For Teaching

Exodus 8: What the Passage Says

121 claims across 32 verses, in the order the chapter makes them.

Not a sermon outline. What Exodus 8 says, and what its hard words meant. The reading of it is yours.

The Chapter in a Sentence

Moses warns Pharaoh that Egypt will be filled with frogs if he will not let the Israelites go, and when the frogs come Pharaoh promises to release the people, then changes his mind once they die off. Aaron strikes the dust and it becomes gnats; the magicians cannot copy this and tell Pharaoh it is the finger of God. Swarms of flies follow, but not in Goshen where the Israelites live, and Pharaoh offers a partial permission that Moses refuses before praying the flies away. Each round ends with Pharaoh hardening his heart and keeping the people in Egypt.

Claim by Claim

8:1
- The LORD spoke to Moses.
- The LORD told Moses to go to Pharaoh.
- The LORD told Moses to say to Pharaoh: Thus says the LORD.
- The LORD's message was: Let my people go.
- The purpose stated was that the people may serve the LORD.
8:2
- The LORD said: if you refuse to let them go.
- The LORD said he would strike all of Pharaoh's territory with frogs.
8:3
- The LORD said the Nile would swarm with frogs.
- The LORD said the frogs would go up and come into Pharaoh's house.
- The LORD said the frogs would come into Pharaoh's bedroom.
- The LORD said the frogs would come onto Pharaoh's bed.
- The LORD said the frogs would come into the houses of Pharaoh's servants.
- The LORD said the frogs would come upon Pharaoh's people.
- The LORD said the frogs would come into the ovens.
- The LORD said the frogs would come into the kneading troughs.
8:4
- The LORD said the frogs would come up on Pharaoh.
- The LORD said the frogs would come up on Pharaoh's people.
- The LORD said the frogs would come up on all Pharaoh's servants.
8:5
- The LORD spoke to Moses.
- The LORD told Moses to speak to Aaron.
- Aaron was to stretch out his hand with his staff over the streams, the canals, and the pools.
- Aaron was to cause frogs to come up upon the land of Egypt.
8:6
- Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt.
- The frogs came up.
- The frogs covered the land of Egypt.
8:7
- The magicians did the same by their secret arts.
- The magicians brought up frogs upon the land of Egypt.
8:8
- Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron.
- Pharaoh asked them to entreat the LORD to take the frogs away from him and from his people.
- Pharaoh said he would let the people go.
- Pharaoh said the purpose was that they might sacrifice to the LORD.
8:9
- Moses spoke to Pharaoh.
- Moses told Pharaoh to have the honor of setting the time over him.
- Moses asked when he should entreat for Pharaoh, for his servants, and for his people.
- The entreaty would be to destroy the frogs from Pharaoh and from his houses.
- The frogs would remain only in the Nile.
8:10
- Pharaoh said: tomorrow.
- Moses said: let it be according to your word.
- Moses said the purpose was that Pharaoh might know there is none like the LORD our God.
8:11
- Moses said the frogs would depart from Pharaoh.
- Moses said the frogs would depart from Pharaoh's houses.
- Moses said the frogs would depart from Pharaoh's servants.
- Moses said the frogs would depart from Pharaoh's people.
- Moses said the frogs would remain only in the Nile.
8:12
- Moses and Aaron went out from Pharaoh.
- Moses cried out to the LORD about the frogs.
- The LORD had brought the frogs against Pharaoh.
8:13
- The LORD did according to the word of Moses.
- The frogs died out of the houses.
- The frogs died out of the courtyards.
- The frogs died out of the fields.
8:14
- They gathered the frogs together in heaps.
- The land stank.
8:15
