The Pulpit Commentaries
Exodus 9:1-7
EXPOSITION
THE FIFTH PLAGUE.
Hitherto the plagues had been directed rather against the persons of the Egyptians than against their property. Property had perhaps suffered somewhat in the preceding plague, if it was really one of the Blatta orientalis; but otherwise the various afflictions had caused nothing but pain and annoyance to the person. Now this was to be changed. Property was to be made to suffer. It remained to be seen whether the Pharaoh would be impressed more deeply by calamities which impoverished his subjects than by those which merely caused them personal annoyance and suffering. The hand of God was first laid upon the carrie, or rather upon the domesticated animals in general (Exodus 9:3). These were made to suffer from a "murrain" or epidemic pestilence, which carried off vast numbers. Such visitations are not uncommon in Egypt, and generally fall with especial force on the Delta, where the existing Pharaoh and the Hebrew people resided. The miraculous character of the visitation at this time was indicated,
1. By its announcement, and appearance on the day appointed (Exodus 9:3-2);
2. By its severity (Exodus 9:6); and
3. By its attacking the Egyptian cattle only (Exodus 9:7). Pharaoh seems, however, to have been almost lees moved by this plague than by any other.
Excepting in the designation of Jehovah as "the Lord God of the Hebrews," this verse is an almost exact repetition of the first verse of Exodus 8:1. Such repetitious are very characteristic of the most ancient writings.
Thy cattle which is in the field. The word "cattle" here is to be taken generally, as including under it the various kinds particularised. The cattle are mentioned as being at this time "in the field," because during the inundation all of them were brought in and housed, while, after the waters had retired, and the land had dried, most of them were turned out to graze. This is always the time at which epidemics break out. The horses, the asses, etc. Horses, which had been unknown prior to the Hyksos invasion, and which consequently do not appear in the list of animals presented to Abraham (Genesis 12:16), first became common under the eighteenth dynasty, when they seem to have been employed exclusively in war. Their use for agricultural purposes, which is perhaps here indicated, was not till later. The ass was employed in great numbers at all times in Egypt. Women and children rode on them, men sometimes in a sort of litter between two of them. They were chiefly used for carrying burthens, which were sometimes of enormous size (Lepsius, Denkmaler, Part 2. pls. 42a, 47, 56, 80c, etc.). The camels. Camels are not represented on any Egyptian monument; but they are occasionally mentioned in the inscriptions. They are called kauri or kamaru. There is no doubt of their employment by the Egyptians as beasts of burthen in the traffic with Syria and with the Sinaitic peninsula.
The Lord shall sever. Compare Exodus 8:22. There shall nothing die, etc The original is more emphatic, and might be rendered literally—" There shall not die of all that is the children's of Israel a thing."
To-morrow. God may have interposed the interval in order that such as believed the announcement might save their animals by bringing them in out of the fields. All the cattle died—i.e, all that were "in the field" (Exodus 9:3).
And Pharaoh sent. This time the king had the curiosity to send out and see whether the Israelites had been spared. Though he found the fact correspond to the announcement, he was not seriously impressed. Perhaps he thought the Israelites took better care of their cattle and were better cattle doctors than his own people. Or he may have attributed the escape of their animals to the more healthy air of Goshen. Pharaoh's heart was hardened. The plague affected him less than others had done, rather than more. He was so rich that an affliction which touched nothing but property seemed a trivial matter What cared he for the sufferings of the poor beasts, or the ruin of those who depended upon the breeding and feeding of cattle
HOMILETICS
The burthen of man's sin presses on the brute creation, as well as on man himself.
