Biblion Bible Commentary
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Livestock and Boils
Exodus 9:1-12
1 Then Yahweh said to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh, and tell him, ‘This is what Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews, says: “Let my people go, that they may serve me. · WEB
The fifth plague is announced with a date and a boundary, and at the sixth the verb for hardening changes hands.
Yahweh will make a distinction between the livestock of Israel and the livestock of Egypt; and nothing shall die of all that belongs to the children of Israel Exodus 9:4.
The fifth plague is announced with a boundary and a deadline. Yahweh appointed a set time, saying, "Tomorrow Yahweh shall do this thing in the land" Exodus 9:5. Both details exist to close off every explanation except the one being offered, and Pharaoh takes them seriously enough to check: Pharaoh sent, and, behold, there was not so much as one of the livestock of the Israelites dead Exodus 9:7. He verifies the claim, finds it exact, and does nothing.
That is the shape of unbelief in this narrative. It is not a failure of evidence. It is a decision taken in advance of the evidence and unaffected by it, and the king's own investigation is entered in the record so that no one can later say he had not looked.
The animals struck are a list of the country's gods as much as of its assets — the bull, the cow and the ram all carried divine associations in Egypt — and the economy goes with them. What survives is what had been brought indoors, which becomes important at the seventh plague, when shelter is offered again and some Egyptians take it.
Take handfuls of ashes of the furnace, and let Moses sprinkle it toward the sky in the sight of Pharaoh Exodus 9:8.
The sixth plague is the first with no warning at all, and the first performed by Moses rather than Aaron. The material is soot from a kiln — the furnaces where Israel had been made to burn brick — flung into the air and coming down as boils and blisters breaking out on man and on animal Exodus 9:10. The instrument of the slavery is turned into the instrument of the judgment, in full view of the court.
The magicians couldn't stand before Moses because of the boils; for the boils were on the magicians and on all the Egyptians Exodus 9:11.
The men who had matched the first three signs now cannot remain in the room. They had already admitted the limit of their craft Exodus 8:19; here they are removed from the story altogether, and they leave it as patients. This is the last mention of them.
Yahweh hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he didn't listen to them Exodus 9:12.
For the first time the verb belongs to God. Through five plagues the narrative has said the opposite in every instance — the heart was stubborn, he hardened his heart, he hardened it this time also — and the change at the sixth is not a change of subject but a verdict on the first five. A man who has hardened himself against blood, frogs, dust, flies and pestilence is now confirmed in it. God does not manufacture a refusal and then punish it. There comes a point at which continued pressure no longer offers a way out but seals the way already chosen, and the order in which Scripture assigns the verb is what says so.
held with reason What this mark means