Some versions change chapters four verses earlier, with 7:26-29 becoming 8:1-4, and the remaining verses of chapter 8 therefore pushed forward. I have included all four verses in both places - with the same commentary - so that students are able to follow the text by either route.
7:26 VA YOMER YHVH EL MOSHEH BO EL PAR'OH VE AMARTA ELAV KOH AMAR YHVH SHALACH ET AMI VE YA'AVDUNI
וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֶל מֹשֶׁה בֹּא אֶל פַּרְעֹה וְאָמַרְתָּ אֵלָיו כֹּה אָמַר יְהוָה שַׁלַּח אֶת עַמִּי וְיַעַבְדֻנִי
KJ (8:1): And the LORD spake unto Moses, Go unto Pharaoh, and say unto him, Thus saith the LORD, Let my people go, that they may serve me.
VA YOMER: Not VA YEDABER on this occasion. "To say" rather than "to speak".
SHALACH: He doesn't actually say "Let my people go", though that has become a nice piece of folk-lore based on a poetical mistranslation. He instructs Pharaoh to send them; which is not the same.
VA YA'AVDUNI: So many times I have raised the question as to whether or not the Beney Yisra-El were actually slaves, or something different, and this verse becomes a key occasion in the debate. YHVH does not say "that they may serve me", though that is the standard translation of VE YA'AVDUNI; rather he says "and they will worship me"; but the verb in question is nonetheless the same one as for "slavery" - LA'AVOD (לעבוד); and in synagogue to this day, the service of worship is still called AVODAH.
Pharaoh's refusal is of course necessary. YHVH, or Ra, or Re, is Creating the world, week by week, measure by measure. Pharaoh cannot send his people (yes, his people) to worship their and his god, until the full process of Creation is complete, and this, its accompanying liturgy and dramatic representation. Just as Av-Raham demanded the sparing of the Cities of the Plain, so Pharaoh here: unspoken inside the liturgy is the response: "finish Creation and then they can go and worship you. Not before." The hardening of Pharaoh's heart is simply his stubborn insistence on the fullness of Creation; and this is the ultimate and legitimate task of the sacred king in any fertility cult.
Pharaoh's refusal is of course necessary. YHVH, or Ra, or Re, is Creating the world, week by week, measure by measure. Pharaoh cannot send his people (yes, his people) to worship their and his god, until the full process of Creation is complete, and this, its accompanying liturgy and dramatic representation. Just as Av-Raham demanded the sparing of the Cities of the Plain, so Pharaoh here: unspoken inside the liturgy is the response: "finish Creation and then they can go and worship you. Not before." The hardening of Pharaoh's heart is simply his stubborn insistence on the fullness of Creation; and this is the ultimate and legitimate task of the sacred king in any fertility cult.
7:27 VE IM MA'EN ATAH LESHALE'ACH HINEH ANOCHI NOGEPH ET KOL GEVULCHA BA TSEPHARD'IYM
וְאִם מָאֵן אַתָּה לְשַׁלֵּחַ הִנֵּה אָנֹכִי נֹגֵף אֶת כָּל גְּבוּלְךָ בַּצְפַרְדְּעִים
KJ (8:2): And if thou refuse to let them go, behold, I will smite all thy borders with frogs:
Frogs? The most primoridal of all creatures, inhabitants equally or earth and land, producers of those serpent-like creatures the tadpoles, and when you see your first tadpoles in the seemingly deadwater of you local pond, you know you have your first physical sign that spring is blooming...
The man I met at the Living Torah museum in Brooklyn makes a case for these, rather than the Tanin earlier, being crocodiles. But the text here gives TSEPHARDIM (צְפַרְדְּעִים), which is unquestionably frogs. To the Egyptians, the frog was a symbol of life and fertility, since millions of them were born after the annual inundation of the Nile, which brought fertility to the otherwise barren lands. The fertility goddess Heqet (Heket, Heqet) was usually depicted as a frog, or as a woman with a frog's head, and sometimes as a frog on the end of a phallus. The Ogdoad (Greek "ογδοάς" = the eightfold) were eight deities worshipped in Khmunu (Hermopolis) during the Old Kingdom, the 3rd through 6th dynasties, between 2686 BCE and 2134 BCE; she was one of them. Hat-Hor and Ra headed this pantheon, with Ra later replaced by Thoth; at the time of Akhenaten, Ra became Atum-Ra; this pantheon was still in place at the time of the Mosheh story.
In the original liturgy, then, it is not so much a plague of frogs, as the appearance of Heqet alongside Ra in the process of Creation. The serpent has been sliced in two, its blood has provided a source for life, Set has retreated, and now life itself begins to emerge from the waters of Creation; in the Genesis version "creeping things" (Ha Remeset - הרמשת) replace the frogs (for which see also Genesis 1:21).
But they are also more than frogs, and more than just Heqet. In the Ogdoad, the eight deities were arranged in four female-male pairs, the females associated with snakes and the males with frogs: Naunet and Nu, Amaunet and Amun, Kauket and Kuk, Hauhet and Huh. Apart from their gender, there was little to distinguish the female goddess from the male god in a pair; indeed, the names of the females are merely the female forms of the male name and vice versa (as Yehudah and Yehudit, as Dan and Dinah among the Beney Yisra-El; as male Theodor becomes female Dorothea in the Greek). Essentially, each pair represents the female and male aspect of one of four concepts, namely the primordial waters (Naunet and Nu), air or invisibility (Amunet and Amun), darkness (Kauket and Kuk), and eternity or infinite space (Hauhet and Huh). Together the four concepts represent the primal, fundamental state of the beginning; they are what always was. In the myth, however, their interaction ultimately proved to be unbalanced, resulting in the arising of a new entity. When the entity opened, it revealed Ra, the fiery sun, inside. After a long interval of rest, Ra, together with the other deities, created all other things.
We actually know some of the prayers and sacrificial acts that were made to the eight gods - or to the nine, the Ennead, when Re/Ra was later included as the father of the eight. For example:
"Praise to thee, O Nile, that issues from the earth and comes to nourish Egypt... that waters the meadows, he that Ra has created to nourish all cattle... that gives drink to the desert places, which are far from water... when the Nile floods, offering is made to you, cattle are slaughtered for you, a great oblation is made for you... offering is also made to every other god, even as is done for the Nile, with incense, oxen, cattle, and birds upon the flame. All you men, extol the Nine Gods, and stand in awe of the might which his son, the Lord of All, has displayed, even he who makes green the Two Riverbanks. You are verdant, 0 Nile, you are verdant. He who makes Man to live on this cattle, and his cattle on the meadow ..." (see Adolph Erman, "The Ancient Egyptians", 1966, p. 146.)
