Exodus 10:14

14 And the locusts went up over all the land of Egypt, and they settled in all the territory of Egypt, very {severe}. Before it there were not locusts like them, nor will there be after it.

Exodus 10:14 Meaning and Commentary

Exodus 10:14

And the locusts went up over all the land of Egypt
Being raised up by the wind in the places where they were generated, they flew and spread themselves all over the land, being in a wonderful manner produced and multiplied by the power of God:

and rested in all the coasts of Egypt;
in every part of it where the Egyptians dwelt, and where there were meadows, pastures, fields, gardens, orchards; here they lighted and fed, excepting the land of Goshen, where Israel dwelt, which must be thought to be exempted from this plague, as from the rest.

Very grievous were they;
because of the mischief that they did, and because of their multitude, for they were innumerable, as the Vulgate Latin version renders it, and as it is, ( Psalms 105:34 ) ,

there were no such locusts as they, neither after them shall be such;
there were none before, and there would be none afterwards like them, which Moses knew by a spirit of prophecy. If this is to be understood of their size, they must be very large; in the year 1556, there were locusts at Milain that were a span long, and had six feet, and these like the feet of rats, and there was one four times bigger than the rest, which was taken and kept by a citizen, and would hiss like a serpent when it saw that no food was set before it ^F14; yea, Pliny ^F15 speaks of locusts in India three feet long; and what Moses here says is not contradicted in ( Joel 2:2 ) because his words may be understood of the Chaldean army, of which the locusts were an emblem; and besides, each may be restrained to the country in which they were, as that none ever before or since were seen in Egypt as these, though they might be in other countries; and so those in Joel's time were such as never before or since were seen in the land of Judea, though they might be in other places.

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FOOTNOTES:

F14 Frantzii Hist. Animal. Sacr. par. 5. c. 4. p. 800.
F15 Ut supra. (Nat. Hist. l. 11. c. 29.)

Exodus 10:14 In-Context

12 And Yahweh said to Moses, "Stretch out your hand over the land of Egypt with the locusts so that they may come up over the land of Egypt, and let them eat all the vegetation of the land, all that the hail left behind."

13 And Moses stretched out his staff over the land of Egypt, and Yahweh drove an east wind into the land all that day and all night. The morning came, and the east wind had brought the locusts.

14 And the locusts went up over all the land of Egypt, and they settled in all the territory of Egypt, very {severe}. Before it there were not locusts like them, nor will there be after it.

15 And they covered the surface of all the land, and the land was dark [with them], and they ate all the vegetation of the land and all the fruit of the trees that the hail had left, and no green was left in the trees nor in the vegetation of the field in all the land of Egypt.

16 And Pharaoh hurried to call Moses and Aaron, and he said, "I have sinned against Yahweh your God and against you.

Footnotes

• [a]. Literally "heavy"