The Pulpit Commentaries
Exodus 9:8-12
EXPOSITION
THE SIXTH PLAGUE. The sixth plague was sent, like the third, without notice given. It was also, like the third, a plague which inflicted direct injury upon the person. There was a very solemn warning in it; for the same power that could afflict the body with "boils and blains," i.e; with a severe cutaneous disease accompanied by pustulous ulcers—could also (it must have been felt) smite it with death. It is uncertain what exactly the malady was. Some have supposed elephantiasis, some "black leprosy," some merely an eruptive disease such as is even now common m Egypt during the autumn. But it is, at any rate, evident that the malady was exceedingly severe—"the magicians could not stand before Moses" because of it (Exodus 9:11). If it was "the botch of Egypt" (Deuteronomy 28:27), as seems probable, since the name in the Hebrew is the same, it was incurable. Pharaoh and his people were warned by it that God's power would be shown on themselves, not in the way of mere annoyance—as with the earlier plagues—but of serious injury—and if so, why not of death? Thus, the sixth plague heralded the tenth, and, except the tenth, was the most severe of all.
Ashes of the furnace. Rather "soot from the furnace." The word commonly used in Hebrew for "ashes" is different. Many recondite reasons have been brought forward for the directions here given. But perhaps the object was simply to show that as water, and earth (Exodus 8:13) and air (Exodus 10:13) could be turned into plagues, so fire could be. The "soot of the furnace" might well represent fire, and was peculiarly appropriate for the preduction of a disease which was in the main an "inflammation." It is not likely that Moses imitated any superstitious practice of the priests of Egypt. Toward the heaven. The act indicated that the plague would come from heaven—i.e. from God. In the sight of Pharaoh. Compare Exodus 7:20 It is probable that the symbolic act which brought the plague was performed "in the sight of Pharaoh" in every case, except where the plague was unannounced, though the fact is not always recorded.
It shall become small dust. Rather, "It shall be as dust." No physical change is intended by the expression used, but simply that the "soot" or "ash" should be spread by the air throughout all Egypt, as dust was wont to be spread. And shall be a boil breaking forth with blains. Literally, "an inflammation, begetting pustules." The description would apply to almost any eruptive disease. The attempts definitely to determine what exactly the malady was, seem to be futile—more especially as diseases are continually changing their forms, and a malady which belongs to the fourteenth or fifteenth century before our era is almost certain to have been different from any now prevalent. The word "blains"—now obsolete as a separate word—appears in "chilblains."
The furnace. It is perhaps not very important what kind of "furnace" is meant. But the point has been seriously debated. Some suppose a furnace for the consumption of victims, human or other; some a baking oven, or cooking stove; others a furnace for smelting metal; others again a limekiln. The ordinary meaning of the word used, kibshon, is a "brick-kiln;" but bricks were not often baked in Egypt. Nor is it at all clear that any victims were ever consumed in furnaces. Probably either a brick-kiln or a furnace for the smelting of metals is meant.
The magicians could not stand. It is gathered from this that the magicians had, up to this time, been always in attendance when the miracles were wrought, though they had now for some time failed to produce any counterfeits of them. On this occasion their persistency was punished by the sudden falling of the pestilence upon themselves with such severity that they were forced to quit the royal presence and hasten to their homes to be nursed.
And the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart. Up to this time the hardening of Pharaoh's heart has been ascribed to himself, or expressed indefinitely as a process that was continually going on—now for the first time it is positively stated that God hardened his heart, as he had threatened that he would (Exodus 4:21). On the general law of God's dealings with wicked men, see the comment on the above passage
HOMILETICS
Sin punished by physical suffering, but such suffering not always a punishment for sin.
