Exodus 8:25

25 The king called for Moses and Aaron and told them, "Offer sacrifices to your God here in this country."

Exodus 8:25 Meaning and Commentary

Ver. 25 And Pharaoh called for Moses and for Aaron
He and his people not being able to endure this plague of flies any longer; and we read in profane history of such creatures being so troublesome, that people have been obliged to quit their habitations, and seek for new ones; so Pausanias ^F20 relates of the inhabitants of Myus, that such a number of flies rose out of the lake, that the men were obliged to leave the city, and go to Miletus; so Aelian ^F21 reports, that the inhabitants of Megara were driven from thence by a multitude of flies, as were the inhabitants of Phaselis by wasps, which creatures also might be in this mixture of insects:

and said, go ye, sacrifice to your God in the land;
that is, in the land of Goshen, in the place where they were; he was willing to allow them the liberty of sacrificing to their God, which it seems they had before; but then he would not consent they should go out of the land to do it.

---

FOOTNOTES:

F20 Achaica, sive l. 7. p. 400.
F21 De Animal. l. 11. c. 28.

Exodus 8:25 In-Context

23 I will treat my people differently from your people. This miracle will happen tomorrow.'"

24 So the Lord did as he had said, and great swarms of flies came into the king's palace and his officers' houses. All over Egypt flies were ruining the land.

25 The king called for Moses and Aaron and told them, "Offer sacrifices to your God here in this country."

26 But Moses said, "It wouldn't be right to do that, because the Egyptians hate the sacrifices we offer to the Lord our God. If they see us offering sacrifices they hate, they will throw stones at us and kill us.

27 Let us make a three-day journey into the desert. We must offer sacrifices to the Lord our God there, as the Lord told us to do."