7:28 VE SHARATS HA YE'OR TSEPHARD'IM VE ALU U VA'U BE VEYTECHA U VA CHADAR MISHKAVECHA VE AL MITATECHA U VE VEYT AVADEYCHA U VE AMECHA U VE TANUREYCHA U VE MISH'AROTEYCHA
וְשָׁרַץ הַיְאֹר צְפַרְדְּעִים וְעָלוּ וּבָאוּ בְּבֵיתֶךָ וּבַחֲדַר מִשְׁכָּבְךָ וְעַל מִטָּתֶךָ וּבְבֵית עֲבָדֶיךָ וּבְעַמֶּךָ וּבְתַנּוּרֶיךָ וּבְמִשְׁאֲרוֹתֶיךָ
KJ (8:3): And the river shall bring forth frogs abundantly, which shall go up and come into thine house, and into thy bedchamber, and upon thy bed, and into the house of thy servants, and upon thy people, and into thine ovens, and into thy kneadingtroughs:
Which, of course, is unpleasant, but an expected nuisance, like red ants in October in Florida, and mosquitoes in the wet season in Brazil, and late buses in suburban London throughout the year; and in fact, given the nature of the religion, the people would have rejoiced to be told this, because it meant that the fertility gods were favourable to them, and the Nile was going to flood again next year, and bring them good crops and a rich harvest - a harvest, indeed, whose year would begin at the Passover, when eventually they are allowed to go to the holy mountain and celebrate it.
Why are some of these rendered as ECHA but others as EYCHA?
7:29 U VECHA U VE AMCHA U VE CHOL AVADEYCHA YA'ALU HA TSEPHARD'IYM
וּבְכָה וּבְעַמְּךָ וּבְכָל עֲבָדֶיךָ יַעֲלוּ הַצְפַרְדְּעִים
KJ 8:4: And the frogs shall come up both on thee, and upon thy people, and upon all thy servants.
Yes, and your wonderfully cultivated garden will also be filled with weeds and nettles and unwanted wildflowers, and plagues of birds will nest in your trees and leave their droppings on your patio, and bees will swarm just where your children are playing in the paddling-pool, and squirrels will breakfast on your tulip bulbs, and foxes will browse your garbage-bins, and, and ...
This verse appears to be a repetition, though liturgy often does that; yay, indeed, liturgy often does that, for dramatic effect.
וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֶל מֹשֶׁה אֱמֹר אֶל אַהֲרֹן נְטֵה אֶת יָדְךָ בְּמַטֶּךָ עַל הַנְּהָרֹת עַל הַיְאֹרִים וְעַל הָאֲגַמִּים וְהַעַל אֶת הַצְפַרְדְּעִים עַל אֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם
KJ (King James translation, 8:5) And the LORD spake
unto Moses, Say unto Aaron, Stretch forth thine hand with thy rod over the
streams, over the rivers, and over the ponds, and cause frogs to come up upon
the land of Egypt.
We feel that we have already had this event, in the last four verses of the previous chapter. But no, there YHVH announced his intention to do it ("Let there be"), but now the intention is being carried out ("and there was"). As in the Genesis tale, there has to be essence (LEHIYOT = "to be", whence YHVH, the metaphorical deity who is the Cosmic E) before there can be existence (LECHIYOT = "to exist", the goddess CHAVAH, the EM KOL CHAI, the "Mother of All Living Things", who is the bearer of the MC²).
I have not retranslated this into an Egyptian mythology vesion; see my previous notes on rivers, canals and pools in Exodus 7, for a fuller explanation of what such a translation might have been.
8:2 VA YET AHARON ET YADO AL MEYMEY MITSRAYIM VA TA'AL HA TSEPHARDE'A, VA TECHAS ET ERETS MITSRAYIM
וַיֵּט אַהֲרֹן אֶת יָדוֹ עַל מֵימֵי מִצְרָיִם וַתַּעַל הַצְּפַרְדֵּעַ וַתְּכַס אֶת אֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם
KJ (8:6) And Aaron stretched
out his hand over the waters of Egypt; and the frogs came up, and covered the
land of Egypt.
Note that it is Aharon here, but will be Mosheh later.
The three stages of the Egyptian flood cycle were Akhet, the time of the Nile flood, Peret, the sowing time, and Shemu, the time of harvest. The flood cycle was so predictable that the Egyptians even based their ancient calendar on it - and not at all where we of the upper latitudes in Britain or North America would expect it, because Egypt is just 29 degrees north of the Tropic of Cancer (click here), and therefore different. Akhet was the first season of the year, between the months of June and September. Peret, or the Egyptian Autumn season, marked the time when their crops grew in the fields and were harvested, running from October to mid-February. Shemu was the third and last season of the Egyptian year which ran from mid-February until the end of May; it essentially signalled the spring season of the Egyptian calendar - the 70 or 72-day period which the tale of the Plagues is describing (seemynotes at Exodus 7:25). So Passover represents the point at which the Egyptians have ended the previous cycle and are making preparations for the next cycle; including, presumably, the story of the waters of the Sea of Reeds after the Exodus.
8:3 VA YA'ASU CHEN HA CHARTUMIM BE LATEYHEM VA YA'ALU ET HA TSEPHARD'IYM AL ERETS MITSRAYIM
וַיַּעֲשׂוּ כֵן הַחַרְטֻמִּים בְּלָטֵיהֶם וַיַּעֲלוּ אֶת הַצְפַרְדְּעִים עַל אֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם
KJ (8:7) And the magicians did
so with their enchantments, and brought up frogs upon the land of Egypt.
See notes to verses 11 and 22 in the previous chapter.
8:4 VA YIKRA PHAR'OH LE MOSHEH U LE AHARON VA YOMER HA'TIYRU EL YHVH VA YASER HA TSEPHARD'IYM MIMENI U ME AMI VA ASHALCHA ET HA AM VE YIZBECHU LA YHVH
וַיִּקְרָא פַרְעֹה לְמֹשֶׁה וּלְאַהֲרֹן וַיֹּאמֶר הַעְתִּירוּ אֶל יְהוָה וְיָסֵר הַצְפַרְדְּעִים מִמֶּנִּי וּמֵעַמִּי וַאֲשַׁלְּחָה אֶת הָעָם וְיִזְבְּחוּ לַיהוָה
KJ (8:8) Then Pharaoh called
for Moses and Aaron, and said, Intreat the LORD, that he may take away the
frogs from me, and from my people; and I will let the people go, that they may
do sacrifice unto the LORD.
This is nonsensical. If the Egyptian shamen can perform the same trick, as we have just been told they could, then they can also unperform it; so Pharaoh would not be impressed anyway, and would not need to ask YHVH to take it away. "Frogs? Yeah, my guys can do that too. No big deal. Hey guys, get rid of them."
Therefore read Ra (or Re, the two are interchangeable) for YHVH. This is liturgical again. Where Elohim determines the order of Creation, there is a sense of human involvement in the Egyptian version. Pharaoh is not asking for the frogs to be taken away so much as providing the cue-line for the next phase of the fulfillment of Creation.
