25 And Moses said, Thou must also give into our hand sacrifices and burnt-offerings, that we may sacrifice unto Jehovah our God.
And this is the thing that thou shalt do unto them to hallow them, to minister unto me in the priest's office: take one young bullock and two rams without blemish, and unleavened bread, and cakes unleavened mingled with oil, and wafers unleavened anointed with oil: of fine wheaten flour shalt thou make them. And thou shalt put them into one basket, and bring them in the basket, with the bullock and the two rams. And Aaron and his sons thou shalt bring unto the door of the tent of meeting, and shalt wash them with water. And thou shalt take the garments, and put upon Aaron the coat, and the robe of the ephod, and the ephod, and the breastplate, and gird him with the skilfully woven band of the ephod; and thou shalt set the mitre upon his head, and put the holy crown upon the mitre. Then shalt thou take the anointing oil, and pour it upon his head, and anoint him. And thou shalt bring his sons, and put coats upon them. And thou shalt gird them with girdles, Aaron and his sons, and bind head-tires on them: and they shall have the priesthood by a perpetual statute: and thou shalt consecrate Aaron and his sons. And thou shalt bring the bullock before the tent of meeting: and Aaron and his sons shall lay their hands upon the head of the bullock. And thou shalt kill the bullock before Jehovah, at the door of the tent of meeting. And thou shalt take of the blood of the bullock, and put it upon the horns of the altar with thy finger; and thou shalt pour out all the blood at the base of the altar. And thou shalt take all the fat that covereth the inwards, and the caul upon the liver, and the two kidneys, and the fat that is upon them, and burn them upon the altar. But the flesh of the bullock, and its skin, and it dung, shalt thou burn with fire without the camp: it is a sin-offering. Thou shalt also take the one ram; and Aaron and his sons shall lay their hands upon the head of the ram. And thou shalt slay the ram, and thou shalt take its blood, and sprinkle it round about upon the altar. And thou shalt cut the ram into its pieces, and wash its inwards, and its legs, and put them with its pieces, and with its head. And thou shalt burn the whole ram upon the altar: it is a burnt-offering unto Jehovah; it is a sweet savor, an offering made by fire unto Jehovah. And thou shalt take the other ram; and Aaron and his sons shall lay their hands upon the head of the ram. Then shalt thou kill the ram, and take of its blood, and put it upon the tip of the right ear of Aaron, and upon the tip of the right ear of his sons, and upon the thumb of their right hand, and upon the great toe of their right foot, and sprinkle the blood upon the altar round about. And thou shalt take of the blood that is upon the altar, and of the anointing oil, and sprinkle it upon Aaron, and upon his garments, and upon his sons, and upon the garments of his sons with him: and he shall be hallowed, and his garments, and his sons, and his sons' garments with him. Also thou shalt take of the ram the fat, and the fat tail, and the fat that covereth the inwards, and the caul of the liver, and the two kidneys, and the fat that is upon them, and the right thigh (for it is a ram of consecration), and one loaf of bread, and one cake of oiled bread, and one wafer, out of the basket of unleavened bread that is before Jehovah. And thou shalt put the whole upon the hands of Aaron, and upon the hands of his sons, and shalt wave them for a wave-offering before Jehovah. And thou shalt take them from their hands, and burn them on the altar upon the burnt-offering, for a sweet savor before Jehovah: it is an offering made by fire unto Jehovah. And thou shalt take the breast of Aaron's ram of consecration, and wave it for a wave-offering before Jehovah: and it shall be thy portion. And thou shalt sanctify the breast of the wave-offering, and the thigh of the heave-offering, which is waved, and which is heaved up, of the ram of consecration, even of that which is for Aaron, and of that which is for his sons: and it shall be for Aaron and his sons as `their' portion for ever from the children of Israel; for it is a heave-offering: and it shall be a heave-offering from the children of Israel of the sacrifices of their peace-offerings, even their heave-offering unto Jehovah. And the holy garments of Aaron shall be for his sons after him, to be anointed in them, and to be consecrated in them. Seven days shall the son that is priest in his stead put them on, when he cometh into the tent of meeting to minister in the holy place. And thou shalt take the ram of consecration, and boil its flesh in a holy place. And Aaron and his sons shall eat the flesh of the ram, and the bread that is in the basket, at the door of the tent of meeting. And they shall eat those things wherewith atonement was made, to consecrate `and' to sanctify them: but a stranger shall not eat thereof, because they are holy. And if aught of the flesh of the