Exodus 8:16

The Third Plague: Gnats

16 Then the Lord said to Moses, "Tell Aaron: Stretch out your staff and strike the dust of the earth, and it will become gnats^[a] throughout the 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 piled them in countless heaps, and there was a terrible odor in the land.

15 But when Pharaoh saw there was relief, he hardened his heart and would not listen to them, as the Lord had said.

16 Then the Lord said to Moses, "Tell Aaron: Stretch out your staff and strike the dust of the earth, and it will become gnats throughout the land of Egypt."

17 And they did this. Aaron stretched out his hand with his staff, and when he struck the dust of the earth, gnats were on the people and animals. All the dust of the earth became gnats throughout the land of Egypt.

18 The magicians tried to produce gnats using their occult practices, but they could not. The gnats remained on the people and animals.

Footnotes

• [a]. Perhaps sand fleas or mosquitoes