FL (eas) & (ies) - Exodus 8:16-32

8:16- -32 This third plague in the first set can be seen as a severe natural consequence of the river having an abnormal “red tide” situation, but what’s interesting is that Pharaoh isn’t warned about this one like he was the other two. God tells Moses to tell Aaron to “stretch out thy rod, and smite the dust of the land, that it may become lice throughout all the land of Egypt.” Lice is brutal, but TB notes that the Hebrew word used here could also be used to signify gnats or “no-see-ems” as they say in the south, which are little teeny flying bugs that can get through your clothes and bite your skin. These aren’t usually fatal, but I bet if they are bad enough then you’ll wish they were. I remember when we were in Iraq there was an infestation of the Middle Eastern equivalent of chiggers, and the bites were crazy, it looked like I had small pox because of how dense the bite marks are, and the itching, oh my goodness the itching. Anyway, all this is to say that it might not kill people, but it could definitely decrease your quality of life.

This plague was not only the first one that Pharaoh wasn’t warned about, but also broke the pattern in two other ways. First, the magicians tried to make these bugs increase according to their own power but it didn’t happen, which was probably for the best because why would they want to increase the bug infestations. The magicians could never “undo” the plague created by God but up until this point they were able to recreate it, thus giving them at least partial legitimacy, but now they can’t even do that, so all their power is gone now. It was at this moment that the magicians realized that they were outmatched here and even went as far as to tell Pharaoh, “This is the finger of God.”

Second, these bugs didn’t afflict the Hebrews in their lands, only the Egyptians in theirs. I don’t think that by this point Pharaoh had given out the details to the people about the power struggle going on between himself and the One, True Hebrew God, so they might have started to notice, “hey wait, why are we the only ones suffering.” And we’ll see that it doesn’t take much time for them to figure out what’s going on. But even with all the people around him getting antsy, Pharaoh still refused “and he hearkened not unto them.”

The fourth plague, and we are back to Pharaoh given warnings, and M&A go to the river in the morning again and demand that he let the people go, or else God says, “I will send swarms of flies upon thee, and upon they servants, and upon thy people, and into thy houses.” Not only is Pharaoh wanted about the flies, but the warning comes that the Hebrews will not be affected, “to the end thou mayest know that I am the Lord in the midst of the earth.” God has been using naturally occurring events, but on His command and to an extreme severity, for his demonstration, but now he’s going to show that he is not only capable of causing problems, but also protecting His people from them.

The flies show up and TB equates them to dog flies, the really huge flies that latch on to, mostly animals, but the soft parts of the eyes, nose, butts and exposed genitals of animals. They cause abscesses, infections, they bury their eggs into these soft fleshy parts and cause all types of pain and suffering for humans, but mostly the livestock.

This works, Pharaoh finally says, “Go ye, sacrifice to your God in the land.” What I think he means here is to do the sacrifices in their own land of Goshen, which is not going to work because the Egyptians have lost so much of their own livestock and have many animals that they consider sacred, that the Hebrews having a celebration and sacrificing their own animals in a different religious ceremony, especially after they haven’t suffered the last couple of plagues, is only going to make the Egyptian people very angry with them. Moses considers all this and answers, “we will go three days journey into the wilderness,” Pharaoh tries to compromise “ye shall not go very far away.” It is unclear if some sort of arrangement was made but Moses went out and prayed for the flies to go away, and they did, but Pharaoh “hardened his heart at this time also, neither would he let the people go.”