome dreaded it, and therefore cast off all pleasures and withdrew into the desert as into a harbor of salvation. "I," he says himself in Epistle 22 to Eustochium, "who out of fear of hell had condemned myself to such a prison, the companion only of scorpions and wild beasts." Saint Cyril of Alexandria dreaded it in his oration On the Departure of the Soul: "I fear hell," he says, "since it is without end; I shudder at Tartarus, as one in which there is too much heat; I dread the darkness, since it admits no light; I am terrified of the pestilent worm, since it is everlasting." Rightly therefore does Chrysostom compare us to children, who fear masks but not fire: for thus we fear the masks of evils, namely temporal losses and afflictions; but the evil itself, that is, sin, and the eternal fire to which it leads us, we do not dread. So he says in Homily 5 to the People.
Note: Elsewhere, and after these times, hail no less but even greater sometimes fell. Ludovicus Clavitellius, folio 260, relates that in the year of our Lord 1514, on the 5th of August, hail the size of a hen's egg fell at Cremona. In the northern regions, hail the size of a human head sometimes falls, as Olaus Magnus teaches, book I, chapter 22, and the Coimbra commentators in their work on Meteorology, chapter On Hail. Again, Clavitellius writes that in the territory of Bologna, in the year of our Lord 1537, in the month of August, hail mixed with blood fell, from which grains when weighed were found to be 28 pounds.
The Tripartite History, book VII, chapter 22, relates that in the year of our Lord 369, on the fourth day before the calends of June, hail the size of rocks fell at Constantinople. Likewise in the year of our Lord 406, on the last day of September, when Saint John Chrysostom was driven into exile, a terrible hail fell upon Constantinople. So says the Tripartite History, book X, chapter 20.
At the end of the world, great hail will fall like a talent, which contains 1,500 ounces, Apocalypse 16:21. Thus the Amorites were crushed by hailstones in the time of Joshua, chapter 10, verse 11.
AND IT WAS OF SUCH GREAT MAGNITUDE AS HAD NEVER BEFORE APPEARED IN THE ENTIRE LAND OF EGYPT. — From this you may gather that it is false what some fabulously claim, that rain was never seen in Egypt, nor hail. For if the comparison here is correct, one may infer: therefore hail was seen at some time, and much more so rain, in Egypt, but not so great as this. Hence also Diodorus Siculus, book I, chapter 2, teaches that there are rains in Egypt, but very rare; and Philo says: "Egypt knows no winter nor winter storms: around the winter solstice it is sprinkled with small and rare rains only in maritime places; above Memphis it feels none at all"; and he gives the reason: "Because Egypt is not far from the torrid zone (for it is only 25 degrees from the equator), and consequently is hot; and because the overflowings of the Nile sufficiently fertilize the fields, so that nature need not provide Egypt with rains." But it is wonderful and almost incredible what Philo adds, that the overflowing Nile absorbs the clouds from which rain is made: for the Nile does not swell up to the clouds, unless he means to say that the overflowing Nile by its violence prevents vapors from rising and condensing into clouds, or that by some hidden sympathy it draws them to itself.
Note: The flooding of the Nile begins at the summer solstice, subsides at the autumnal equinox, and benefits the fields both by flooding and by depositing silt and enriching them. Seneca adds, book IV of Natural Questions, chapter 2, that nature so arranged it that the Nile floods Egypt at the time when the earth, parched by the greatest heat, drinks in and absorbs water more deeply; so that it then absorbs as much as can suffice for the annual drought.
Various authors give various causes for this flooding: Solinus attributes it to the sun and stars. Second, Ephorus attributes it to the porous and dry earth, and to the evaporation occurring in Egypt. Third, Herodotus attributes it to the nature of the Nile, as if by its own nature it draws waters to itself, and so overflows. Fourth, others attribute it to underground cavities, which when full of water discharge themselves into the Nile. Fifth, Thales and Aelian attribute it to the Etesian winds, which blowing from the opposite direction resist the descending Nile and drive it back, causing it to overflow. But experience has established that the increase of the Nile is produced not from opposing winds, but from the marshes from which the Nile descends.
I say therefore that the cause of the Nile's flooding is the immense force of rainwater (add also the melting of snows), which collects at the marshes and those higher places from which the Nile flows at a fixed time of year, and flows into the Nile, and so increases it that it overflows more or less, according to the abundance or scarcity of rains and streams flowing into the Nile. The reason this flooding occurs in Egypt during summer is that those marshes and springs, as has been discovered in our own age, are in that part of the world where it is winter at the time when it is summer at Alexandria and in Egypt: whence they then abound with rains, with perhaps the celestial influence of some star dominant there also contributing to the same effect, as Scaliger holds in Exercise 47 against Cardano; and the Coimbra commentators in their work on Meteorology, treatise IX, chapter 10.
Verse 26: Only in the Land of Goshen the Hail Did Not Fall
ONLY IN THE LAND OF GOSHEN, WHERE THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL WERE, DID THE HAIL NOT FALL. — As if to say: All of Egypt was struck by hail, except Goshen, in which many were immune from it, namely the Hebrews, with their livestock and fields. For I said at verse 6 that the Egyptians were struck by hail there just as much as elsewhere.
Verse 30: I Know That You Do Not Yet Fear the Lord
BUT I KNOW THAT NEITHER YOU NOR YOUR SERVANTS YET FEAR THE LORD — with a fear, namely, of piety, flowing from reverence and religion toward God: so says Saint Augustine, Question XXXV; or even with a servile fear of punishments, such that, while it persists, you would release the people when the scourges cease. Whence in Hebrew it reads: "I know that you will not fear the Lord." For otherwise, that they feared the Lord during the time when the plagues lasted, all these prayers of theirs attest; which so changed their hearts for at least a short time that they seriously considered releasing the people. For that is why, shortly afterward, Pharaoh, free from the punishment and returning to his natural disposition, is said to have been hardened again.
Verse 32: But the Wheat and the Spelt Were Not Damaged
BUT THE WHEAT AND THE SPELT WERE NOT DAMAGED. — The Hebrews and Lyranus understand by "far" (spelt), which is enclosed in husks beyond the beard, whereas wheat is enclosed by the beard alone.
BECAUSE THEY WERE LATE-RIPENING — In Hebrew, "because they were dark," that is, because they had not yet come forth and were still hidden under the ground, or in tender grass; for these events occurred around the end of February, as is evident from what was said at chapter 7, near the end of Question III.
Verse 35: And His Heart Was Hardened
AND HIS HEART WAS HARDENED. — The heart of Pharaoh, struck so many times, despite so many signs performed and so many plagues inflicted, was not softened but always grew harder, and therefore became more obstinate with each day; in Hebrew it reads: "Pharaoh made heavy his heart."
BY THE HAND OF MOSES — that is, through Moses: for the hand is the instrument of instruments, says Aristotle; this is a Hebraism.