consecration, or of the bread, remain unto the morning, then thou shalt burn the remainder with fire: it shall not be eaten, because it is holy. And thus shalt thou do unto Aaron, and to his sons, according to all that I have commanded thee: seven days shalt thou consecrate them. And every day shalt thou offer the bullock of sin-offering for atonement: and thou shalt cleanse the altar, when thou makest atonement for it; and thou shalt anoint it, to sanctify it. Seven days thou shalt make atonement for the altar, and sanctify it: and the altar shall be most holy; whatsoever toucheth the altar shall be holy. Now this is that which thou shalt offer upon the altar: two lambs a year old day by day continually. The one lamb thou shalt offer in the morning; and the other lamb thou shalt offer at even: and with the one lamb a tenth part `of an ephah' of fine flour mingled with the fourth part of a hin of beaten oil, and the fourth part of a hin of wine for a drink-offering. And the other lamb thou shalt offer at even, and shalt do thereto according to the meal-offering of the morning, and according to the drink-offering thereof, for a sweet savor, an offering made by fire unto Jehovah. It shall be a continual burnt-offering throughout your generations at the door of the tent of meeting before Jehovah, where I will meet with you, to speak there unto thee. And there I will meet with the children of Israel; and `the Tent' shall be sanctified by my glory. And I will sanctify the tent of meeting, and the altar: Aaron also and his sons will I sanctify, to minister to me in the priest's office. And I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will be their God. And they shall know that I am Jehovah their God, that brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, that I might dwell among them: I am Jehovah their God.
And Aaron lifted up his hands toward the people, and blessed them; and he came down from offering the sin-offering, and the burnt-offering, and the peace-offerings.
And Bezalel and Oholiab shall work, and every wise-hearted man, in whom Jehovah hath put wisdom and understanding to know how to work all the work for the service of the sanctuary, according to all that Jehovah hath commanded. And Moses called Bezalel and Oholiab, and every wise-hearted man, in whose heart Jehovah had put wisdom, even every one whose heart stirred him up to come unto the work to do it: and they received of Moses all the offering which the children of Israel had brought for the work of the service of the sanctuary, wherewith to make it. And they brought yet unto him freewill-offerings every morning. And all the wise men, that wrought all the work of the sanctuary, came every man from his work which they wrought. And they spake unto Moses, saying, The people bring much more than enough for the service of the work which Jehovah commanded to make. And Moses gave commandment, and they caused it to be proclaimed throughout the camp, saying, Let neither man nor woman make any more work for the offering of the sanctuary. So the people were restrained from bringing. For the stuff they had was sufficient for all the work to make it, and too much. And all the wise-hearted men among them that wrought the work made the tabernacle with ten curtains; of fine twined linen, and blue, and purple, and scarlet, with cherubim, the work of the skilful workman, `Bezalel' made them. The length of each curtain was eight and twenty cubits, and the breadth of each curtain four cubits: all the curtains had one measure. And he coupled five curtains one to another: and `the other' five curtains he coupled one to another. And he made loops of blue upon the edge of the one curtain from the selvedge in the coupling: likewise he made in the edge of the curtain that was outmost in the second coupling. Fifty loops made he in the one curtain, and fifty loops made he in the edge of the curtain that was in the second coupling: the loops were opposite one to another. And he made fifty clasps of gold, and coupled the curtains one to another with the clasps: so the tabernacle was one. And he made curtains of goats' `hair' for a tent over the tabernacle: eleven curtains he made them. The length of each curtain was thirty cubits, and four cubits the breadth of each curtain: the eleven curtains had one measure. And he coupled five curtains by themselves, and six curtains by themselves. And he made fifty loops on the edge of the curtain that was outmost in the coupling, and fifty loops made he upon the edge of the curtain which was `outmost in' the second coupling. And he made fifty clasps of brass to couple the tent together, that it might be one. And he made a covering for the tent of rams' skins dyed red, and a covering of sealskins above. And he made the boards for the tabernacle, of acacia wood, standing up. Ten cubits was the length of a board, and a cubit and a half the breadth of each board. Each board had two tenons, joined one to another: thus did he make for all the boards of the tabernacle. And he made the boards for the tabernacle: