Exodus 8
ECFExodus 8:2
Augustine of Hippo: For what reason do you puff yourself up with human pride? A man insulted you, and you swelled up and were angered. Rid yourself of the fleas that you may sleep. Find out who you are! For that you may know, brothers, that these things which would bother us were created to enable us to control our pride, [remember], God could have tamed the proud people of Pharaoh with bears, with lions or with snakes; he sent flies and frogs upon them that their pride might be tamed by the most ignoble of things. — TRACTATE ON THE GOSPEL OF John 1.15
Isidore of Seville: In the second plague frogs are brought forth. They are thought to stand figuratively for the songs of the poets. The poets have brought deceptive fables into this world, with their empty and conceited songs that are like the croaking of frogs. For the frog stands for empty loquacity. That animal is good for nothing else but to give out the sounds of its voice in offensive and annoying noises. — QUESTIONS ON THE OLD TESTAMENT, Exodus 14:3
Exodus 8:8
Origen of Alexandria: One should also observe that the term prayer,which often differs in meaning from “invocation,” is here employed in the case of one who promises in a vow to do certain things if God grants him certain other things. But the term is also used in the ordinary way. For example, we found this to be so in Exodus after the description of the plague of the frogs, which was the second of the ten plagues: … “But Pharaoh called Moses and Aaron and said to them: ‘Pray to the Lord on my account to take away the frogs from me and my people; and I will let the people go to sacrifice to the Lord.’ ” When Pharaoh employs the word prayer the habitual meaning of “prayer” is conveyed in addition to the above meaning. If anyone finds this difficult to see, it becomes clear in what follows, namely: “And Moses said to Pharaoh: ‘Set me a time when I shall pray for you, and for your servants, and for your people, that the frogs may be driven away from you and from your house and from your people, and may remain only in the river.’ ”We noted, however, that in the case of the sciniphs, the third plague, Pharaoh does not ask that prayer be made, nor does Moses pray. And in the case of the flies, the fourth plague, he says, “Pray therefore for me to the Lord.” And then Moses said, “I will go out from you and will pray to the Lord. And the flies shall depart from Pharaoh, and from his servants, and from his people tomorrow.” And a little further on we read: “So Moses went out from Pharaoh and prayed to God.” Again in the case of the fifth and also of the sixth plague Pharaoh did not ask that prayer be made, nor did Moses pray. In the seventh plague “Pharaoh sent and called Moses and Aaron, saying to them, ‘I have sinned this time. The Lord is just, but I and my people are wicked. Pray to the Lord, that the thunderings of God and the hail and the fire may cease.’ ” And a little further on we read: “And Moses went from Pharaoh out of the city and stretched forth his hands to the Lord; and the thunders … ceased.” We shall discuss more suitably at another time why it is not said as on the previous occasions that “he prayed” but rather that “he stretched forth his hands to the Lord.” And in the case of the eighth plague Pharaoh says, “And pray to the Lord your God, that he take away from me this death. And Moses going forth from the presence of Pharaoh, prayed to the Lord.” — ON PRAYER 3.2-3
Richard Challoner: Pray ye to the Lord: By this it appears, that though the magicians, by the help of the devil, could bring frogs, yet they could not take them away: God being pleased to abridge in this the power of Satan. So we see they could not afterwards produce the lesser insects; and in this restraint of the power of the devil, were forced to acknowledge the finger of God.
Exodus 8:10
Ambrose of Milan: But Pharaoh, who was devoted to beliefs and vain superstitions (Egypt being filled with frogs, which produced empty sounds and noisy clamor), when Moses said to him: ‘Appoint a time for me to pray for you, and for your servants, and for your people, so that the Lord may exterminate the frogs’ (Exod. VIII, 9); though he should have been compelled by such great necessity to pray, and not delay any longer, he replied: ‘Tomorrow’; idle and negligent, intending to destroy Egypt by incurring the punishment of delay. And so, when he obtained these things, he became ungrateful; and being lifted up in his mind with his flesh, he forgot God. — On Cain and Abel 1.9.33
Exodus 8:15
Richard Challoner: Hardened his own heart: By this we see that Pharao was himself the efficient cause of his heart being hardened, and not God.– See the same repeated in ver. 32. Pharao hardened his heart at this time also: likewise chap. 9. 7, 35, and chap. 13. 15.
Exodus 8:16
Richard Challoner: Sciniphs: Or Cinifs, Hebrew Chinnim, small flying insects, very troublesome both to men and beast.
