Shemot 10:4

4 Else, if thou refuse to let My people go, hineni, tomorrow will I bring the arbeh into thy border;

Shemot 10:4 Meaning and Commentary

Exodus 10:4

Else, if thou refuse to let my people go
He threatens him with the following plague, the plague of the locusts, which Pliny ^F24 calls "denrum irae pestis":

behold, tomorrow will I bring the locusts into thy coast;
according to Bishop Usher ^F25 this was about the seventh day of the month Abib, that this plague was threatened, and on the morrow, which was the eighth day, it was brought; but Aben Ezra relates it as an opinion of Japhet an Hebrew writer, that there were many days between the plague of the hail, and the plague of the locusts, that there might be time for the grass and plants to spring out of the field; but this seems not necessary, for these locusts only ate of what were left of the hail, as in the following verse.

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FOOTNOTES:

F24 Nat. Hist. l. 11. c. 29.
F25 Annales Vet. Test. p. 21.

Shemot 10:4 In-Context

2 And that thou mayest tell in the ears of thy ben, and of thy ben’s ben, what things I have wrought in Mitzrayim, and My otot which I have done among them; that ye may have da’as that I am Hashem.

3 And Moshe and Aharon came in unto Pharaoh,and said unto him, Thus saith Hashem Elohei HaIvrim, How long wilt thou refuse to humble thyself before Me? Let My people go, that they may serve Me.

4 Else, if thou refuse to let My people go, hineni, tomorrow will I bring the arbeh into thy border;

5 And they shall cover the face of ha’aretz, that one cannot be able to see ha’aretz; and they shall devour the remnant of that which is escaped, which remaineth unto you from the barad, and shall eat kol haetz which groweth for you out of the sadeh;

6 And they shall fill thy batim (houses), and the batim (houses) of all thy avadim, and the batim (houses) of kol Mitzrayim; which neither thy avot, nor the avot of thy avot have seen, since the day that they were upon ha’aretz unto this day. And he turned himself, and went out from Pharaoh.