"The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now" (Romans 8:22). Brutes are to a large extent co-partners with man in his sorrows and his wretchedness. But brute suffering is the product of man's sin. Mostly it is directly caused by man. Man not only kills animals for his food, but he chases them for his diversion, mutilates them for his convenience, vivisects them for his supposed benefit. In chasing them, he wounds more than he kills; in mutilating them, he often removes parts necessary for their comfort; in vivisecting them, he knowingly makes them suffer excruciating pain. His use of them as beasts of draught and burden is a lighter form of evil than any of these; but in the aggregate it causes, perhaps, as much suffering. Again, man makes the horse his companion in war, and exposes him to the most hideous wounds, the most horrid deaths. Nor does the list of his misdoings as respects the animal world end here. To children the wanton torture of insects seems to be a chief delight. For the production of certain delicacies of the table, turkeys and other animals are made to undergo untold agonies. Slow death is inflicted on calves, to make the veal white. Finally, animals are often involved in the Divine judgments by which nations are visited for their sins. "Much cattle" would have perished miserably, if Nineveh had not repented at Jonah's preaching. The beasts endure as much as the men when cities are blockaded. Occasionally, as in this plague, the beasts themselves are the direct sufferers, and God punishes man through them. No doubt there is a mystery in this. The suffering of innocent dumb animals is hard to reconcile with the goodness of God. His causing pain to them for man's fault is even more strange. How persons who have a fixed belief that the brute creation enjoys no future life, overcome the difficulty, we knew not. But the solution of it may, we think, be found in the Scripture which tells of "the spirit of the beast which goeth downward" (Ecclesiastes 3:21). If the spirit of a beast survives, it may find compensation in another life for what it has suffered here. Man's coldness and deadness with respect to animal suffering is as marvellous as anything in his nature and history. "Pharaoh's heart" was utterly hard to it. He did not even ask that the plague should be removed. The sufferings and miserable death of thousands of beasts made not the slightest impression upon him. Probably he did not give their sufferings a thought. And even among Christians, is it not much the same? How few protest against even such enormities as promiscuous vivisection! How few, in grieving over the horrors of war, think of the pain which is borne by the animals engaged in it! How few give so much as a sigh to the labour, the weariness, the suffering of millions of poor dumb brute beasts engaged in ministering to their pleasures, amusements, convenience! We grieve bitterly for our own troubles. We have a tear of sympathy, perhaps, for the griefs of humanity generally. But for the rest of creation, "groaning and travailing in pain together until now," we have scarcely a thought. How different from him who was led to spare Nineveh (Jonah 4:11) because therein were "more than six score thousand persons that could not discern between their right hand and their left hand, and also much cattle!'
HOMILIES BY J. ORR
The plague of murrain of beasts.
I. THE ALTERNATIVE AGAIN (Exodus 9:1, Exodus 9:2). Surely Pharaoh was well warned. The analogy of the third plague would have led us to expect that on this occasion—after a second and glaring breach of faith—there would have been no warning. Yet mercy waits upon him. Faithless though he had been, if even yet he will let the people go, all will be forgiven. If not—then judgments. Mark how sacredly, in all this, the freedom of Pharaoh is respected. "He was not put on the actual rack or held over a slow fire till his cruel hand relaxed, and let the Hebrew bondmen go. The appeal was loud, and each time it was repeated he and his people were shaken more severely than before; but after every demand there was a respite, a pause, an opportunity to ponder, and either yield the point or recall a past concession." (Hamilton.)
II. A MURRAIN OF CATTLE (verses 3-7). This was the form assumed by the fifth plague. It is to be viewed,
1. As a new blow at Egyptian idolatry. The sacredness of the cow and ox are hinted at in Exodus 8:26. It may well have been that the sacred beasts themselves, the bull Apis, the calf Mnevis, and the rest, were smitten by the pestilence.
2. As a fresh illustration of the manifold resources of Jehovah. The mortality which came upon the cattle was universal in its sweep, carrying off, not only sheep and oxen, but horses, asses, and camels; destructive in its effects, the greater proportion of the cattle of each class falling victims to it; yet carefully discriminative, attacking the cattle of the Egyptians, but leaving unharmed those of the Israelites (Exodus 8:6).
3. As a plague of increased severity. The loss sustained by the Egyptians in this mowing down of their cattle was the greatest they had yet experienced. Cattle constitute a large part of the wealth of every nation. They are of importance for food, for burden, and for the produce of the dairy. What a loss it would be to our own nation were our sheep, cows, oxen, horses, and asses, all suddenly destroyed! In the East the oxen were employed for draught, and in the operations of agriculture. Yet the plague was but the intensification of a natural calamity—one with the effects of which we are not wholly unfamiliar. It may seem "advanced" to scoff at the agency of God in cattle-plague visitations, but the truer philosophy will reverently recognise the fact of such agency, and will not regard it as in the least incompatible with any secondary causes which may be shown to be involved in the production and spread of the disorder. God has this weapon equally with others at his command for chastening a disobedient people. Our wisdom, surely, is to be at peace with him.
4. As a forewarning of greater judgment. As yet the persons of the Egyptians had escaped. The plagues, however, were coming nearer and nearer them. Their cattle had been smitten, and what could the next stroke be, but an infliction upon themselves?
III. THIS PLAGUE ALSO INEFFECTUAL (Exodus 8:7). Pharaoh sent to see if any of the cattle of the children of Israel had died. The connection seems to indicate that his hardening was partly the result of the news that they had all escaped. This, instead of softening, maddened and embittered him. Hitherto Pharaoh has been seen hardening himself in spite of the influences brought to bear on him. The fact is to be noted that the plagues here begin to produce a positively evil effect. That which ought to have softened and converted, now only enrages, and confirms in the bad resolution.—J.O.