Exodus 8:18
Isidore of Seville: After these plagues, gnats are brought forth. This animal flies through the air suspended on wings. But it is so subtle and minute that it escapes being seen by the eye unless one looks closely. But when it lands on the body it drills in with a sharp sting. If anyone cannot see it flying, he still feels its sting immediately.This sort of animal can be compared with the subtlety of heretics, who drill into souls with the subtle stings of their words. They attack with such cunning that one who is deceived neither sees nor understands the source of his deception. At the third sign the magicians yielded and said, “The finger of God is here.” Those magicians stand for heretics and their animosity. The apostle states this when he says, “Just as Jannes and Jambres resisted Moses, so too these men resisted the truth. They are corrupt in mind and reprobate in matters of faith. But they will not advance any further. Their madness will be manifested to everyone, just as Jannes’ and Jambres’ was.” The minds of the Egyptian magicians were disquieted by their own corruption, and their power failed at the third sign. They confessed that the Holy Spirit was against them, for the Spirit was in Moses. The Holy Spirit is put in the third place, and he is the finger of God. Thus the magicians failed at the third sign and said, “The finger of God is here.” The Holy Spirit, well disposed and favorable, gives rest to the meek and humble of heart but, when he is opposed, stirs up disquiet against the merciless and the proud. Those tiny gnats signified this disquiet, at which Pharaoh’s magicians failed and said, “The finger of God is here.” — QUESTIONS ON THE OLD TESTAMENT, Exodus 14:4-7
Exodus 8:19
Augustine of Hippo: Here I see a difficulty occurring to one of limited knowledge [of Scripture], that is, why miracles are also done by magical arts, for the magicians of Pharaoh also made serpents and other similar things. But what is a much greater cause of wonder is how the power of the magicians, who could make serpents, utterly failed when it came to very small gnats. For the sciniphs, by which the proud people of Egypt were afflicted, are very small flies. And there certainly the magicians who failed, exclaimed, “This is the finger of God.” We are thereby given to understand that not even the angels and the spirits of the air, who transgressed and were cast from that home of sublime and ethereal beauty into this most profound darkness, as into a prison peculiar to them, could do anything that they could by means of their magical arts, if the power had not been given to them from above. — THE TRINITY 3.7.12
Augustine of Hippo: Isn’t the finger of God to be understood as being the Holy Spirit? Read the Gospel, and see that where one Evangelist has the Lord saying, “If I with the Spirit of God cast out demons,” another says, “If I with the finger of God cast out demons.” So if that law too was written by the finger of God, that is, by the Spirit of God, the Spirit by which Pharaoh’s magicians were defeated, so they said, “This is the finger of God, … why can it not be said of it, “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has delivered you from the law of sin and death”? — SERMON 155.3
Exodus 8:21
Isidore of Seville: In the fourth place, Egypt is struck with flies. The fly is an insolent and restless animal. What does it stand for except the arrogant concerns of carnal desires? Egypt is struck with flies because the hearts of those who love this world are battered by the disquiet of their desires.The translators of the Septuagint put cynomyia here, which means “dog fly.” This word meant the habits of a dog, in which the pleasures of the mind and the indulgence of the flesh are constantly expressed. By dog fly this passage can also mean the eloquence of lawyers, which they use to tear at one another like dogs. — QUESTIONS ON THE OLD TESTAMENT, Exodus 14:8-9
Jerome: Kynomyia does not represent “dog fly,” as the Latins translated it, with the Greek letter upsilon; according to the sense of the Hebrew the diphthong oi should be written so that the word is koinomyia, that is, “every genus of flies.” — LETTER 106.86
Exodus 8:26
Ambrose of Milan: You tell me that you have felt a difficulty in the text We shall sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians to the Lord our God. But you had the means of solving it, for it is written in the book of Genesis, that a shepherd is an abomination to the Egyptians, and this not on account of the shepherd himself, but of his flocks. For the Egyptians were tillers of the ground, but Abraham and Jacob, and afterwards Moses and David, were shepherds, and in this function exercised a certain kingly discipline. The Egyptians then hated sacrifices which were duly offered; the pursuit of virtue, that is, which is perfect and replete with discipline. But that which these evil men hated is in the sight of the good sincere and pious. The licentious man hates the works of virtue, the glutton shrinks from them. And so the Egyptian’s body, loving the charms of pleasure, has an aversion to the virtues of the soul, hates its rule, and shrinks from the discipline of virtue, and all such like works. But what the Egyptian shrinks from–he who is an Egyptian rather than a man–that do thou, who hast the knowledge of what befits man, embrace and follow: and shun those things which they pursue and choose; for these two things cannot agree together, wisdom and folly. Thus as wisdom and continence remove themselves from those who are, as it were, in the ranks of unwisdom and intemperance, so no foolish and incontient man has any part in what belongs to the goods and heritage of the wise and continent man. — Letter 27.1-3
Pacian of Barcelona: The Egyptians disdained the eating of sheep. But what the Egyptians abhor, the Israelites offer to God. The unjust despise a clean conscience as weak and abject, but the just turn it into a sacrifice to God of virtue. The righteous, as they worship God, offer their purity and gentleness to him. The reprobate despise these virtues and consider them foolishness. Exposition of the Old and New Testament, Exodus
Paterius: The Egyptians disdained the eating of sheep. But what the Egyptians abhor, the Israelites offer to God. The unjust despise a clean conscience as weak and abject, but the just turn it into a sacrifice to God of virtue. The righteous, as they worship God, offer their purity and gentleness to him. The reprobate despise these virtues and consider them foolishness. — EXPOSITION OF THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT, Exodus 13
Richard Challoner: The abominations: That is, the things they worship for Gods: oxen, rams, etc. It is the usual style of the scriptures to call all idols and false gods, abominations, to signify how much the people of God ought to detest and abhor them.