God has many weapons in his quiver wherewith to chastise sin. One of them is physical pain. He can cause the limbs to ache, the temples to throb, the blood to be inflamed, the breathing to labour, the head to be racked, the nerves to thrill and tingle—the whole body, from the sole of the foot to the crown of the head, to be nothing but a mass of "wounds and bruises, and putrifying sores." There is no part of our frame, no process, no function, but can be made the seat of an intolerable agony. God, for the most part, spares us, in the hope that his goodness and long-suffering will lead us to repentance. He had long spared Pharaoh and the Egyptians—had shown them his power in ways that annoyed and harassed, but did not seriously hurt. Now he must adopt severer measures. So his hand is laid upon their bodies, which are smitten with disease, disfigured, made loathsome to the eye, and racked with physical suffering. Here we may note three things:—
I. GOD PUNISHES SIN TO A LARGE EXTENT IN THIS WAY. Many sins have physical consequences attached to them by a natural law, which are in the highest degree painful, which injure the health, destroy the tissues, produce disease, madness, idiocy. Men know these consequences, but hope that they may individually escape them. As Moses and Aaron warned in vain, so now vain too often are the uplifted voices of God's ministers. Nine-tenths, probably, of the physical suffering in England at the present day is caused by those sins of intemperance and uncleanness which are the crying evils of our age and country, and which nothing seems able to uproot or even seriously to diminish. Children are born now for the most part with the seeds of disease in them, which are the consequence of their parents' vices. They lack the physical stamina and the moral vigour which they would have possessed, had their parents led good, pious, consistent, religious lives. They have unhealthy appetites, desires, cravings, which they would not have had but for their parents' sins. Too often, to all this is added the force of bad example. Intemperance and uncleanness follow, and the inborn germs of disease are stimulated into activity; pain follows pain, agony follows agony. A wretched, life is terminated by an early death. If they leave children behind them, their case is even more hopeless. The physical taint is deepened. The moral strength to resist is weaker. Happy is it if God takes the little ones away from the evil to come.
II. GOD DOES NOT EXEMPT FROM THIS PUNISHMENT, EITHER THE WEALTHY OR THE HIGHLY EDUCATED. "The boil was on the magicians." The taint of uncleanness, the mental weakness which results from habits of intemperance afflict the great, the rich, the "upper ten thousand," as surely as their humbler fellow-subjects who herd in courts and alleys. There are great families in which it is a well-known fact that intemperance has become hereditary. There are others where the heir never lives to the age of thirty. No rank—not even royal rank—exempts from subjection to hygienic laws. Neither does intellect nor education. It may be that the intellectual and highly educated are less likely than others to plunge into dissipation and sensual vices. But if, in spite of their higher nature, they give the reins to their lower, the same results follow as in the case of the least gifted of their fellow-men. Retribution reaches them. They "receive within themselves the reward of their iniquity." Their physical nature, no less than their moral, is tainted; and pain, suffering, often agony, are their portion.
III. THOSE WHO RECEIVE THE PUNISHMENT OFTEN HARDEN THEMSELVES. The boil was on the magicians; but we do not hear that the magicians submitted themselves, or owned the supremacy of Jehovah. So now, those whose sin draws down upon them suffering rarely repent, rarely forsake their sin, rarely humble themselves beneath the chastening rod of the Almighty. No doubt drunkards are occasionally reformed and profligates reclaimed. But for one lost sheep thus recovered, how many scores perish in their evil courses, and descend the rapid incline which conducts to the gulf of destruction? We are amazed at the obstinacy of Pharaoh; but we are most of us just as obstinate. Nothing will induce us to give up our pet vices. We cling to them, even when the boil is upon us. If we give them up for a time, we recur to them. If we leave them off in act, we dwell fondly upon them in thought and imagination. O hard human hearts, that will not yield to God's discipline of pain, when sent as chastisement! What can ye expect, but that chastisement will give place to vengeance? Physical suffering is sometimes sent, not to punish, but to refine and purify. Job's comforters supposed that one so afflicted must have committed some great crime, or be concealing some habitual vice of a grave character. But it was not so. The sufferings of saints are blessing. They give a fellowship with Christ, which nothing else can give. They make the saint rehearse in thought, over and over again, each step of that grievous, yet blessed via dolorosa, along which he went upon his way to the Cross of Calvary. They intensify faith and love—they give assurance of acceptance (Hebrews 12:6)—they elevate, purify, sanctify. Earth has no lovelier sight than that not uncommon one of a crippled sufferer, stretched day after day and year after year upon a bed of pain, yet always cheerful, always thoughtful for others, always helpful by advice, kind word, even (if their strength allows) kind acts. Such Blessed ones live with Christ, suffer with Christ, feel themselves to be in Christ; as St. Paul says, they "fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in their flesh" (Colossians 1:24), and "are joyful in their tribulation" (2 Corinthians 7:4).
HOMILIES BY J. ORR
The plague of boils and blains.
This plague, like the third, was unannounced. God varies his methods. There was need for some token being given of God's severe displeasure at Pharaoh's gross abuse of his goodness and forbearance. This plaque is distinguished from the rest by being introduced with a significant action.
