Exodus 8:4

And the frogs shall come up both on thee, and upon thy people, and upon thy servants.

And the frogs shall come up both on thee, and upon thy people, and upon all thy servants. No JFB commentary on this verse.

Not upon the Israelites, whom he hereby exempts from the number of Pharaoh’ s people and subjects, and owns them for his peculiar people. The frogs did not only invade their houses, but assault their persons, which is not strange, considering that they were armed with a Divine commission and power.

Exodus 8:4 And the frogs shall come up both on thee, and upon thy people, and upon all thy servants.Ver. 4. And the frogs shall come up.] Neither walls nor weapons could keep off the frogs from Pharaoh and his people. As neither could Hatto, archbishop of Mentz, be possibly rid of that army of mice that God sent out against him for his cruelty to some of his poor subjects till they had devoured him. A muribus in Rheno confectus periit (anno 923).

VIII.THE SECOND PLAGUE.(1-4) It is generally allowed that the second plague was one of frogs. All the ancient versions agree in the interpretation; and the only rival rendering—“crocodiles”—is too absurd to be argued against. We may take it, therefore, as certain that the second infliction upon Egypt was an innumerable multitude of frogs, which came up out of the river, and infested the cities, the houses, the sleeping apartments, the beds, the ovens, and the kneading troughs. There was no escaping them. They entered the royal palace no less than the peasant’s cottage; they penetrated to the inner chambers; they leaped upon the couches and beds; they polluted the baking utensils, and defiled the water and the food. Here, again, the infliction was double. (1) Frogs were sacred animals to the Egyptians, who regarded them as symbols of procreative power, and associated them especially with the goddess Heka (a wife of Kneph, or up), whom they represented as frog-headed. Sacred animals might not be intentionally killed; and even their involuntary slaughter was not unfrequently punished with death. To be plagued with a multitude of reptiles which might not be put to death, yet on which it was scarcely possible not to tread, and which, whenever a door was opened were crushed, was a severe trial to the religious feelings of the people, and tended to bring the religion itself into contempt. (2) The visitation was horrible to the senses—nauseous, disgusting. The frogs were hideous to the eye, grating to the ear, repulsive to the touch. Their constant presence everywhere rendered them a continual torment. If other later plagues were more injurious, the plague of frogs was perhaps of all the most loathsome. We read without surprise in Eustathius (Comment. in Hom. II., p. 35) that the people of Pseonia and Dardania on one occasion, were so plagued by a multitude of frogs, which filled the houses and the streets, infected the water, invaded the cooking utensils, and made all the food uneatable, that after a time, being unable to bear the pest any longer, they “fled from that region altogether.” (1) Let my people go.—The usual demand, which it was determined to reiterate until Pharaoh yielded. (See Exodus 5:1; Exodus 7:16; Exodus 8:20; Exodus 9:1-13; Exodus 10:3.) (2) With frogs.—The particular species intended is thought to be the modern dofka (Rana Mosaica), which i is a large kind, resembling our toad, which crawls more; than it leaps, and croaks perpetually. (3) The river shall bring forth frogs.—The frogs do not now come up directly out of the river, but rather out of the ponds and marshes which are left by the inundation. (See Exodus 8:5.) These, however, may be viewed as detached portions of the river. Frogs in Egypt are, even at the present day, an occasional annoyance and inconvenience. Thy bedchamber . . . thy bed.—No nation of antiquity set such a value on cleanliness as the Egyptians.

1–15. The second plague. Frogs come up out of the Nile. The narrative consists of J and P only, without any traces of E.