Exodus 8:25

25 And Pharao called Moses and Aaron, and said to them: Go and sacrifice to your God in this land.

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 And I will put a division between my people and thy people: to morrow shall this sign be.

24 And the Lord did so. And there came a very grievous swarm of flies into the houses of Pharao and of his servants, and into all the land of Egypt: and the land was corrupted by this kind of flies.

25 And Pharao called Moses and Aaron, and said to them: Go and sacrifice to your God in this land.

26 And Moses said: It cannot be so: for we shall sacrifice the abominations of the Egyptians to the Lord our God: now if we kill those things which the Egyptians worship, in their presence, they will stone us.

27 We will go three days’ journey into the wilderness; and we will sacrifice to the Lord our God, as he hath commanded us.