And again register that the goal is a ceremony of sacrifice at the sacred mountain three days away, and not flight into Kena'an (see verse 23)
HA'TIYRU: Translated as "entreaty" or "ask", but this is not correct. The root is ATAR (עתר), which does indeed mean "pray", but in a very specific form: to make the incense libation. The root is connected to the concept of "abundance", which is to say the gift given by a fertility god or goddess. What Pharaoh is asking of his priests is that they perform the next phase of the liturgy, the burning of incense on the altar.
8:5 VA YOMER MOSHEH LE PHAR'OH HITPA'ER ALAI LE MATAI A'TIR LECHA VE LA AVADECHA U LE AMCHA LEHACHRIT HA TSEPHARD'IYM MIMCHA U MI BATEYCHA RAK BE YE'OR TISHA'ARNAH
וַיֹּאמֶר מֹשֶׁה לְפַרְעֹה הִתְפָּאֵר עָלַי לְמָתַי אַעְתִּיר לְךָ וְלַעֲבָדֶיךָ וּלְעַמְּךָ לְהַכְרִית הַצְפַרְדְּעִים מִמְּךָ וּמִבָּתֶּיךָ רַק בַּיְאֹר תִּשָּׁאַרְנָה
KJ (8:9) And Moses said unto
Pharaoh, Glory over me: when shall I intreat for thee, and for thy servants,
and for thy people, to destroy the frogs from thee and thy houses, that they may
remain in the river only?
HITPA'ER: What does this "glory over me" even mean? "I leave to you the honour of setting the time" is a better translation. Rashi prefers "Boast of your superiority over me [if you will]", which I like, if only because it conveys the tone to perfection - and it is not one of deep respect and humility before majestic Pharaoh.
The root of HITPA'ER, which is here in the reflexive form (HITPA'EL) is PA'AR (פאר) = "to be beautiful" and usually in the sense of wearing ornamentation. Isaiah 60:7 and 13 use it in the Pa'al form for adorning the sanctuary, but in the reflexive Isaiah 60:21 uses it to mean "adorned" or "honoured" and 44:23 and 49:3 for god adorning his people by bestowing favours on them. All of these lead towards the offered translations, but don't explain them. PE'ER (פאר), from the same root, is a head-adornment, either a tiara or a turban, used in Ezekiel 24:17 and in Exodus 39:28 for the priestly head-dress. Isaiah 61:10 uses it for a bridal veil, and Ezekiel 24:17 does the same. I think the true sense here is Mosheh responding to Pharaoh's request for incense-supplication by requiring the priestly robes. There is then a dramatic pause in the liturgy while he is dressed; and then he offers the liturgical phrase "LE MATAI..." which has been explained above: "how long, god, must we wait for you to complete Creation, so that we may go and make sacrifice of thanksgiving to you for the 'abundance' you have bestowed on us?" All of which works fine as Egyptian liturgy, but remains entirely meaningless as Beney Yisra-El history.
8:6 VA YOMER LE MACHAR VA YOMER KID'VARCHA LEMA'AN TEDA KI EYN KA YHVH ELOHEYNU
וַיֹּאמֶר לְמָחָר וַיֹּאמֶר כִּדְבָרְךָ לְמַעַן תֵּדַע כִּי אֵין כַּיהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ
KJ (8:10) And he said, To
morrow. And he said, Be it according
to thy word: that thou mayest know that there
is none like unto the LORD our God.
MACHAR: We begin to have a sense of preparation for the formalities of the New Year rituals, on a daily basis, during the preceding weeks; a pre-Jewish equivalent, one might say, of the month of Elul, which is used as daily preparation through "selichot", for the autumn equivalent of New Year in the modern Jewish world: Rosh haShana and Yom Kippur.
8:7 VE SARU HA TSEPHARD'IYM MIMCHA U MI BATEYCHA U ME AVADEYCHA U ME AMCHA RAK BE YE'OR TISHA'ARNAH
וְסָרוּ הַצְפַרְדְּעִים מִמְּךָ וּמִבָּתֶּיךָ וּמֵעֲבָדֶיךָ וּמֵעַמֶּךָ רַק בַּיְאֹר תִּשָּׁאַרְנָה
KJ (8:11) And the frogs shall
depart from thee, and from thy houses, and from thy servants, and from thy
people; they shall remain in the river only.
The language too infers something non-literal. How do frogs depart from people?
AVADECHA: Yet again we should be translating AVADECHA as "worshippers". The sense of the verse is responsa: the sacred-king calls, the priest leads the response.
8:8 VA YETSE MOSHEH VE AHARON ME IM PAR'OH VA YITS'AK MOSHEH EL YHVH AL DEVAR HA TSEPHARD'IYM ASHER SAM LE PHAR'OH
וַיֵּצֵא מֹשֶׁה וְאַהֲרֹן מֵעִם פַּרְעֹה וַיִּצְעַק מֹשֶׁה אֶל יְהוָה עַל דְּבַר הַצְפַרְדְּעִים אֲשֶׁר שָׂם לְפַרְעֹה
KJ (8:12) And Moses and Aaron
went out from Pharaoh: and Moses cried unto the LORD because of the frogs which
he had brought against Pharaoh.
How does a man "cry to the Lord" except through the act of prayer. Dressed now in the priestly head-dress he requested (I will return to this when he comes down from Sinai, his head wrapped in "horns of light", later on) and having performed the incense ceremony in front of Pharaoh, he now leaves his presence to pray. Where does he go? Into the inner sanctum of course, the Egyptian equivalent of the Holy of Holies, where the statue of the god would have been placed. The only trouble with this is the interchanging roles of Mosheh and Aharon. It may be that we have two versions, in one of which Aharon is being esteemed as the priestly actor, the other Mosheh: one Midyanite perhaps, the other Beney Yisra-Eli? In reality, they are Egyptians performing a ceremony for Egyptians, with the full cooperation of their sacred-king the Pharaoh.
8:9 VA YA'AS YHVH KI DEVAR MOSHEH VA YAMUTU HA TSEPHARD'IM MIN HA BATIM MIN HA CHATSEROT U MIN HA SADOT
וַיַּעַשׂ יְהוָה כִּדְבַר מֹשֶׁה וַיָּמֻתוּ הַצְפַרְדְּעִים מִן הַבָּתִּים מִן הַחֲצֵרֹת וּמִן הַשָּׂדֹת
KJ (8:13) And the LORD did
according to the word of Moses; and the frogs died out of the houses, out of
the villages, and out of the fields.
But did they also die in all the other places mentioned before? Odd to change the vocabulary in this way.