HOMILIES BY D. YOUNG
The fifth plague-the murrain among the beasts.
I. THE USE WHICH GOD HERE MAKES OF THE LOWER CREATION. In the three plagues immediately preceding God made the lower creation his scourges. He took little creatures, the bare existence of which many, not perceiving the wisdom of God, think to be unnecessary; and these he increased into a vast and most vexatious multitude. The killing of a frog, a gnat, a fly, we are accustomed in our heedlessness to make nothing of; such killing is but sport to thoughtless lads. But we think very differently of such animals as are spoken of in this fifth plague; horses, oxen, asses, sheep, all animals comprehended here under the general term cattle. We should feel it hardly possible to have too many of them. This certainly was the view in ancient times in Scriptural countries, for we read of the wealth of men as being generally measured by the number of animals they possessed. Thus we are led to notice in the course of these plagues, how God, in his view of the lower creation, rises high above our view. We look at the lower animals according to their use to us, and thus classify them as helpful or hurtful; God looks at them according to their use to him, and in his hands they all become abundantly helpful to further his ends. He uses the frogs, gnats, and flies (or beetles) to inconvenience Pharaoh and his people, if thereby a change of mind may be wrought, and when this fails he takes the cattle and causes them to be destroyed in order to bring about, if possible, the same result. Thus creation serves Jehovah; whether living or dying, destroying or destroyed.
II. A MELANCHOLY ILLUSTRATION OF THE UNITY IN WHICH ALL CREATION IS BOUND. A question may be raised as to the goodness of God in thus destroying those creatures because of the wickedness of man. Why should they suffer because of Pharaoh's obduracy? The answer is that the whole creation of God is bound up in a marvellous unity, from the lowest thing that has life, right up to man himself. It is for man himself to help in settling how far the lower creation shall suffer for his sake. It is no more possible for man to do wrong and the rest of sentient creatures to escape the consequences of his wrong-doing, than it is for man to live recklessly in his own person and expect the organs and limbs of his body to escape suffering. Animals are not to be looked at in themselves, but as being created for the comfort and service of man, and especially that in his use of them it may be shown what his own notions of a right use are. Let man do right, and all living creatures within the circle of his influence share in the blessed consequences; let him do wrong, and their lives must also be disarranged.
III. OBSERVE IN THIS PLAGUE HOW FORCIBLE THE ILLUSTRATION IS OF ISRAEL'S EXEMPTION FROM THE MURRAIN. The wealth of Israel was peculiarly pastoral wealth; of the very kind, therefore, which was smitten in this plague. Hence all the more noticeable is the exemption of the Israelites and all the more impressive. If it had been a pestilence coming down upon the country generally, irrespective of territory and of special Divine control, it would have injured Israel a great deal more than Egypt.
IV. WHAT A CLEAR MANIFESTATION THERE IS IN THIS PLAGUE OF HOW REASONLESS AND INFATUATED THE OBDURACY OF PHARAOH IS BECOMING. He is inflexible, not only without reason, but against reason. Not content with dismissing the rumours that come to his ears concerning the exemption of Israel's cattle from the pestilence, he sends to certify himself of the fact, which makes his continued obduracy all the more evidently unreasonable. What excuse was there for a man who asked in the way Pharaoh asked, even after it had been made clear to him that of the cattle of the children of Israel not one had died? It is sad when a man dismisses in this way even the appearance of having reason for what he does, when he says, "I will not, because I will not, and there is an end of it."—Y.
HOMILIES BY J. URQUHART
GOD'S MERCY IN TEMPORAL JUDGMENTS. Hitherto no great loss had been inflicted; now their cattle is taken. In God's mercy the afflictions deepen that Egypt may forsake the path of death. When the Lord's hand falls in heavier blows it is to save from something worse which lies beyond. Israel's calamities preceded her captivity. God's chastisements fall that we may not be condemned with the world (1 Corinthians 11:32).
II. CONVICTION DOES NOT ALWAYS COMPEL OBEDIENCE. Pharaoh had already two proofs that the murrain was from the hand of God. He had foretold it, and it came at the time he said it would come. He himself seeks a third proof; he sends to Goshen, and finds that there was "not one of the cattle of the Israelites dead." Yet he does not bow under the hand of God. Conviction may co-exist with impenitence and stubborn persistence in sin, but, when it does, it is the mark of a soul given over to destruction. The devils believe and tremble.—U.