Exodus 10:5

5 and they shall couer the face of the erth that it can not be sene, ad they shall eate the residue which remayneth vnto you and escaped the hayle and they shall eate all youre grene trees vpon the felde,

Exodus 10:5 Meaning and Commentary

Exodus 10:5

And they shall cover the face of the earth, that one cannot be
able to see the earth
Or, "cover the eye of the earth" F26; either the appearance and colour of the earth, so as they could not be discerned for the multitude of the locusts on it; so the word is used in ( Numbers 11:7 ) or the eye of man looking upon the earth, which would not be able to see it, because the locusts would be between his eye and the earth. The Targum of Onkelos is,

``and shall cover the eye of the sun of the earth,''

so that its rays shall not reach the earth; and so Abarbinel interprets it of the sun, which is the light of the earth, when it casts forth its rays, as the eye upon the object that is seen; and the meaning is, that the locusts should be so thick between the heavens and the earth, that the eye of the earth, which is the sun, could not see or cast its rays upon it, as in ( Exodus 10:15 ) , and so Pliny says F1, that locusts came sometimes in such multitudes as to darken the sun:

and they shall eat the residue of that which is escaped, which
remaineth unto you from the hail;
particularly the wheat and the rye, or rice, which was not grown, ( Exodus 9:32 ) and the herb or grass of the land, ( Exodus 10:12 )

and shall eat every tree which groweth for you out of the field;
such fruit trees as escaped the hail, and such boughs and branches of them which were not broken off by it, ( Exodus 10:15 ) and locusts will indeed eat trees themselves, the bark of them, and gnaw everything, even the doors of houses, as Pliny F2 relates.


FOOTNOTES:

F26 (Urah Nye) "oculum terrae", Montanus, Piscator; so Ainsworth.
F1 Nat. Hist. l. 11. c. 29.
F2 Nat. Hist. l. 11. c. 29.

Exodus 10:5 In-Context

3 Than Moses ad Aaron went in vnto Pharao and sayde vnto him: thus sayth the Lorde God of the Hebrues: how longe shall it be, or thou wilt submyt thy selfe vnto me? Let my people goo that they maye serue me.
4 Yf thou wilt not let my people goo: beholde, tomorow will I brynge greshoppers in to thy lande,
5 and they shall couer the face of the erth that it can not be sene, ad they shall eate the residue which remayneth vnto you and escaped the hayle and they shall eate all youre grene trees vpon the felde,
6 and they shall fill thy housses and all thy servauntes housses, and the housses of all the Egiptias after soch a maner: as nether thy fathers nor thy fathers fathers haue sene, sence the tyme they were apon the erthe vnto thys daye. And he turned him silfe aboute, ad went out from Pharao.
7 And Pharaos servauntes sayde vnto hym: Howe longe shall this felowe thus plage vs? Let the men goo that they maye serue the Lorde their God, or els wilt thou see Egipte first destroyed?
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