The signs of spring are all ephemeral: we know it is spring from the blossom on the trees, but it only lasts a few days; we know from the white magnolia leaves, but they are gone in a day. Caterpillars, but no sooner are they munching the brassica than they have turned into butterflies. So perhaps the man from the New York museum (wee verse 27, above) wasn't entirely wrong; perhaps the TSEPHARD'IM aren't the frogs so much as the tadpoles.
8:10 VA YITSBERU OTAM CHAMARIM VA TIV'ASH HA ARETS
וַיִּצְבְּרוּ אֹתָם חֳמָרִם חֳמָרִם וַתִּבְאַשׁ הָאָרֶץ
KJ (8:14) And they gathered them
together upon heaps: and the land stank.
CHAMARIM: And how odd that this should be the same word that was used to descibe the slavery at Exodus 1:14; convenient though, when Pharaoh tells them to make sure they meet their daily work-quota, that so much "mortar" should be so readily available. They built the Tower of the Babel with the same material in Genesis 11:3.
Hell, the Underworld, to the ancients, was not the place where the Devil lived, but the place where Winter lived, the route the dead sun took every night in order to get back to the eastern horizon and be reborn, the place where all of Life went to biodegrade back into compost and nurture the new life of the new year. That is why the fertility goddesses of every culture spend the winter months down there, Persephone, Inanna...
8:11 VA YAR PAR'OH KI HAYETAH HARVACHAH VE HACHBED ET LIBO VE LO SHAMA ALEHEM KA ASHER DIBER YHVH
וַיַּרְא פַּרְעֹה כִּי הָיְתָה הָרְוָחָה וְהַכְבֵּד אֶת לִבּוֹ וְלֹא שָׁמַע אֲלֵהֶם כַּאֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר יְהוָה
KJ (8:15) But when Pharaoh saw
that there was respite, he hardened his heart, and hearkened not unto them; as
the LORD had said.
One would have thought that Mosheh and Aharon would have anticipated this, given that this is not the first time, and that YHVH has told them that he intends to do this. But of course, it is part of the ritual, as we now understand.
8:12 VA YOMER YHVH EL MOSHEH EMOR EL AHARON NETEH ET MAT'CHA VE HACH ET APHAR HA ARETS VE HAYAH LE CHINIM BE CHOL ERETS MITSRAYIM
וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֶל מֹשֶׁה אֱמֹר אֶל אַהֲרֹן נְטֵה אֶת מַטְּךָ וְהַךְ אֶת עֲפַר הָאָרֶץ וְהָיָה לְכִנִּם בְּכָל אֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם
KJ (8:16): And the LORD said unto
Moses, Say unto Aaron, Stretch out thy rod, and smite the dust of the land,
that it may become lice throughout all the land of Egypt.
CHINIM: KINIM really, but the prefix softens the Kaf to Chaf.
And were they lice, or gnats? There was neither a lice nor a gnat-god in Mitsrayim, in the way that the Kena'anim and Phoinikim had their Lord of the Flies, Ba'al Zevuv (see verse 17), but there were djinns, or Jinnī - evil spirits from which we sprang our word "genie" out of Aladdin's Lamp, and we know that all across north Africa houses are painted blue, because blue appears to be a prophylactic against certain insects, in particular the mosquito. Indeed, in much Egyptian literature, past and recent, the djinn is depicted as a mosquito, or a gnat, and we are told that the djinni "were numerous as gnats upon the evening beam" (click here to find out who said that, and enjoy the name of the website which I could not resist choosing). The evening beam meaning the sunset.
Many translations prefer "lice" to "gnats", and they may well be correct. In modern Ivrit a gnat is a YATUSH (יַתוּשׁ), but so also are the mosquito and the midge, and there is also the generic TOPHSANIM, for practically any kind of biting insect. Chabad translates KINIM as "bugs", which is a very modern American term, but just as likely to be accurate. The British Library has a page on this, but alas they only manage five plagues, and this is one of the five left out; their piece is there because they have some beautiful old haggadahs in their collection - the haggadah being the book used at Jewish family Passover dinners, and worth mentioning because, note this, there is absolutely no mention of Mosheh anywhere in the entire story! Anyway, gnats, lice or bugs, the point is nasty biting things; but not vampires.
Many translations prefer "lice" to "gnats", and they may well be correct. In modern Ivrit a gnat is a YATUSH (יַתוּשׁ), but so also are the mosquito and the midge, and there is also the generic TOPHSANIM, for practically any kind of biting insect. Chabad translates KINIM as "bugs", which is a very modern American term, but just as likely to be accurate. The British Library has a page on this, but alas they only manage five plagues, and this is one of the five left out; their piece is there because they have some beautiful old haggadahs in their collection - the haggadah being the book used at Jewish family Passover dinners, and worth mentioning because, note this, there is absolutely no mention of Mosheh anywhere in the entire story! Anyway, gnats, lice or bugs, the point is nasty biting things; but not vampires.
In the order of Creation that we are trying to establish, we can now see the creation of the lesser gods, or spirits, which the later Beney Yisra-El knew as the Lilim, and who are still present in our culture on the night of Halloween - or Samhain as it should be called - despite Christianity's attempt to transform it from the nght of the bugs that lived in the corn-fields and are now flying around because the fields have been stubbled, into the silly fantasy that all the saints have come out on their quidditch broomsticks for a game of trick-or-treat with Alice in Wonderland.
Geb was the Egyptian god who ruled over the dust, and we know he was worshipped at Egyptian colony-shrines in Yisra-El, because three of these - Gev'a, Givah and Giv-Yah - figure large in the stories of Sha'ul (Saul).
HACH: A very ancient root by all accounts is NACHAH, and an odd one too, because the opening Nun gets dropped and it becomes HACH, though we would expect it to be NACH. Similarly the infinitive is LEHAKOT, as in Genesis 4:15 and 8:21.
8:13 VA YA'ASU CHEN VA YET AHARON ET YADO VE MAT'EHU VA YACH ET APHAR HA ARETS VA TEHI HA KINAM BA ADAM U VA BEHEMAH KOL APHAR HA ARETS HAYAH CHINIM BE CHOL ERETS MITSRAYIM
וַיַּעֲשׂוּ כֵן וַיֵּט אַהֲרֹן אֶת יָדוֹ בְמַטֵּהוּ וַיַּךְ אֶת עֲפַר הָאָרֶץ וַתְּהִי הַכִּנָּם בָּאָדָם וּבַבְּהֵמָה כָּל עֲפַר הָאָרֶץ הָיָה כִנִּים בְּכָל אֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם
KJ (8:17) And they did so; for
Aaron stretched out his hand with his rod, and smote the dust of the earth, and
it became lice in man, and in beast; all the dust of the land became lice
throughout all the land of Egypt.
KINAM, as opposed to CHINIM: and in fact, based on existing Samaritan copies of the text held in museums and libraries (see Gesenius for the source of this statement), it should probably be KANIM anyway. Same root, same meaning, just different developments into noun, adjective, verb at different times.