twenty boards for the south side southward. And he made forty sockets of silver under the twenty boards; two sockets under one board for its two tenons, and two sockets under another board for its two tenons. And for the second side of the tabernacle, on the north side, he made twenty boards, and their forty sockets of silver; two sockets under one board, and two sockets under another board. And for the hinder part of the tabernacle westward he made six boards. And two boards made he for the corners of the tabernacle in the hinder part. And they were double beneath; and in like manner they were entire unto the top thereof unto one ring: thus he did to both of them in the two corners. And there were eight boards, and their sockets of silver, sixteen sockets; under every board two sockets. And he made bars of acacia wood; five for the boards of the one side of the tabernacle, and five bars for the boards of the other side of the tabernacle, and five bars for the boards of the tabernacle for the hinder part westward. And he made the middle bar to pass through in the midst of the boards from the one end to the other. And he overlaid the boards with gold, and made their rings of gold for places for the bars, and overlaid the bars with gold. And he made the veil of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen: with cherubim, the work of the skilful workman, made he it. And he made thereunto four pillars of acacia, and overlaid them with gold: their hooks were of gold; And he cast for them four sockets of silver. And he made a screen for the door of the Tent, of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen, the work of the embroiderer; and the five pillars of it with their hooks: and he overlaid their capitals and their fillets with gold; and their five sockets were of brass.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Keil & Delitzsch Commentary » Commentary on Exodus 10
Commentary on Exodus 10 Keil & Delitzsch Commentary
The eighth plague; the Locusts. - Exodus 10:1-6. As Pharaoh's pride still refused to bend to the will of God, Moses was directed to announce another, and in some respects a more fearful, plague. At the same time God strengthened Moses' faith, by telling him that the hardening of Pharaoh and his servants was decreed by Him, that these signs might be done among them, and that Israel might perceive by this to all generations that He was Jehovah (cf. Exodus 7:3-5). We may learn from Ps 78 and 105 in what manner the Israelites narrated these signs to their children and children's children. אתת שׁית , to set or prepare signs (Exodus 10:1), is interchanged with שׂוּם (Exodus 10:2) in the same sense (vid., Exodus 8:12). The suffix in בּקרבּו (Exodus 10:1) refers to Egypt as a country; and that in בּם (Exodus 10:2) to the Egyptians. In the expression, “ thou mayest tell, ” Moses is addressed as the representative of the nation. התעלּל : to have to do with a person, generally in a bad sense, to do him harm (1 Samuel 31:4). “How I have put forth My might” ( De Wette ).
As Pharaoh had acknowledged, when the previous plague was sent, that Jehovah was righteous (Exodus 9:27), his crime was placed still more strongly before him: “ How long wilt thou refuse to humble thyself before Me? ” ( לענת for להענת , as in Exodus 34:24).
To punish this obstinate refusal, Jehovah would bring locusts in such dreadful swarms as Egypt had never known before, which would eat up all the plants left by the hail, and even fill the houses. “ They will cover the eye of the earth .” This expression, which is peculiar to the Pentateuch, and only occurs again in Exodus 10:15 and Numbers 22:5, Numbers 22:11, is based upon the ancient and truly poetic idea, that the earth, with its covering of plants, looks up to man. To substitute the rendering “surface” for the “eye,” is to destroy the real meaning of the figure; “face” is better. It was in the swarms that actually hid the ground that the fearful character of the plague consisted, as the swarms of locusts consume everything green. “The residue of the escape” is still further explained as “that which remaineth unto you from the hail,” viz., the spelt and wheat, and all the vegetables that were left (Exodus 10:12 and Exodus 10:15). For “all the trees that sprout” (Exodus 10:5), we find in Exodus 10:15, “all the tree-fruits and everything green upon the trees.”
The announcement of such a plague of locusts, as their forefathers had never seen before since their existence upon earth, i.e., since the creation of man (Exodus 10:6), put the servants of Pharaoh in such fear, that they tried to persuade the king to let the Israelites go. “ How long shall this (Moses) be a snare to us?...Seest thou not yet, that Egypt is destroyed? ” מוקשׁ , a snare or trap for catching animals, is a figurative expression for destruction. האנשׁים (Exodus 10:7) does not mean the men, but the people. The servants wished all the people to be allowed to go as Moses had desired; but Pharaoh would only consent to the departure of the men ( הגּברים , Exodus 10:11).