I. THE ACTION INTRODUCING THE PLAGUE (Exodus 9:8-2). Hitherto the only actions employed had been the stretching out of Aaron's rod, and in the case of the third plague, the smiting of the dust with it. Now, Moses is instructed to take handfuls of the ashes from the furnace and sprinkle them towards heaven in the sight of Pharaoh and his servants. The performance of so solemn an act implied that a new stage was being reached in Pharaoh's hardening, as also in God's punitive dealings with him. From this point onwards matters are rapidly developed to a crisis. The act was symbolical, and may be variously interpreted.
1. As a challenge to the Egyptian Deities, specially Neit, "who bore the designation of, The Great Mother of the highest heaven" and was worshipped as the tutelary goddess of Lower Egypt" (Canon Cook).
2. As connected with the scattering of the ashes of human victims to avert evil from the land. This was done, or had been done, in the days of the Shepherds, in the worship of Sutech or Typhon. The victims were usually foreigners, perhaps often Hebrews. "After being burnt alive on a high altar, their ashes were scattered in the air by the priests, in the belief that they would avert evil from all parts whither they were blown" (Geikie). The sprinkling of ashes by Moses, and their descent, not in blessing, but in boils and blains, would thus have a terrible significance.
3. As symbolical of the laying of a curse upon the people. It is, at least in some parts of the East, a practice to take ashes and throw them into the air, in token of giving effect to an imprecation. Most probable of all,—
4. As a symbol of retribution for the sufferings of Israel. The "furnace" is a common Scripture emblem for the bitter slavery of the Hebrews (Genesis 15:17; Deu 4:20; 1 Kings 8:57; Isaiah 48:10; Jeremiah 11:4). Ashes taken from the furnace and sprinkled towards heaven, whence they descended in a plague, would thus naturally symbolise the return upon Pharaoh and his servants of the cruelties with Which they had afflicted Israel. The cry of the sufferers in the furnace had entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. The evil deeds of the afflicters were now to come back upon them in retribution. It was as though the ashes of the victims sacrificed in the long tyranny were rising in vengeance against the oppressor.
II. THE PECULIARITY OF THE PLAGUE IN THE SMITING OF THE PERSONS (verse 10). The disease with which the Egyptians were smitten was painful, loathsome, and excruciatingly severe as compared with ordinary inflictions of a similar nature: Tortured in their bodies, they were "receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was " … meet (Romans 1:27). This experience of sore personal suffering ought surely to have arrested their folly. It showed them how absolutely helpless they were in the hands of God. The plague was universal (verse 11). Not one could beast against another. The plague was peculiarly afflictive to a people which prided itself on its cleanliness. It smote beasts as well as men. What a terrible calamity! The whole head was sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even to the crown of the head there was no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores (Isaiah 1:6). Yet, instead of repenting, the people appear only to have been stung to further revolt. So it was, at least, with their king.
1. An image of the condition of the sinner.
2. A new proof of the power of God. The hand of God is to be seen in the infliction of diseases. God threatens, in Deuteronomy, to lay the evil diseases of Egypt upon the Israelites if they should prove disobedient (Deu 29:1-29 :60).
3. An instance of the inefficacy of bodily sufferings to produce repentance. Cf. Revelation 16:10, Revelation 16:11, "They gnawed their tongues for pain, and blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds."
III. THE DEFEAT OF THE MAGICIANS (Revelation 16:11). They could not now even stand before Moses. Pharaoh is being left more and more alone in his resistance.
IV. PHARAOH STILL HARDENED (Revelation 16:12). Before, one plague was the utmost he could hold out against. He yielded under the second and the fourth. Now he maintains his attitude of resistance under two plagues in succession.—J.O.
HOMILIES BY D. YOUNG
The sixth plague-the boils and blains.