ADAM...BEHEMAH: First PERU, then the creepy-crawlies, and now ADAM, APHAR and BEHEMAH, which makes us realise that the commentary about the frogs and the crocodiles in Exodus 7:27 was more astute than we realised at the time - every key term and action and figure of the Genesis Creation story is finding its way into this version, eventually! Adam of course was created MIN HA APHAR in one of our versions of Creation (Genesis 2:7), and the first creatures on the Earth were the BEHEMOT (Job 40:15–24). If there were not such a continuous alternating of terms in this passage, it really might be coincidental; but it happens so often, and each time so meticulously precise to the context, it cannot be ignored.
The idea of gnats (lice, bugs) coming up from the dust of the Earth is not as absurd as it may sound. Nor is my facetious reference to Halloween. Before the Christians turned it into All Saints, it was the Night of the Dead in European pagan culture; after the harvest, the tradition was to burn the corn-field, partly because the residue makes a rich compost which fertilises the soil, ready for next year's planting; partly to extinguish by fire all the insects - gnats and others - that have preyed on the corn-field during the months of ripening. The remaining sheaves were gathered into a single clump, shaped like a man representing the corn-god, and burnt in effigy - whence the origin of Guy Fawkes night, which is really the Night of the Guy Faux or the Artificial Man; the Wicker Man in the Hebrides to this day. To burn Guy Faux is to burn the corn god, a variation upon crucifying him, either way sending him down to the Underworld so that he can rise again the next Spring and bring fertility with him: the Risen Lord.
In Egypt, however, because the climate is different, and the Nile floods change agricultural conditions, the burning of the chamets - for what else is this act of fiery stubble? - took place at the end of winter, rather than at the beginning, but still for the same reason: the removal of the residue and the detritus, to provide, so to speak, a clean manger in which Jesus can be reborn.
8:14 VA YA'ASU CHEN HA CHARTUMIM BE LATEYHEM LEHOTSIY ET HA KINIM VE LO YACHLU VA TEHI HA KINIM BA ADAM U VA BEHEMAH
וַיַּעֲשׂוּ כֵן הַחַרְטֻמִּים בְּלָטֵיהֶם לְהוֹצִיא אֶת הַכִּנִּים וְלֹא יָכֹלוּ וַתְּהִי הַכִּנָּם בָּאָדָם וּבַבְּהֵמָה
KJ (8:18): And the magicians did
so with their enchantments to bring forth lice, but they could not: so there
were lice upon man, and upon beast.
BN: And the shamen did the same, using their secret skills, in order to bring forth gnats, but they were unable to; and there were gnats on the people, and gnats on the animals.
Previously we were told that the CHARTUMIM also waved their magic wands, but only this time are we told that they could not do it. Was this an error in the text before, or is something different happening here? If the latter, then we are at a key transition point, with Mosheh and Aharon becoming predominant, and therefore the likelihood of departure increased in this war of attrition. This too is liturgical: the new year (which begins at Passover in the original Beney Yisra-Eli calendar, as we shall see later, when Rosh ha-Shana is denoted as being, somewhat absurdly, in the seventh month) has to defeat the old year, as Frazer's new sacred-king had to defeat the old one, Osher supplant Set (the younger brother supplants the older brother throughout the Torah, and indeed in several key moments, such as the David stories, in the rest of the Tanach too), and the new moon the old moon ditto.
8:15 VA YOMRU HA CHARTUMIM EL PAR'OH ETSBA ELOHIM HU VA YECHEZAK LEV PAR'OH VE LO SHAMA AL'EHEM KA ASHER DIBER YHVH
וַיֹּאמְרוּ הַחַרְטֻמִּם אֶל פַּרְעֹה אֶצְבַּע אֱלֹהִים הִוא וַיֶּחֱזַק לֵב פַּרְעֹה וְלֹא שָׁמַע אֲלֵהֶם כַּאֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר יְהוָה
KJ (8:19): Then the magicians
said unto Pharaoh, This is the finger
of God: and Pharaoh's heart was hardened, and he hearkened not unto them; as
the LORD had said.
DIBER: I guess I should stop translating this as "predicted", and start translating it as "forewarned": a variant of "Let there be... and there was" in Genesis 1.
samech break
8:16 VA YOMER YHVH EL MOSHEH HASHKEM BA BOKER VE HITYATSEV LIPHNEY PHAR'OH HINEH YOTS'E HA MAYEMAH VE AMARTAH ELAV KOH AMAR YHVH SHALACH AMI VE YA'AVDUNI
וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֶל מֹשֶׁה הַשְׁכֵּם בַּבֹּקֶר וְהִתְיַצֵּב לִפְנֵי פַרְעֹה הִנֵּה יוֹצֵא הַמָּיְמָה וְאָמַרְתָּ אֵלָיו כֹּה אָמַר יְהוָה שַׁלַּח עַמִּי וְיַעַבְדֻנִי
KJ (8:20) And the LORD said unto
Moses, Rise up early in the morning, and stand before Pharaoh; lo, he cometh
forth to the water; and say unto him, Thus saith the LORD, Let my people go,
that they may serve me.
We begin to gain even more the sense that this is a ritual carried out each morning, progressively towards an end which we can now predict: the departure to make the thanksgiving sacrifice, and probably the covenant renewal as well (this may prove to be a separate ceremony conjoined when Ach-Mousa made the Pesach after the defeat of the Hyksos). Each time Mosheh is sent to meet Pharaoh specifically en route to bathe in the river, which might be his morning hydrotherapy and ritual ablutions, but is more likely his morning mikveh and prayers. The liturgy has become a mantra. In much the same manner that Jews prepare for their New Year to this day, through the practice of daily selichot in the month of Elul beforehand.
8:17 KI IM EYNCHA MESHAL'E'ACH ET AMI HINENI MASHLIYACH BECHA U VA AVADEYCHA U VE AMCHA U VE VATEYCHA ET HE AROV; U MAL'U BATEY MITSRAYIM ET HE AROV VE GAM HA ADAMAH ASHER HEM ALEYHA
כִּי אִם אֵינְךָ מְשַׁלֵּחַ אֶת עַמִּי הִנְנִי מַשְׁלִיחַ בְּךָ וּבַעֲבָדֶיךָ וּבְעַמְּךָ וּבְבָתֶּיךָ אֶת הֶעָרֹב וּמָלְאוּ בָּתֵּי מִצְרַיִם אֶת הֶעָרֹב וְגַם הָאֲדָמָה אֲשֶׁר הֵם עָלֶיהָ
KJ (8:21) Else, if thou wilt not
let my people go, behold, I will send swarms of
flies upon thee, and upon thy servants, and upon thy people,
and into thy houses: and the houses of the Egyptians shall be full of swarms of flies, and also
the ground whereon they are.