Exodus 10:8-11
As Moses had left Pharaoh after announcing the plague, he was fetched back again along with Aaron, in consequence of the appeal made to the king by his servants, and asked by the king, how many wanted to go to the feast. ומי מי , “ who and who still further are the going ones; ” i.e., those who wish to go? Moses required the whole nation to depart, without regard to age or sex, along with all their flocks and herds. He mentioned “ young and old, sons and daughters; ” the wives as belonging to the men being included in the “ we .” Although he assigned a reason for this demand, viz., that they were to hold a feast to Jehovah, Pharaoh was so indignant, that he answered scornfully at first: “ Be it so; Jehovah be with you when I let you and your little ones go; ” i.e., may Jehovah help you in the same way in which I let you and your little ones go. This indicated contempt not only for Moses and Aaron, but also for Jehovah, who had nevertheless proved Himself, by His manifestations of mighty power, to be a God who would not suffer Himself to be trifled with. After this utterance of his ill-will, Pharaoh told the messengers of God that he could see through their intention. “ Evil is before your face; ” i.e., you have evil in view. He called their purpose an evil one, because they wanted to withdraw the people from his service. “ Not so, ” i.e., let it not be as you desire. “ Go then, you men, and serve Jehovah .” But even this concession was not seriously meant. This is evident from the expression, “ Go then, ” in which the irony is unmistakeable; and still more so from the fact, that with these words he broke off all negotiation with Moses and Aaron, and drove them from his presence. ויגרשׁ : “ one drove them forth; ” the subject is not expressed, because it is clear enough that the royal servants who were present were the persons who drove them away. “ For this are ye seeking: ” אתהּ relates simply to the words “serve Jehovah,” by which the king understood the sacrificial festival, for which in his opinion only the men could be wanted; not that “he supposed the people for whom Moses had asked permission to go, to mean only the men” ( Knobel ). The restriction of the permission to depart to the men alone was pure caprice; for even the Egyptians, according to Herodotus (2, 60), held religious festivals at which the women were in the habit of accompanying the men.
After His messengers had been thus scornfully treated, Jehovah directed Moses to bring the threatened plague upon the land. “ Stretch out thy hand over the land of Egypt with locusts; ” i.e., so that the locusts may come. עלה , to go up: the word used for a hostile invasion. The locusts are represented as an army, as in Joel 1:6. Locusts were not an unknown scourge in Egypt; and in the case before us they were brought, as usual, by the wind. The marvellous character of the phenomenon was, that when Moses stretched out his hand over Egypt with the staff, Jehovah caused an east wind to blow over the land, which blew a day and a night, and the next morning brought the locusts (“ brought: ” inasmuch as the swarms of locusts are really brought by the wind).
Exodus 10:13-14
“ An east wind: not νότος (lxx), the south wind, as Bochart supposed. Although the swarms of locusts are generally brought into Egypt from Libya or Ethiopia, and therefore by a south or south-west wind, they are sometimes brought by the east wind from Arabia, as Denon and others have observed (Hgstb. p. 120). The fact that the wind blew a day and a night before bringing the locusts, showed that they came from a great distance, and therefore proved to the Egyptians that the omnipotence of Jehovah reached far beyond the borders of Egypt, and ruled over every land. Another miraculous feature in this plague was its unparalleled extent, viz., over the whole of the land of Egypt, whereas ordinary swarms are confined to particular districts. In this respect the judgment had no equal either before or afterwards (Exodus 10:14). The words, “ Before them there were no such locusts as they, neither after them shall be such, ” must not be diluted into “a hyperbolical and proverbial saying, implying that there was no recollection of such noxious locusts,” as it is by Rosenmüller . This passage is not at variance with Joel 2:2, for the former relates to Egypt, the latter to the land of Israel; and Joel's description unquestionably refers to the account before us, the meaning being, that quite as terrible a judgment would fall upon Judah and Israel as had formerly been inflicted upon Egypt and the obdurate Pharaoh. In its dreadful character, this Egyptian plague is a type of the plagues which will precede the last judgment, and forms the groundwork for the description in Revelation 9:3-10; just as Joel discerned in the plagues which burst upon Judah in his own day a presage of the day of the Lord (Joel 1:15; Joel 2:1), i.e., of the great day of judgment, which is advancing step by step in all the great judgments of history or rather of the conflict between the kingdom of God and the powers of this world, and will be finally accomplished in the last general judgment.
Exodus 10:15
The darkening of the land, and the eating up of all the green plants by swarms of locusts, have been described by many eye-witnesses of such plagues. “ Locustarum plerumque tanta conspicitur in Africa frequentia, ut volantes instar nebulae solis radios operiant ” ( Leo Afric ). “ Solemque obumbrant ” ( Pliny , h. n. ii. 29).
This plague, which even Pliny calls Deorum irae pestis , so terrified Pharaoh, that he sent for Moses and Aaron in haste, confessed his sin against Jehovah and them, and entreated them but this once more to procure, through their intercession with Jehovah their God, the forgiveness of his sin and the removal of “ this death .” He called the locusts death , as bringing death and destruction, and ruining the country. Mors etiam agrorum est et herbarum atque arborum , as Bochart observes with references to Genesis 47:19; Job 14:8; Psalms 78:46.
