What Does Exodus 9:8 Mean?

THE SIXTH PLAGUE. (8-10) Here, again, there is little question of what the plague was. Doubts may be entertained as to its exact character, and its proper medical designation, but all agree, and cannot but agree, that it was a visitation of the bodies of men with a severe cutaneous disorder, accompanied by pustules or ulcers. It was not announced beforehand to the Egyptians, nor were they allowed the opportunity of escaping it. Like the third plague, it was altogether of the nature of a judgment; and the judgment was a severe one. Now, for the first time, was acute suffering inflicted on the persons of men; now, for the first time, was it shown how Jehovah could smite with a terrible disease; and if with a disease, why not with death? No doubt those stricken suffered unequally; but with some the affliction may have resembled the final affliction of Job, when he was smitten with “sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown” (Job 2:7). Its severity is marked by the statement that “the magicians could not stand before Moses because of the boils” (Exodus 9:11). And it was universal, or quasi-universal (Exodus 9:11). Moreover, it was not confined to men; it was also “upon the beasts”—i.e., upon such of the domesticated animals as had escaped the preceding plague. It does not, however, seem to have been fatal; and it wrought no change upon the Pharaoh, whose heart God is now, for the first time, said to have hardened (Exodus 9:12), as He had declared to Moses (Exodus 4:21; Exodus 7:3). (8) **Ashes of the furnace.**—Furnaces in Egypt were either for the melting of metal, the preparing of lime, or the baking of bricks. It was probably from a furnace of this last kind that the ashes were now taken. Much of Goshen had been converted into a brick-field (Exodus 1:14; Exodus 5:7-13); and though most of the bricks made would be simply dried in the sun, a portion would be subjected to artificial heat in brick-kilns. When ashes from one of these kilns were made the germs of a disease that was a sore infliction, their own wrongdoing became to the Egyptians a whip wherewith God scourged them.