John Calvin Commentary Exodus 9:8

"And Jehovah said unto Moses and unto Aaron, Take to you handfuls of ashes of the furnace, and let Moses sprinkle it toward heaven in the sight of Pharaoh." — Exodus 9:8 (ASV)

And the Lord said to Moses. God does not now postpone the time of the punishment, but redoubles the plagues in a continuous series. Nor does He threaten Pharaoh; instead, leaving him aside, He executes the judgment He had decreed. This was because it was now abundantly clear that warnings had no effect on him, and also so that his desperate wickedness might be rebuked in every way.

For although I have recently said that not everything that happened is fully related, the narrative of Moses still rather leads us to infer that Pharaoh was not told anything beforehand about the boils, but that the ashes¹⁰⁵ were sprinkled when he suspected nothing of the sort.

But it did not happen naturally that the sky was darkened by the dust, and that the disease arose from there; for how could a few ashes cover the whole air? By this visible sign, the tyrant was taught that the calamity that followed was inflicted by Moses and Aaron.

Moreover, God invested His servants with high power, giving them command over the air, so that they could envelop it in darkness and poison it with contagion. From this we gather that devils are called the princes of the air, not because they govern it according to their will, but only insofar as the permission¹⁰⁶ to wander in it is granted to them.

¹⁰⁵ Havernick, in his Introduction to the Pentateuch, has a remarkable note on this plague. “The symbolical procedure,” he says, “employed by Moses, Exodus 9:8, etc., is striking, and has never yet been satisfactorily explained. It is, however, made completely intelligible to us by a statement of Manetho in Plutarch, De. Isaiah et Osir. p. 380: καὶ γὰρἐν ᾿Ειληθυίας πο·λει ζῶντας ἀνθρώπους κατεπίμπασαν, ὡς Μανέθων ἱστόρηκε, Τυφωνίους καλοῦντες, καὶ τὴν τέφραν αὐτῶν λικμῶντες ἠφάνιβον, καὶ διέσπειρον. In respect to this we may leave it undecided how far this statement should be connected with the residence of the Hyksos, a conclusion which there is much to favor; here we have only to do with the striking rite mentioned in the notice, which was certainly an ancient mode of expiation, indicating purification, which in antiquity was often symbolized by ashes. (V. Spencer, De legg, rituall., s. 3. diss. 3, c. 1.) We shall thus understand the entire significance, which the procedure had for the Egyptians, inasmuch as a rite which they regarded as sacred in the sense referred to, was here followed by the contrary effect, pollution, as is so expressively indicated by our text.” — Thomson’s Translation, p. 246. Edinburgh, 1850.

¹⁰⁶ D’y faire leurs efforts. — Fr..