- Pharaoh saw that there was relief.
- Pharaoh hardened his heart.
- Pharaoh did not listen to Moses and Aaron.
- This was as the LORD had said.
8:16
- The LORD spoke to Moses.
- The LORD told Moses to speak to Aaron.
- Aaron was to stretch out his staff and strike the dust of the land.
- The dust was to become swarming insects (gnats or lice) throughout all the land of Egypt.
8:17
- They did so.
- Aaron stretched out his hand with his staff.
- Aaron struck the dust of the earth.
- The insects came upon man and upon beast.
- All the dust of the land became insects throughout all the land of Egypt.
8:18
- The magicians tried by their secret arts to bring forth the insects.
- The magicians could not do it.
- The insects were upon man and upon beast.
8:19
- The magicians said to Pharaoh that this was the finger of God.
- Pharaoh's heart was hardened.
- Pharaoh did not listen to them.
- This was as the LORD had said.
8:20
- The LORD spoke to Moses.
- The LORD told Moses to rise early in the morning.
- The LORD told Moses to stand before Pharaoh.
- The LORD said Pharaoh was coming out to the water.
- Moses was to say to Pharaoh: Thus says the LORD.
- The message was: Let my people go, that they may serve me.
8:21
- The LORD said: if you will not let my people go.
- The LORD said he would send swarms of insects upon Pharaoh.
- The LORD said he would send them upon Pharaoh's servants.
- The LORD said he would send them upon Pharaoh's people.
- The LORD said he would send them into Pharaoh's houses.
- The LORD said the houses of the Egyptians would be full of the swarms.
- The LORD said the ground on which they stand would also be full of them.
8:22
- The LORD said he would set apart the land of Goshen on that day.
- The LORD said his people dwell in Goshen.
- The LORD said no swarms would be there.
- The LORD said the purpose was that Pharaoh might know that the LORD is in the midst of the land (or of the earth).
8:23
- The LORD said he would put a separation between his people and Pharaoh's people.
- The LORD said this sign would happen tomorrow.
8:24
- The LORD did so.
- A heavy swarm of insects came into Pharaoh's house.
- The swarm came into the houses of his servants.
- The swarm came into all the land of Egypt.
- The land was ruined because of the swarm.
8:25
- Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron.
- Pharaoh told them to go and sacrifice to their God within the land.
8:26
- Moses said it was not right to do so.
- Moses said what they would sacrifice to the LORD their God is detestable to the Egyptians.
- Moses asked whether they should sacrifice what is detestable to the Egyptians before their eyes.
- Moses asked whether the Egyptians would not stone them.
8:27
- Moses said they would go a three days' journey into the wilderness.
- Moses said they would sacrifice to the LORD their God.
- Moses said they would do it as the LORD would command them.
8:28
- Pharaoh said he would let them go.
- Pharaoh said they might sacrifice to the LORD their God in the wilderness.
- Pharaoh said they must not go very far away.
- Pharaoh asked them to entreat for him.
8:29
- Moses said he was going out from Pharaoh.
- Moses said he would entreat the LORD.
- Moses said the swarms would depart from Pharaoh, his servants, and his people tomorrow.
- Moses said Pharaoh must not act deceitfully again by not letting the people go to sacrifice to the LORD.
8:30
- Moses went out from Pharaoh.
- Moses entreated the LORD.
8:31
- The LORD did according to the word of Moses.
- The LORD removed the swarms from Pharaoh, from his servants, and from his people.
- Not one remained.
8:32
- Pharaoh hardened his heart this time also.
- Pharaoh did not let the people go.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

