Exodus 9:3

cattle lit. possessions, commonly used of possessions in sheep and oxen (Exodus 12:38; Genesis 47:14), but including here other animals as well.

camels Camels were not used, or bred, in ancient Egypt, nor do they appear -in any inscription or painting before the Greek period" (Erman, p. 493; cf. W. Max Müller, EB.i. 634; Sayce, EHH.169). They look here like an anachronism: the reference may however be to camels belonging to traders, which had brought merchandise into Egypt across the desert from Arabia, or elsewhere (cf. Genesis 37:25).

grievous i.e. severe: see on Exodus 8:24.

murrain the word which, when used of a disease of men, is commonly rendered pestilence(v.15, Exodus 9:3, and frequently); it is applied to a cattle plague only here and Psalms 78:50.

Egypt does not seem to be often visited by cattle plagues. Pruner (Krankheiten des Orients, p. 108 ff.), and Lepsius (Letters from Eg., p. 44), cited by Kn., mention, however, a severe epidemic which began in 1842, and by June, 1843, had raged for nine months (Mrs Poole, The Englishwoman in Egypt, 1844, ii. 114 f.), causing great mortality among oxen and sheep, though it did not affect camels or horses. Pruner attributed this epidemic to the water of the Nile, which was low and impure at the time when it began: cattle which were at a distance from the Nile, and could obtain good water, were not attacked by it. There have also been cattle plagues in Egypt in recent years.