Blains

Exo 9:8-10, burning ulcerous eruptions, miraculously caused by the ashes which Moses threw up among the Egyptians. If these ashes came from the brick-kilns where the Hebrews had toiled, the pains which the Egyptians suffered would naturally remind them of those which they had inflicted.\par

Blains. Violent ulcerous inflammations, the sixth plague of Egypt, Exo 9:9-10, and hence, called in Deu 28:27; Deu 28:35, "the botch of Egypt." It seems to have been the black leprosy, a fearful kind of elephantiasis.

aba’ buoth. The sixth Egyptian plague, which followed after Moses’ sprinkling of the furnace ashes toward heaven; "the botch of Egypt" (Deu 28:27; Deu 28:35), black leprosy, a kind of elephantiasis, producing burning ulcerous pustules on the skin. The magicians, whose scrupulous cleanliness is noticed by Herodotus, could not stand before Moses because of the boils (Exo 9:9-11).

(אֲבִעְבֻּעֹת, ababuoth’; Sept. φλυκτίδες; Vulg. vesicce) occurs only in the account of the sixth plague of Egypt (Exo 9:9-10), where it is described as "a boil breaking forth into blains," i.e. violent ulcerous inflammations (from בּוּעִ, to boil up). The ashes from the furnaces or brick-kilns were taken by Moses, a handful at a time, and scattered to the winds; and wherever a particle fell, on man or beast, it caused this troublesome and painful disease to appear. It is called in Deu 28:27; Deu 28:35, "the botch of Egypt" (comp. Job 2:7). It seems to have been the ψωρά ἀγρία, or black leprosy, a fearful kind of elephantiasis (comp. Plin. 26:5). It must have come with dreadful intensity on the magicians whose art it baffled, and whose scrupulous cleanliness (Herod. ii, 36) it rendered nugatory, so that they were unable to stand in the presence of Moses because of the boils. SEE BOIL.

Other names for purulent and leprous eruptions are בִּהֶרֶת שְׂאֵת(Mophea alba), סִפִּחִת(Morphea nigra) and the more harmless מַסְפִּחִת, Leviticus 13, passim (Jahn, Bibl. Arch. § 189). SEE LEPROSY.

Blains. Exo 9:9. Pustules rising in the skin. There was first an ulcer and boil inflamed; then the pustules, or blains, broke out on it. This was one of the most fearful of the ten plagues inflicted upon the Egyptians. We may conceive its intensity, when we find that it utterly disabled the magicians who were afflicted with it from meeting Moses. Exo 9:8-11. It has been thought to be the black leprosy, a virulent kind of elephantiasis, "the botch of Egypt," "a sore botch that cannot be healed," Deu 28:27; Deu 28:35; that same disease which afflicted Job. Job 2:7.

Inflamed ulcers on the body, as from boils, on the Egyptians and the magicians in the sixth plague. Exo 9:9-10.

blānz (אבעבּעה, ’ăbha‛bu‛āȟ: only in Exo 9:9, Exo 9:10): Pustules containing fluid around a boil or inflamed sore. It is an Old English word “bleyen,” used sometimes as a synonym for boil. Wyclif (1382) uses the expression “stinkende bleyne” for Job’s sores. The Hebrew word is from a root which means that which bubbles up. See BOIL.