Exodus 10:12

And the LORD said unto Moses, Stretch out thine hand over the land of Egypt for the locusts, that they may come up upon the land of Egypt, and eat every herb of the land, even all that the hail hath left.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

10:12-20 God bids Moses stretch out his hand; locusts came at the call. An army might more easily have been resisted than this host of insects. Who then is able to stand before the great God? They covered the face of the earth, and ate up the fruit of it. Herbs grow for the service of man; yet when God pleases, insects shall plunder him, and eat the bread out of his mouth. Let our labour be, not for the habitation and meat thus exposed, but for those which endure to eternal life. Pharaoh employs Moses and Aaron to pray for him. There are those, who, in distress, seek the help of other people's prayers, but have no mind to pray for themselves. They show thereby that they have no true love to God, nor any delight in communion with him. Pharaoh desires only that this death might be taken away, not this sin. He wishes to get rid of the plague of locusts, not the plague of a hard heart, which was more dangerous. An east wind brought the locusts, a west wind carries them off. Whatever point the wind is in, it is fulfilling God's word, and turns by his counsel. The wind bloweth where it listeth, as to us; but not so as it respects God. It was also an argument for their repentance; for by this it appeared that God is ready to forgive, and swift to show mercy. If he does this upon the outward tokens of humiliation, what will he do if we are sincere! Oh that this goodness of God might lead us to repentance! Pharaoh returned to his resolution again, not to let the people go. Those who have often baffled their convictions, are justly given up to the lusts of their hearts.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Evil is before you - i. e. "your intentions are evil." Great as the possible infliction might be, Pharaoh held it to be a less evil than the loss of so large a population.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

11. they were driven out from Pharaoh's presence—In the East, when a person of authority and rank feels annoyed by a petition which he is unwilling to grant, he makes a signal to his attendants, who rush forward and, seizing the obnoxious suppliant by the neck, drag him out of the chamber with violent haste. Of such a character was the impassioned scene in the court of Egypt when the king had wrought himself into such a fit of uncontrollable fury as to treat ignominiously the two venerable representatives of the Hebrew people.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

This is no unusual plague in Africa and Arabia, where, when the harvest is ripe, they frequently come in vast numbers, and upon all their corn, and what they do not eat they infect with their touch, and the moisture coming from them, and afterwards dying in great numbers, they poison the air, and cause a pestilence. So that it is no wonder that Pharaoh and his servants were so concerned for this plague, so well known to them, especially considering that this was like to be far worse than all of the same kind which they had either seen or heard of.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And the Lord said unto Moses, stretch out thine hand over the land of Egypt,.... First one way, and then another, towards every quarter, and every part of the land, to signify that the following plague would come upon the whole land:

for the locusts, that they may come up upon the land of Egypt; the stretching out of his hand was to be the signal to them to come up and spread themselves over the land, which was brought about by the mighty power of God; for otherwise there was no such virtue in the hand or rod of Moses, to have produced so strange an event:

and eat every herb of the land, even all that the hail hath left; the wheat and the rye, or rice, the grass, herbs, and plants, it had beat down, but not utterly destroyed, as well as some boughs and branches of trees which were left unbroken by it.

Geneva Study Bible

And the LORD said unto Moses, Stretch out thine hand over the land of Egypt for the locusts, that they may come up upon the land of Egypt, and eat every herb of the land, even all that the hail hath left.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

12, 13a (E). The locusts are brought at the signal given by Moses with his rod. Cf. Exodus 9:22-23 a, with the note.

12. (even) all that, &c.] LXX. Sam. read, and all the fruit of the trees that, &c., perhaps rightly: cf. v. 15, and Exodus 9:25 end.

13b (J). The sequel of v. 11 in J: cf. Exodus 9:23 b, similarly after an insertion from E.

brought (first time)] led (Exodus 3:1), or brought along,—the word used in Psalm 78:26 b of the wind which brought the quails.

an east wind] so Psalm 78:26 a, for which the parallel clause has the south wind. The word does in fact include winds at least from the SE. The ‘east wind’ commonly denotes the violent and scorching sirocco (from Arab. sherḳîyeh, ‘eastern’), often described as ‘drying up’ vegetation, &c. (Ezekiel 17:10; Ezekiel 19:12, Hosea 13:15); hence the Vulg. here has ‘ventus urens.’ ‘That the wind brings locusts is stated by ancient and modern authorities alike, e.g. Agatharc. p. 42, Strabo, 16. p. 772, Diod. Sic. iii. 28, Shaw, Travels (1738), p. 256’ Kn.).

brought (second time)] more exactly, bore along; cf. 1 Kings 18:12 (‘carried’). For the construction of the Heb., cf. Genesis 19:23; Genesis 44:3; and see G.-K.§ 164b, or the writer’s Heb. Tenses, §§ 167–9.

Exodus 10:12

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

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).