8:1: "LORD" printed in capitals stands where the Hebrew has God's personal name, the four letters usually written YHWH; ordinary "Lord" or "God" translates different words. The verb behind "worship me" is the same one used for slave labor, so the demand puns on it: Israel is to stop serving Pharaoh and serve the LORD instead.
8:2: "All thy borders" does not mean the edges of the country. In 1611 English "borders" could mean the whole territory inside those edges, so the threat covers Egypt entirely.
8:3: Egyptian ovens were clay domes heated from inside, and the "bread bowls" (KJV "kneadingtroughs") were wooden or clay vessels in which dough was mixed and left to rise. Frogs in both means the daily bread supply is fouled at every stage.
8:5: Egypt's water was not one channel: the Nile split into branches across the Delta and fed a network of dug irrigation canals and standing pools left when the flood receded. The list covers all of it.
8:7: The "magicians" were a recognized Egyptian profession, temple scribes and ritual specialists, trained in written spells and rites. "Secret arts" (KJV "enchantments") translates a Hebrew word for their hidden craft; the text does not say how their results were produced.
8:8: "Intreat" is the old spelling of entreat, meaning to beg or plead. Pharaoh is asking Moses to petition the LORD on his behalf, which is an admission that Moses has access he does not.
8:9: The King James "Glory over me" renders a Hebrew idiom, roughly "take the honour over me", Moses hands Pharaoh the advantage of naming the moment himself.
8:12: "Cried unto the LORD" does not mean weeping. It means calling out loudly for help.
8:13: The Hebrew word rendered "courtyards" can equally mean "villages" (so KJV); it refers to walled enclosures, whether the yard of a single house or a cluster of dwellings.
8:14: There were so many dead frogs that people raked them into piles. With no way to bury them all, the smell filled the land.
8:15: In Hebrew the heart is where a person thinks and decides, not where they feel. To "harden" or "make heavy" the heart is to become fixed and unmovable in a decision. Exodus uses this language both ways: sometimes Pharaoh hardens his own heart, as here, and sometimes the LORD hardens it.
8:16: The Hebrew word (KJV "lice") names a small biting insect that cannot be identified with certainty; ancient and modern translators have offered gnats, mosquitoes, lice and sand fleas.
8:19: "The finger of God" is an idiom for direct divine action, as opposed to something worked through human technique. The word the magicians use, elohim, can mean "God", "a god" or "the gods", so it is unclear whether they are naming Israel's God or simply conceding that some divine power, not craft, is at work.
8:20: Pharaoh going down to the water in the early morning was a predictable royal routine (the Nile was both the country's lifeline and a focus of state religion), so Moses knows exactly where to intercept him.
8:21: The Hebrew word means simply "swarm" and does not say of what. Ancient translators guessed variously: the Greek version has dog-flies, others a mixture of wild creatures. "Flies" in the King James is supplied by the translators.
8:22: Goshen was the district of the eastern Nile Delta where, according to Genesis, Jacob's family had been settled as herdsmen, good grazing land, somewhat apart from the Egyptian heartland. The closing phrase is ambiguous in Hebrew: the same word means "the earth" and "the land", so it reads either "I am the LORD in the midst of the earth" or "…here in this country".
8:23: The Hebrew noun here normally means "ransom" or "redemption"; the sense "division, distinction" required by the context is unusual, and some scholars think the text has been altered. Translations differ accordingly.
8:24: The King James says the land "was corrupted." That means ruined or spoiled, not wicked.
8:25: Pharaoh's offer is a negotiating move rather than a surrender: worship inside Egypt, under his authority and within reach, instead of the journey out that Moses has been demanding.
8:26: "Abomination" translates a word for something ritually detestable or taboo. Certain animals (bulls, cows, rams) were sacred in Egyptian cults, and Genesis records that Egyptians found shepherds objectionable; killing such beasts openly would be sacrilege in Egyptian eyes. Stoning was the standard way a crowd, rather than a court, killed someone on the spot.
8:27: "Three days' journey into the wilderness" is the same request Moses has made from the start. It measures traveling time out and back, not a fixed distance, and puts the sacrifice beyond Egyptian territory. "Wilderness" means unfarmed grazing country, not necessarily sand desert.
8:29: "Deal deceitfully" points back to what has already happened: Pharaoh promised to release the people once the frogs went, then changed his mind the moment the pressure lifted. Moses is naming that pattern out loud before agreeing to pray again.

Read Exodus 8