Charles Ellicott Commentary Exodus 10

I have hardened ... the heart of his servants. —They, too, had first hardened their own hearts (Exodus 9:34), and so deserved a penal hardening. A certain amount of responsibility rested on them. Had they allowed the miracles to have their full natural effect upon their minds, they would have been convinced that resistance was useless, and would have impressed their views upon the Pharaoh. Even in the most absolute governments public opinion has weight, and the general sentiment of the Court almost always carries the sovereign with it.

That I might shew these my signs. —There is nothing derogatory to the Divine Nature in a penal hardening being, as it were, utilised to increase the glory of God, and affect for good future generations of His people. The accumulation of plague upon plague, which the obduracy of Pharaoh and his subjects brought about, was of vast importance in presenting to Israel, and even to the surrounding nations, a manifestation of the tremendous power of God, calculated to impress them as nothing else would have done.

The eighth plague, like the third and fourth, was one where insect life was called in to serve God’s purposes, and chastise the presumption of His enemies. The nature of the visitation is uncontested and incontestable—it was a terrible invasion of locusts. Locusts are an occasional, though not a frequent, scourge in Egypt. They are not bred there, and necessarily arrive from some foreign country.

When they descend, their ravages are as severe as elsewhere. “In the present day,” says Mr. Stuart Poole, “locusts suddenly appear in the cultivated land, coming from the desert in a column of great length. They fly across the country, darkening the air with their compact ranks, which are undisturbed by the constant attacks of kites, crows, and vultures, and making a strange whizzing sound, like that of fire, or many distant wheels. Where they land they devour every green thing, even stripping the trees of their leaves.

Rewards are offered for their destruction; but no labour can seriously reduce their numbers” (Dict. of the Bible, vol. ii., p. 887). C. Niebuhr witnessed two invasions—in 1761 and 1762; Denon witnessed another about the year 1800; and Tischendorf saw one recently.

They always enter Egypt either from the south or from the east, and necessarily come with a wind, since they cannot possibly fly any considerable distance without one. It is probable that at different times different varieties of the locust visit the country, but all varieties are almost equally destructive.

After the loss of their cattle by the cattle plague and hail, and the ruin of the flax and barley crops by the hail, nothing else was needed to complete the desolation of the country and the impoverishment of its inhabitants but the ruin of the wheat and doora crops, which the locusts speedily accomplished.

That thou mayest tell. —Those who experience God’s mercies are bound to hand on the memory of what He has done for them to future generations. Natural gratitude would prompt such action. But, lest the duty should be neglected, the Israelites had it at this time constantly enjoined upon them (Exodus 12:26–27; Exodus 13:14–15; Deuteronomy 32:7; Joshua 4:6, and other passages):

To morrow will I bring the locusts into thy coast. —Locusts, as already observed, are not indigenous to Egypt, but only occasional visitors. Consequently, they always enter the country from another, such as Nubia, Abyssinia, Syria, or Arabia. Regarding the direction from which the present plague came, see the comment on Exodus 10:13.

They shall cover the face of the earth, that one cannot be able to see the earth. —This is the case almost invariably with all the severer visitations of locusts. “The plain was covered with them,” says Denon (Travels, p. 286), speaking of Egypt. “The ground is covered with them for several leagues,” declares Volney (Travels, vol. i., p. 285). “Over an area of 1,600 or 1,800 square miles,” observes Barrow, “the whole surface might literally be said to be covered with them.” The Hebrew name, which means “multitudinous,” is thus very appropriate.

They shall eat the residue of that which is escaped ... every tree. —Compare Exodus 9:32. The description of Joel has never been surpassed: A fire devoureth before them, and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them (Joel 2:3). Compare Volney (50s.100): “When their swarms appear, everything green vanishes instantaneously from the fields, as if a curtain were rolled up; the trees and plants stand leafless, and nothing is seen but naked boughs and stalks.” Very graphic is Joel again in respect of this last feature: He hath laid my vine waste, and barked my fig-tree: he hath made it clean bare, and cast it away; the branches thereof are made white (Joel 1:7).

Nor is it only shrubs, but even trees, that suffer. “They are particularly injurious to the palm-trees,” says Burckhardt; “these they strip of every leaf and green particle, the trees remaining like skeletons, with bare branches.”