Exodus 9:31

And the flax and the barley was smitten,.... With the hail, thunder, and lightning, and were beat down, bruised, broken, and blasted, and destroyed; of the former there were great quantities produced

And the flax and the barley was smitten: for the barley was in the ear, and the flax was bolled.

The flax and the barley were not so necessary for human life as the wheat and rye. Thus God still sends smaller judgments to usher in the greater.

Exodus 9:31 And the flax and the barley was smitten: for the barley [was] in the ear, and the flax [was] bolled.Ver. 31, 32. And the flax and the barley.] We need not wonder that in Egypt their barley harvest was so long before their wheat harvest; since, from the overflow of the Nile, and the difference of the climate, it must, needs be otherwise with them than with other countries.

(31) The flax and the barley was smitten.—Flax was grown largely in Egypt, since linen garments were very generally worn by the people, and were the necessary attire of the priests (Herod. ii. 37). Mummies also were swathed in linen bandages (Herod. ii. 86); and soldiers wore linen corselets (Herod. ii. 182, 3:47). Barley was grown as food for horses, as an element in the manufacture of beer, and as a material for an inferior kind of bread. The flax is “bolled”—i.e., forms its seed-vessel—towards the end of January or beginning of February, and the barley comes into ear about the same time. These facts fix the date of this plague, and help to fix the dates both of the earlier and the later ones.

Verse 31. The flax and the barley was smitten] The word פשתה pishtah, flax, Mr. Parkhurst thinks, is derived from the root pashat, to strip, because the substance which we term flax is properly the bark or rind of the vegetable, pilled or stripped off the stalks. From time immemorial Egypt was celebrated for the production and manufacture of flax: hence the linen and fine linen of Egypt, so often spoken of in ancient authors. Barley] שערה seorah, from שער saar, to stand on end, to be rough, bristly, c. hence שער sear, the hair of the head, and sair, a he-goat, because of its shaggy hair; and hence also barley, because of the rough and prickly beard with which the ears are covered and defended. Dr. Pocock has observed that there is a double seed-time and harvest in Egypt: Rice, India wheat, and a grain called the corn of Damascus, and in Italian surgo rosso, are sown and reaped at a very different time from wheat, barley and flax. The first are sown in March, before the overflowing of the Nile, and reaped about October; whereas the wheat and barley are sown in November and December, as soon as the Nile is gone off, and are reaped before May. Pliny observes, Hist. Nat., lib. xviii., cap. 10, that in Egypt the barley is ready for reaping in six months after it is sown, and wheat in seven. In AEgypto HORDEUM sexto a satu mense, FEUMENTA septimo metuntur. The flax was bolled.] Meaning, I suppose, was grown up into a stalk: the original is גבעל gibol, podded or was in the pod. The word well expresses that globous pod on the top of the stalk of flax which succeeds the flower and contains the seed, very properly expressed by the Septuagint, τοδελινονσπερματιζον, but the flax was in seed or was seeding.

13–35. The seventh plague. The hail. From J, with short passages, probably, from E. 13, 17–18. The announcement of the plague: cf. Exodus 8:1-3; Exodus 8:20-23, Exodus 9:1-4.

SEVENTH PLAGUE — THE HAIL, Exodus 9:13-35. The third triad of judgments is introduced with unusual formality and solemnity. Pharaoh was now a “vessel of wrath,” fit only for destruction. See note on Exodus 9:12.