I have a deep desire, no doubt influenced by Hollywood movies with scenes of horse-heads left in people's beds, to pronounce the whole of that last verse in a strong Sicilian accent. I know that sounds terribly facetious and irreverent, but how else should we respond to bullying of this order? And what else is the deity of a tribe, if not a godfather?
HE AROV: Note first that, without pointing, the word could as easily be EREV as AROV, meaning the evening; or ARAV, meaning an Arab; or even an ERUV, though there is a dispute whether this should be spelled with an Ayin or an Aleph, given that AROV with an Aleph means "to knot" or "to interweave", which is what you do with neighbouring houses when you make an Eruv; but all this is by-the-by.
HE AROV: Note first that, without pointing, the word could as easily be EREV as AROV, meaning the evening; or ARAV, meaning an Arab; or even an ERUV, though there is a dispute whether this should be spelled with an Ayin or an Aleph, given that AROV with an Aleph means "to knot" or "to interweave", which is what you do with neighbouring houses when you make an Eruv; but all this is by-the-by.
What was an AROV? Go back to my notes at verse 12, because we are dealing with the same uncertainties. Possibly the louse, which sucks blood; possibly the gad-fly, which does likewise; but either way an insect that requires blood to survive; and we don't need to think too hard to understand why, in the wake of the killing of Apep and the spilling of his blood everywhere, the drawing out of the source of life should follow the instilling of it: to create the world in all its forms is also to create death.
Some commentators, however, believe the AROV was the scarab-beetle, a dung-eater and therefore, in another way, a negative-yet-fertility beast, in that the scarab was believed to inhabit the Underworld - and now go back again to my note on Hell at verse 10. The Egyptians represented the god Khephera or Khepri as scarab-headed, and regarded him as a manifestation of Atum or Ra in his aspect of bringer of death (as an aspect of life) and as the god of resurrection.
To the Beney Kena'an (Canaanites) he was Ba'al-Zevuv, who we now know as Beelzebub, the Lord of the Flies.
8:18 VE HIPHLEYTI VA YOM HA HU ET ERETS GOSHEN ASHER AMI OMED ALEYHA LE VILTI HEYOT SHAM AROV LEMA'AN TEDA KI ANI YHVH BE KEREV HA ARETS
וְהִפְלֵיתִי בַיּוֹם הַהוּא אֶת אֶרֶץ גֹּשֶׁן אֲשֶׁר עַמִּי עֹמֵד עָלֶיהָ לְבִלְתִּי הֱיוֹת שָׁם עָרֹב לְמַעַן תֵּדַע כִּי אֲנִי יְהוָה בְּקֶרֶב הָאָרֶץ
KJ: And I will sever in
that day the land of Goshen, in which my people dwell, that no swarms of flies shall
be there; to the end thou mayest know that I am the
LORD in the midst of the earth.
Interpretation becomes more complex from this point, because the Redactor is now firmly superimposing Yisra-Eli theology and pseudo-history onto the Egyptian original, the one "supplanting" the other; but it may be that he has simply taken advantage of a convenient point of the tale to do so. VE HIPHLEYTI means "separating" rather more than it means "setting apart"; the latter is the theological concept of KADESH, which means "holy" in the sense of setting the sacred apart from the profane. But that is not the separation here; rather we are in the realms of the Genesis Creation story once again, where the process of separation is continuous, cell-division reflected in the endless bifurcations of day from night, waters on either side of the firmament, male from female, ocean from dry land etc. With one key difference, that the verb there is always VA YAVDEL (וַיַּבְדֵּל) - see Genesis 1:4 for example - whereas here it is VE HIPHLEYTI.
Just to clarify this etymologically. VE HIPHLEYTI comes from the root PALAH (פָלָה), which separates mostly in the sense of visible distinctions (cf Psalm 4:4) that can be seen as fragments of a whole, while VAYAVDEL comes from the root BADAL (בָּדל), which is always the separated part as an entity in itself (cf Amos 3:12). HAVDALAH, the splendid ceremony that formally ends the sacred time of Shabbat and incipits the profane work-week, comes from this root as well.
So Goshen will be separated from the rest of Mitsrayim, but still within Mitsrayim; not an autonmous or independent kingdom, just treated differently. Though the next verse will bring the complete separation of the two peoples nearer.
8:19 VE SAMTI PEDUT BEYN AMI U VEYN AMECHA LE MACHAR YIHEYEH HA OT HA ZEH
וְשַׂמְתִּי פְדֻת בֵּין עַמִּי וּבֵין עַמֶּךָ לְמָחָר יִהְיֶה הָאֹת הַזֶּה
KJ (8:23): And I will put a
division between my people and thy people: to morrow shall this sign be.
PEDUT: The only time PADAH is used to mean (translated as meaning?) a division is in this verse. Elsewhere the root PADAH means "to set free" or "to cut loose", or even, just five chapters on (Exodus 13:13), as well as Exodus 34:20, "to redeem for a price". Numbers 18:15 uses it for a sacrificial priest letting a firstling go free; Deuteronomy 7:8 and 13:6, Jeremiah 15:21 and 31:11 use it for freedom from servitude; Psalm 34:23 for "rescue from danger"; and many other references. Does this change our understanding of the verse entirely, and cause us to question the translation as "put a division"? Or, as per my final comment in the last verse, are we watching a gradual process of separation, building towards the total separation of departure-without-return?
Why then was Goshen redeemed but not the rest of Mitsrayim? Because YHVH was protecting his Ivrim, and making a theological point - is the obvious, and given, answer. An alternative: geographical. Goshen was the northernmost district of Mitsrayim, abutting the Mediterranean; the description may be of sand-flies, who would be normal in the desert regions of southern and central Mitsrayim - the "hinterland" of verse 18 - but are almost unknown along the coast. Not that there are not flies there; just different sorts of flies. So a description of a particularly bad incident of desert-fly would be reported in much the same way, if it was being attributed to the deity: "for I shall send a hurricane to Florida, and to the Gulf of Mexico, and to the southern reaches of Delaware and Maryland, but my people in Oklahoma and Arkansas, them I will spare". The precise opposite, of course, for tornados!
But this is not in fact what we should understand from this verse. The point is the phased process of transition from the old to the new, from guilt to redemption and slavery to freedom, just as much as from old year to new year. With each plague, the process moves forward, until full redemption, full liberation, arrive when the eve of the New Year itself arrives, on Passover.
But this is not in fact what we should understand from this verse. The point is the phased process of transition from the old to the new, from guilt to redemption and slavery to freedom, just as much as from old year to new year. With each plague, the process moves forward, until full redemption, full liberation, arrive when the eve of the New Year itself arrives, on Passover.
