Exodus 9

Tyndale Open Study Notes

Verse 1

9:1-7 The fifth plague was against the livestock. As with the withholding of flies from the area where the Hebrews lived (8:22-23), the distinction between the livestock of the Israelites and that of the Egyptians (9:4) shows that a natural explanation of this event is insufficient, even if the previous plagues contributed. The Egyptians, like many in the ancient Near East, worshiped the ram, the goat, and the bull as representing power and fertility. These animals had no power before the Lord, in whom true power resides.

Verse 3

9:3 Your livestock refers specifically to field animals. Other animals would have boils inflicted upon them in the next plague. • The term all (also in 9:6) is not absolute; it does not mean that every single livestock animal was killed. There were still some left to protect from the hail of the seventh plague (9:20).

Verse 5

9:5-6 Prediction again played an important role. These events were being directed by the One who is sovereign over all that happens.

Verse 8

9:8-12 The sixth plague brought festering boils on humans and animals. At this point the magicians, far from being able to duplicate the sign, were unable to spare themselves from it. Their defeat was complete.

Verse 12

9:12 Plagues five and six apparently dissipated on their own, since there was no plea by Pharaoh to bring them to an end.

Verse 13

9:13-33 The seventh plague was a hailstorm (9:18). It rains in Egypt only a few days each year, and hail and thunderstorms are largely unknown, so this storm would have been terrifying. That may be why there is more theological reflection associated with it. The devastating effect of the plague was to destroy the flax and barley crops (9:31).

Verse 14

9:14-17 God explained the purpose of the plagues to Pharaoh: They were revelatory, designed to demonstrate (especially to Pharaoh) that there is no one like me in all the earth (9:14; see also Isa 46:9; Jer 10:6-7). God had not destroyed Pharaoh and Egypt in a single blow, as he could have done. Rather he had spared them (Exod 9:16), giving them an opportunity to submit to his power. But Pharaoh refused to humble himself and stop lording it over the Lord’s people (9:17).

Verse 16

9:16 In Rom 9:17, Paul quotes from the Greek version of this verse as he describes the sovereignty of God.

Verse 20

9:20-21 Some of Pharaoh’s officials were beginning to make appropriate deductions from their experiences thus far and to take precautions, while others imitated their master’s refusal to submit. Pride often dominates reason.

Verse 26

9:26 The hail was not a natural event, either in extent or in selectivity (see study note on 9:1-7).

Verse 27

9:27 Pharaoh was driven to a logical conclusion. In the face of such clear evidence to the contrary, pride was not merely a failure, it was a sin.

Verse 29

9:29 There is no one like the Lord in all the earth (9:14), and all the earth belongs to the Lord. This was the inescapable message of the plagues, though the Egyptians had difficulty accepting it.