Exodus 8:16

Swarming lice

16 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Tell Aaron, ‘Stretch out your shepherd's rod and hit the land's dirt so that lice appear in the whole land of Egypt.'"

Exodus 8:16 Meaning and Commentary

Exodus 8:16

And the Lord said unto Moses
On the twenty seventh day of the month, according to Bishop Usher, the same day the flogs were removed; no warning is given him of the next plague, at least there is no account of any:

say unto Aaron, stretch out thy rod, and smite the dust of the land;
in some one part of the land, that place nearest to him where there was a quantity of dust; for it cannot be imagined that he should smite all the dust of the land in every part of it, but smiting one part served for the whole:

that it may become lice throughout all the land of Egypt:
not gnats, as some, nor flies, as others, but lice, though perhaps not of the common and ordinary sort, but new and extraordinary, and it may be of different sorts, suitable to different creatures.

Exodus 8:16 In-Context

14 They gathered them together in big piles, and the land began to stink.

15 But when Pharaoh saw that the disaster was over, he became stubborn again and wouldn't listen to them, just as the LORD had said.

16 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Tell Aaron, ‘Stretch out your shepherd's rod and hit the land's dirt so that lice appear in the whole land of Egypt.'"

17 They did this. Aaron stretched out his hand with his shepherd's rod, hit the land's dirt, and lice appeared on both people and animals. All the land's dirt turned into lice throughout the whole land of Egypt.

18 The religious experts tried to produce lice by their secret knowledge, but they weren't able to do it. There were lice on people and animals.

Footnotes

• [a]. Heb uncertain