8:20 VA YA'AS YHVH KEN VA YAVO AROV KAVED BEYTAH PHAR'OH U VEYT AVADAV U VE CHOL ERETS MITSRAYIM TISHACHET HA ARETS MIPNEY HE AROV
וַיַּעַשׂ יְהוָה כֵּן וַיָּבֹא עָרֹב כָּבֵד בֵּיתָה פַרְעֹה וּבֵית עֲבָדָיו וּבְכָל אֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם תִּשָּׁחֵת הָאָרֶץ מִפְּנֵי הֶעָרֹב
KJ (8:24) And the LORD did so;
and there came a grievous swarm of
flies into the house of Pharaoh, and into his
servants' houses, and into all the land of Egypt: the land was corrupted by
reason of the swarm of flies.
VA YA'AS KEN: Once again that Genesis formula, in which he first announces his intention to do so, and then does so.
BEYTAH PHAR'OH: His house, meaning his palace, or his Temple?
How does this fit into the Creation cycle? As with the Genesis version, insects precede reptiles precede cattle; the order is identical, and evolutionary theorists would not disagree. At the same time, part of the process of propitiation was the honouring of each of the gods of Egypt; the fly-god no less than any other (which makes it evenmore likely that these were scarab beetles and not flies).
It is not obvious why the land was ruined, as flies generally do not damage agriculture - unlike locusts, say, which are coming shortly. Perhaps because, as most of us do if we are honest, flies are annoying, and when one gets in the house, everything else stops, and we chase, we swat, we miss, we break things, but eventually we get the little bugger.
8:21 VA YIKRA PHAR'OH EL MOSHEH U LE AHARON VA YOMER LECHU ZIVCHU LE ELOHEYCHEM BA ARETS
וַיִּקְרָא פַרְעֹה אֶל מֹשֶׁה וּלְאַהֲרֹן וַיֹּאמֶר לְכוּ זִבְחוּ לֵאלֹהֵיכֶם בָּאָרֶץ
KJ (8:25): And Pharaoh called for
Moses and for Aaron, and said, Go ye, sacrifice to your God in the land.
VA YIKRA: Which sounds rather like Pharaoh trying to swat two annoying flies of his own!
BA ARETS: makes no sense until we read the next verse. What Pharaoh means is: go and make your sacrifices, but do it here in Mitsrayim. In other words, he is half-way to accepting their request. And if Mosheh has been speaking honestly, and a 3-day journey is all he intends, then he has no inention of leaving Mitsrayim, and this was never a journey to Mount Chorev or into Sinai - see my notes at Exodus 3:1 and 5:3. See also verse 23, below.
And note that the text says "Eloheychem", which means "your gods"; Pharaoh does not name YHVH, because he - and the whole of this original tale - is polytheistic. We must always remember, in these Egyptian stories, that they are being presented in Yehudit translation (theological-mythological-cultural as well as linguistic), and so the use of the name YHVH is a natural error, in the same way that we might translate the Qur'an and automatically render al-Lah as "God" in English, or as "Dieu" in French, as "Gott" in German, and not realise that this is an error. But it is a very significant error, partly because the concept of al-Lah is different from that of God, partly because the adherence of the god's acolytes is different. For the same reason, TheBibleNet does not translate YHVH or Elohim as "God".
8:22 VA YOMER MOSHEH LO NACHON LA'ASOT KEN KI TO'AVAT MITSRAYIM NIZBACH LA YHVH ELOHEYNU HEN NIZBACH ET TO'AVAT MITSRAYIM LE EYNEYCHEM VE LO YISKELUNU
וַיֹּאמֶר מֹשֶׁה לֹא נָכוֹן לַעֲשׂוֹת כֵּן כִּי תּוֹעֲבַת מִצְרַיִם נִזְבַּח לַיהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ הֵן נִזְבַּח אֶת תּוֹעֲבַת מִצְרַיִם לְעֵינֵיהֶם וְלֹא יִסְקְלֻנוּ
KJ (8:26) And Moses said, It is
not meet so to do; for we shall sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians to
the LORD our God: lo, shall we sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians
before their eyes, and will they not stone us?
NACHON: Meaning "correct"; but does Mosheh mean correct in the religious sense of kosher, or in a more pragmatic way, fearing the consequences? The text suggests the latter. However, we need to understand what "the abomination of the Egyptians means" first, especially as it is going to come up and again throughout the Tanach.
TO'AVAT MITSRAYIM: From the root TA'AV (תעב), it does indeed mean "an abomination". But what does "abomination" mean? Proverbs 21:27 and 28:9 speak of things which are an abomination to YHVH; "The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination; how much more so when brought with evil intent!" in the former; "If anyone turns a deaf ear to the law, even his prayers are an abomination" in the latter; but in both cases the inference is "detestable". Proverbs 3:32 and 11:1 and 20 speak of those things which are made impure and abominable by the decrees of religion.
But the sentence does nםt say "our sacrificing to YHVH will be an abomination to the Egyptians"; rather it says that they will sacrifice "the abomination of the Egyptians" (and actually it says Mitsrayim-Egypt, not Mitsrim-Egyptians), and doing it in front of the Egyptians will lead to them being stoned. So we need to understand what "the abomination of the Egyptians" was; and strangely, it is the same answer as "what is the most abominable thing to an orthodox Jew?"
Several answers there actually, but pork is unquestionably the one we need to focus on here, because we are about to discover why Jews don't eat pork, and that what would become the Paschal lamb when the epoch of Aries began around 2160 BCE was the Paschal boar in the millennia before then.
The Egyptians honoured Set as a deity, but also abominated him because, disguised as a boar, he murdered Osher (Osiris). Osher is one version of the Lord of the Underworld, and we have seen that the ceremonies of the fly are associated with this too. But on one day each year, Set was worshipped, by the orgiastic eating of the god's body - a giant pork-roast, exactly as Spanish Catholics in the Americas still do to this day, on Christmas Eve. Why? Because the Winter is over, Set no longer rules, and so he must be ritually sacrificed on the day of the Spring Equinox, his ashes sent down to the Underworld for regeneration, any residual corn from the previous year burned and despatched with him (see my link for chamets at verse 13), and the reborn Earth-god thereby "liberated" to take his place at the right hand of his father, the sun-god.
This is referred to as "the abomination of Mitsrayim" when the Kashrut laws are given later on (for a fuller picture of all the many things regarded as abominations by Judaism, click here), and is why pork became the most forbidden totem-animal amongst the Beney Yisra-El. Pharaoh's instruction to Mosheh is to make sacrifice to Set and to do it in the land of Egypt; Mosheh's refusal is the same as Pharaoh's elsewhere: he can't do it now, because there is an appointed time, and this isn't yet it; and an appointed place, and this isn't it either. So we see Mosheh and Pharaoh again as collaborators in the liturgy.
