Charles Ellicott Commentary Exodus 8:1-4

"And Jehovah spake unto Moses, Go in unto Pharaoh, and say unto him, Thus saith Jehovah, Let my people go, that they may serve me. And if thou refuse to let them go, behold, I will smite all thy borders with frogs: and the river shall swarm with frogs, which shall go up and come into thy house, and into thy bedchamber, and upon thy bed, and into the house of thy servants, and upon thy people, and into thine ovens, and into thy kneading-troughs: and the frogs shall come up both upon thee, and upon thy people, and upon all thy servants." — Exodus 8:1-4 (ASV)

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.