Charles Ellicott Commentary Exodus 8

It is generally agreed that the second plague was one of frogs. All the ancient versions agree in the interpretation, and the only rival rendering—"crocodiles"—is too absurd to be argued against. We may take it, therefore, as certain that the second affliction upon Egypt was an innumerable multitude of frogs, which came up from the river and infested the cities, the houses, the bedrooms, the beds, the ovens, and the kneading troughs. There was no escaping them.

They entered the royal palace as well as the peasant’s cottage; they penetrated to the inner chambers; they leaped upon the couches and beds; they polluted the baking utensils and defiled the water and the food. Here, again, the affliction was double:

1. Frogs were sacred animals to the Egyptians, who regarded them as symbols of procreative power and associated them especially with the goddess Heka (a wife of Kneph, or up), whom they represented as frog-headed. Sacred animals might not be intentionally killed, and even their involuntary slaughter was frequently punished with death. To be plagued with a multitude of reptiles which could not be put to death, yet on which it was scarcely possible not to tread, and which, whenever a door was opened, were crushed, was a severe trial to the religious feelings of the people and tended to bring the religion itself into contempt.

2. The visitation was horrible to the senses—nauseous, disgusting. The frogs were hideous to the eye, grating to the ear, repulsive to the touch. Their constant presence everywhere rendered them a continual torment.

If other later plagues were more injurious, the plague of frogs was perhaps the most loathsome of all. We read without surprise in Eustathius (Comment. in Hom. II., p. 35) that the people of Pseonia and Dardania on one occasion were so plagued by a multitude of frogs, which filled the houses and the streets, infected the water, invaded the cooking utensils, and made all the food inedible, that after a time, unable to bear the pest any longer, they “fled from that region altogether.”

Let my people go. —The usual demand, which it was determined to reiterate until Pharaoh yielded. (Exodus 7:16; Exodus 8:20; Exodus 9:1–13; Exodus 10:3.)

With frogs. —The particular species intended is thought to be the modern dofka (Rana Mosaica), which is a large kind, resembling our toad, which crawls more than it leaps and croaks perpetually.

The river shall bring forth frogs. —The frogs do not now come up directly from the river, but rather from the ponds and marshes which are left by the inundation. (See Exodus 8:5.) These, however, may be viewed as detached portions of the river. Frogs in Egypt are, even at the present day, an occasional annoyance and inconvenience.

Thy bedchamber ... thy bed. —No nation of antiquity set such a value on cleanliness as the Egyptians. Priests were required to dress entirely in linen and to wash their entire bodies in cold water twice every day and twice every night (Herodotus ii. 37). With other classes, ablutions were frequent, and the utmost care was taken to avoid contact with whatever was unclean. It is difficult to conceive a greater annoyance to an Egyptian than frogs in the bedchamber and on the bed.

Ovens. —Or, balking-pans—earthenware vessels commonly heated by having a fire lighted inside them, and the dough attached by pressure after the fire had been withdrawn.

Kneading troughs. —Compare below, Exodus 12:34, which establishes the meaning; and for representations of both kneading-troughs and ovens, see Rosellini, Monumenti Civili, plates 84, 85.

The frogs came up. —Hebrew, the frog. The term designates the species.

The magicians did so. —It cannot be concluded from this that the magicians had the power of creating frogs. All that the writer means to express is that they seemed to Pharaoh and to the Court to do on a small scale what Moses and Aaron had done on the largest possible scale. The means which they employed was probably sleight-of-hand. It has been well observed that they would have shown their own power and the power of their gods far more satisfactorily had they succeeded in taking the frogs away.

Pharaoh called for Moses. This was the first sign of yielding. Pharaoh had borne the infliction of the water turned to blood without flinching, probably because individually he had suffered little from it. (See the comment on Exodus 7:23.) But he suffered from the frogs as much as anyone else (Exodus 8:3–4), and the personal inconvenience drove him to make a concession.

As far as words could go, the concession was complete:

1. He acknowledged the power of Jehovah: “Intreat the Lord, that He may take away, etc.”;
2. He acknowledged the power of righteous men’s prayers;
3. He made an absolute unreserved promise to “let the people go.”

And Moses said ... Glory over me. —This phrase seems equivalent to—“I submit to your will,” “I am content to do your bidding.” It was probably an ordinary expression of courtesy in Egypt on the part of an inferior to a superior; but it was not a Hebrew idiom, and so does not occur elsewhere.

When shall I entreat?—Rather, as in the margin, against when? or for when?—that is, what date shall I name in my prayer to God for when the plague shall be removed? And so, in the next verse, for “to-morrow” translate against to-morrow. It seems strange that Pharaoh did not say, “To-day, this very instant;” but perhaps he thought even Jehovah could not do so great a thing at once.