8:23 DERECH SHELOSHET YAMIM NELECH BA MIDBAR VE ZAVACHNU LA YHVH ELOHEYNU KA ASHER YOMAR ELEYNU
דֶּרֶךְ שְׁלֹשֶׁת יָמִים נֵלֵךְ בַּמִּדְבָּר וְזָבַחְנוּ לַיהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ כַּאֲשֶׁר יֹאמַר אֵלֵינוּ
KJ (8:27) We will go three days'
journey into the wilderness, and sacrifice to the LORD our God, as he shall
command us.
Once again the three days is made specific, denoting the time and the place for the sacrifice. Once again we are told that the purpose is sacrifice, but in fact no sacrifice will take place, or at least none that we are told of, when they get there (or is what happens after the incident of the Golden Calf actually that sacrifice, but reworked by the Redactor to meet the needs of his version?). So is this Mosheh being disingenuous, according to YHVH's strategy (get them out for a supposed festival and then scarper across the desert to Kena'an), or is it simply a necessity on the behalf of the redactor because the Pesach "haggadah" was already established and could not realistically be reverted back to its origins?
YOMAR: Grammatically odd, given that he already has instructed them.
And note again the significance of the three days - when the old moon sets, there is a 3-day period of darkness before the new moon, its crescent now on the left side, becomes visible in the sky - the period of Jesus' descent into the underworld, as also that of Osher, at the end of each month, including the last month of the year. So the lunar and solar calendars become harmonised, where previously they were "separated". So we have the distinct impression that they will be setting out on the Egyptian equivalent of Good Friday, and arriving on its equivalent of Easter Monday.
8:24 VA YOMER PAR'OH ANOCHI ASHALACH ET'CHEM U ZEVACHTEM LA YHVH ELOHEYCHEM BA MIDBAR RAK HAR'CHEK LO TARCHIYKU LALECHET HA'TIYRU BA'ADI
וַיֹּאמֶר פַּרְעֹה אָנֹכִי אֲשַׁלַּח אֶתְכֶם וּזְבַחְתֶּם לַיהוָה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם בַּמִּדְבָּר רַק הַרְחֵק לֹא תַרְחִיקוּ לָלֶכֶת הַעְתִּירוּ בַּעֲדִי
KJ (8:28) And Pharaoh said, I
will let you go, that ye may sacrifice to the LORD your God in the wilderness;
only ye shall not go very far away: intreat for me.
Should this verse not come before the last one, making verse 23 make rather more sense as Mosheh's answer? And what is he asking him to entreat for? The nextverse will answer that.
HA'TIYRU: Why would Pharaoh ask Mosheh to entreat for him anyway, unless they shared a common god, a common liturgy, a common purpose in the ceremony? See my note to verse 4 which confirms this. And of course, if you want to get rid of flies, burning incense is a much better method than chasing and swatting (for the serious chaser: use two hands, not one, and clap them together at a point about nine inches above the fly: flies always leap up to evade danger).
8:25 VA YOMER MOSHEH HINEH ANOCHI YOTSE ME IMACH VE HA'TARTI EL YHVH VE SAR HE AROV MI PAR'OH ME AVADAV U ME AMO MACHAR RAK AL YOSEPH PAR'OH HATEL LE VILTI SHALACH ET HA AM LIZBO'ACH LA YHVH
וַיֹּאמֶר מֹשֶׁה הִנֵּה אָנֹכִי יוֹצֵא מֵעִמָּךְ וְהַעְתַּרְתִּי אֶל יְהוָה וְסָר הֶעָרֹב מִפַּרְעֹה מֵעֲבָדָיו וּמֵעַמּוֹ מָחָר רַק אַל יֹסֵף פַּרְעֹה הָתֵל לְבִלְתִּי שַׁלַּח אֶת הָעָם לִזְבֹּחַ לַיהוָה
KJ (8:29): And Moses said,
Behold, I go out from thee, and I will intreat the LORD that the swarms of flies may
depart from Pharaoh, from his servants, and from his people, to morrow: but let
not Pharaoh deal deceitfully any more in not letting the people go to sacrifice
to the LORD.
Twice bitten, finally shy!
But to accuse Pharaoh of being deceitful, when, by one possible reading, Mosheh and YHVH are doing precisely the same.
I have placed a comma before "tomorrow", wanting again to convey the other slow transition in this tale, from all power lying with Pharaoh, to all power coming across to Mosheh.
YOSEPH: How many times have I passed observation of the need to know this text in Yehudit, in order to understand it fully. Grammatically, and to convey its meaning, the word YOSEPH is completely extraneous here; and yet it is here. And it is here in a manner that suggests something like "And don't play the Joseph with us", using the name as a verb, evoking recollection that it was Yoseph who established the conditions of servitude in the first place.
8:26 VA YETSE MOSHEH ME IM PAR'OH VA YE'TAR EL YHVH
וַיֵּצֵא מֹשֶׁה מֵעִם פַּרְעֹה וַיֶּעְתַּר אֶל יְהוָה
KJ (8:30): And Moses went out
from Pharaoh, and intreated the LORD.
And Pharaoh's own shamen don't even get a mention any longer!
8:27 VA YA'AS YHVH KI DEVAR MOSHE VA YASAR HE AROV MI PAR'OH ME AVADAV U ME AMO LO NISHAR ECHAD
וַיַּעַשׂ יְהוָה כִּדְבַר מֹשֶׁה וַיָּסַר הֶעָרֹב מִפַּרְעֹה מֵעֲבָדָיו וּמֵעַמּוֹ לֹא נִשְׁאַר אֶחָד
KJ (8:31): And the LORD did
according to the word of Moses; and he removed the swarms of flies from
Pharaoh, from his servants, and from his people; there remained not one.
There is something almost formulaic about this which again endorses the idea that it is all an established liturgy, and probably took place in exactly the same way every year for centuries. YHVH tells Mosheh to tell Aharon to use his sceptre; the event happens; YHVH tells Mosheh to tell Pharaoh to send the people, but hardens Pharaoh's heart to make him say no; Mosheh asks; Pharaoh agrees; Mosheh burns incense; YHVH cancels the event (but leaves behind its effect); and then Pharaoh says no again. And on to the next recurrence. Precisely formulaic, ritualised, ceremonial: predictable. Liturgy. Not history.
8:28 VA YACHBED PAR'OH ET LIBO GAM BA PA'AM HA ZOT VE LO SHILACH ET HA AM
וַיַּכְבֵּד פַּרְעֹה אֶת לִבּוֹ גַּם בַּפַּעַם הַזֹּאת וְלֹא שִׁלַּח אֶת הָעָם
KJ (8:32): And Pharaoh hardened his heart at this time also, neither would he let the people go.
VA YACHBED: Pharaoh hardened his own heart this time?
Each time the word AM is used; never Ivrim or Beney Yisra-El; as though this relates to the whole people of Mitsrayim, and not just the Ivrim or Beney Yisra-El. And of course it does; but that is not how the Jewish version tells it.
pey break
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