Exodus 9:8-12

Exodus 9:8 P. 6°. Boils on Man and Beast. Skin diseases are common troubles in Egypt. This may be meant for the Nile-scab, an irritating eruption, consisting of innumerable little red blisters, which is frequent in Egypt at about the time when the Nile begins to rise in June, and often remains for some weeks upon those whom it attacks (Driver). The method of infliction is peculiar. Moses and Aaron were to take their two hands full of soot from a lime-burner's or potter's kiln and toss the fine dust into the air, that it might spread as a pestilential cloud of dust. Scots and Yorkshiremen still call a big boil a blain! This plague effects the discomfiture of the magicians, who suffer from but cannot inflict the disease.