To show the hardened king the greatness of the divine long-suffering, Moses prayed to the Lord, and the Lord cast the locusts into the Red Sea by a strong west wind. The expression “Jehovah turned a very strong west wind” is a concise form, for “Jehovah turned the wind into a very strong west wind.” The fact that locusts do perish in the sea is attested by many authorities. Gregatim sublatae vento in maria aut stagna decidunt ( Pliny ); many others are given by Bochart and Volney . ויּתקעהוּ : He thrust them, i.e., drove them with irresistible force, into the Red Sea. The Red Sea is called סוּף ים , according to the ordinary supposition, on account of the quantity of sea-weed which floats upon the water and lies upon the shore; but Knobel traces the name to a town which formerly stood at the head of the gulf, and derived its name from the weed, and supports his opinion by the omission of the article before Suph , though without being able to prove that any such town really existed in the earlier times of the Pharaohs.
Ninth plague: The Darkness. - As Pharaoh's defiant spirit was not broken yet, a continuous darkness came over all the land of Egypt, with the exception of Goshen, without any previous announcement, and came in such force that the darkness could be felt. חשׁך וימשׁ : “ and one shall feel, grasp darkness .” המשׁ : as in Psalms 115:7; Judges 16:26, ψηλαφητὸν σκότος (lxx); not “feel in the dark,” for משׁשׁ has this meaning only in the Piel with בּ (Deuteronomy 28:29). אפלה חשׁך : darkness of obscurity, i.e., the deepest darkness. The combination of two words or synonyms gives the greatest intensity to the thought. The darkness was so great that they could not see one another, and no one rose up from his place. The Israelites alone “ had light in their dwelling-places .” The reference here is not to the houses; so that we must not infer that the Egyptians were unable to kindle any lights even in their houses. The cause of this darkness is not given in the text; but the analogy of the other plagues, which had all of them a natural basis, warrants us in assuming, as most commentators have done, that there was the same here - that it was in fact the Chamsin, to which the lxx evidently allude in their rendering: σκότος καὶ γνόφος καὶ θύελλα . This wind, which generally blows in Egypt before and after the vernal equinox and lasts two or three days, usually rises very suddenly, and fills the air with such a quantity of fine dust and coarse sand, that the sun loses its brightness, the sky is covered with a dense veil, and it becomes so dark that “the obscurity cause by the thickest fog in our autumn and winter days is nothing in comparison” ( Schubert ). Both men and animals hide themselves from this storm; and the inhabitants of the towns and villages shut themselves up in the innermost rooms and cellars of their houses till it is over, for the dust penetrates even through well-closed windows. For fuller accounts taken from travels, see Hengstenberg (pp. 120ff.) and Robinson 's Palestine i. pp. 287-289. Seetzen attributes the rising of the dust to a quantity of electrical fluid contained in the air. - The fact that in this case the darkness alone is mentioned, may have arisen from its symbolical importance. “The darkness which covered the Egyptians, and the light which shone upon the Israelites, were types of the wrath and grace of God” (Hengstenberg). This occurrence, in which, according to Arabian chroniclers of the middle ages, the nations discerned a foreboding of the day of judgment or of the resurrection, filled the king with such alarm that he sent for Moses, and told him he would let the people and their children go, but the cattle must be left behind. יצּג : sistatur , let it be placed, deposited in certain places under the guard of Egyptians, as a pledge of your return. Maneat in pignus, quod reversuri sitis , as Chaskuni correctly paraphrases it. But Moses insisted upon the cattle being taken for the sake of their sacrifices and burnt-offerings. “ Not a hoof shall be left behind .” This was a proverbial expression for “not the smallest fraction.” Bochart gives instances of a similar introduction of the “hoof” into proverbial sayings by both Arabians and Romans (Hieroz. i. p. 490). This firmness on the part of Moses he defended by saying, “ We know not with what we shall serve the Lord, till we come thither; ” i.e., we know not yet what kind of animals or how many we shall require for the sacrifices; our God will not make this known to us till we arrive at the place of sacrifice. עבד with a double accusative as in Genesis 30:29; to serve any one with a thing.
At this demand, Pharaoh, with the hardness suspended over him by God, fell into such wrath, that he sent Moses away, and threatened him with death, if he ever appeared in his presence again. “ See my face, ” as in Genesis 43:3. Moses answered, “ Thou hast spoken rightly .” For as God had already told him that the last blow would be followed by the immediate release of the people, there was no further necessity for him to appear before Pharaoh.