Only the barest conjectures are possible as to why these ashes of the furnace were taken as materials whence to draw this sixth plague. If we look at the first two plagues we see that they come out of the water. The next plague, that of the gnats, comes out of the dust of the earth, and the flies may be taken as having the same origin. The murrain probably arose through a vitiating change in the food of the animals; and here again we are directed to look downwards to the earth, out of which comes the food both for man and beast. Next comes this sixth plague, and by the mention of ashes of the furnace it would almost seem as if God meant his people to understand that all the useful elements in nature were to do their part in plaguing Pharaoh. Water has had. its share, the earth its share, fire now gets its share; and there only remains the air above and around, and out of this, sure enough, there presently came the hail, the locusts,
Warping on the Eastern wind,
and the thick darkness. Thus, in all visible directions where man looks for blessing, God meets him with a stern intimation that he can turn the blessing into a curse. So much for the origin of this plague; now with regard to its form.—NOTE,
I. THAT GOD'S PUNISHMENTS NOW ADVANCE TO TAKE UP THEIR ABODE IN THE BODIES OF PHARAOH AND HIS PEOPLE. As God can take the lower animals, which he has made for our use, and turn them at his pleasure into a blessing or a curse, so he can come nearer still, and make our bodies, which are agents of the most exquisite pleasures, into agents of pain just as exquisite. Notice that in the very mode of infliction there was a mixture of severity and mercy. Severity, because undoubtedly there would be terrible pain; mercy, because probably the pain was confined to the surface of the body; none the easier to bear, certainly; and yet easier in this, that it did not belong to an affliction of the great vital organs. Severity again, on the other hand, just because it affected the sensitive surface of the body. It is through our sensations that God has caused so much both of pleasure and information to come. Thus God, who had given so much delight to Pharaoh and his people, through making them so sensitive to the outward world, now deranges all the minute nerves and vessels, and by spreading boils and blains over the surface of the body he effectually stops all enjoyment of life. We know that it is possible for a person to be seriously ill-even fatally so, perhaps confined as a hopeless invalid for years—and yet to get considerable enjoyment out of life, as in reading and in light occupations for the mind. But what pleasure can be got when, from head to foot, the body is covered with boils and blains? As long as this sort of pain lasts, little else can be thought of than how to get rid of it.
II. As in the plague of the gnats, so here in the plague of the boils and blains, OUR ATTENTION IS SPECIALLY DIRECTED TO THE MAGICIANS. On the former occasion, with or without sincerity, they had said, "This is the finger of God;" now they are in themselves, so to speak, the finger of God. They can neither avert nor dissemble their subjection to the power that works through Moses. At first, doubtless, they had looked upon him with haughtiness, audacity, and scorn, as being hardly worth a moment's attention. Very likely it was counted a great condescension to turn the rods into serpents. But now, whatever feeling be in their hearts, the hold that Jehovah has on their bodies is only too evident. Silence and outward serenity are impossible under such suffering as this. The twitchings of the face cannot be concealed, the groan cannot be suppressed, the unquailing attitude cannot be maintained. Who shall tell what individual humiliations and defeats lie behind this brief expression: "The magicians could not stand before Moses because of the boils." Because of the boils! It was not a very dignified sort of disaster; not very pleasant to recall in after times. These magicians, we may imagine, had scorned the very name of Jehovah, worse, mayhap, than Pharaoh himself. And now in these boils and blains there is, suppressed as it were, scorn and mockery from Jehovah in return. Opposers of God may not only have to be brought down from their wide, but in such a way as will involve them in ridicule and shame. The exposure of falsehood is only a work of time, and as we see here, it can be accomplished in a comparatively short time. Pain effectually drives away all dissembling, and nature proves too much even for the man to whom art has become second nature.—Y.
HOMILIES BY J. URQUHART
I. The Sixth Plague. THE MEANS USED. Ashes were taken from the brick-kiln in which the Israelites toiled, and in Pharaoh's presence sprinkled in mute appeal toward heaven. The memorials of oppression lifted up before God will fall in anguish upon the oppressors (James 5:1). The French Revolution and the ages of giant wrong that had gone before. American slavery and its punishment.
II. THE SUDDENNESS OF THE INFLICTION. There was no warning. The dust was cast up, and immediately the plague was upon man and beast. The judgment of wickedness will come as in a moment. Sodom. The flood.
III. THE SHAME OF THE MAGICIANS.
1. Upon them the plague seems to have been more severe than upon others. Upon the abettors of other men's tyranny and wrong, God's judgment will fall heaviest. The deep responsibility of Christian teachers and men of influence and talent. Let them see to it that they are on the side of righteousness, and not of the world's class—selfishness and manifold wrong.
2. They were brought to shame in the presence of those who trusted in them. The falsehood of their pretensions was exposed by their inability to defend themselves. When God visits for the world's sin, there will be everlasting confusion and shame for its apologists and abettors.—U.