John Gill Commentary Psalms 78:45

"He sent among them swarms of flies, which devoured them; And frogs, which destroyed them." — Psalms 78:45 (ASV)

He sent divers sorts of flies among them
This was the fourth plague; see (Exodus 8:24Exodus 8:25), the word signifies a "mixture"^F6, and the Targum renders it

``a mixture of wild beasts;''

so Josephus^F7 understood this plague of various sorts of beasts of different forms, and such as has never been seen before. Aben Ezra, on (Exodus 8:24) interprets it of evil beasts mixed together, as lions, wolves, bears, and leopards; and Jarchi, on the same place, of serpents and scorpions: the Syriac and Arabic versions here, following the Septuagint, render the word "dog flies"; so called because they were, as Pliny^F8 says, very troublesome to dogs, and so might give the Egyptians greater uneasiness, because they worshipped dogs.

God can make use of very mean and contemptible instruments, the least of insects, to plague and distress the most powerful enemies of his people;

which devoured them ;
corrupted their land, (Exodus 8:24), perhaps produced a pestilence, which destroyed many of the inhabitants, or consumed the vegetables of the land;

as but a few years ago^F5, in New England, a sort of insects came out of little holes in the ground, in the form of maggots, and turned to flies, which for the space of two hundred miles poisoned and destroyed all the trees in the country^F9:

and frogs, which destroyed them ;
with their stench; see (Exodus 8:5Exodus 8:6), with this plague compare (Revelation 16:13), this was the second plague.

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FOOTNOTES:

• F6: (bre) "mixtionem", Montanus; "miscellam", Vatablus; "a mixed swarm", Ainsworth.
• F7: Antiqu. l. 2. c. 14. sect. 3.
• F8: Nat. Hist. l. 11. c. 34.
• F5: This was written about 1750. Editor.
• F9: See Philosoph. Transact. vol. 2. p. 766. See also p. 781.