Exodus 10:4

4 Otherwise, if you refuse to let my people go, tomorrow I will bring locusts into your territory.

Exodus 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.


FOOTNOTES:

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

Exodus 10:4 In-Context

2 so that you can tell your son and grandson about what I did to Egypt and about my signs that I demonstrated among them, and so that you will all know that I am ADONAI."
3 Moshe and Aharon went in to Pharaoh and said to him, "Here is what ADONAI, God of the Hebrews, says: 'How much longer will you refuse to submit to me? Let my people go, so that they can worship me.
4 Otherwise, if you refuse to let my people go, tomorrow I will bring locusts into your territory.
5 One won't be able to see the ground, so completely will the locusts cover it. They will eat anything you still have that escaped the hail, including every tree you have growing in the field.
6 They will fill your houses and those of your servants and of all the Egyptians. It will be like nothing your fathers or their fathers have ever seen since the day they were born until today.'"Then he turned his back and left.
Complete Jewish Bible Copyright 1998 by David H. Stern. Published by Jewish New Testament Publications, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission.