The King Bargains Over Who and What May Leave

“I have hardened” is kaved again, now in God’s mouth: “I have made his heart heavy”, the verb Pharaoh used of himself in 8:15. The servants are included, which is surprising given verse 7, where those same servants plead with him to give way.

“Tell in the ears” is the language of instruction handed down; the Passover Haggadah draws its name from the related verb higgadta in 13:8. “What things I have wrought” is hitalalti, a verb that can mean “made sport of” or “dealt harshly with”, used in 1 Samuel 6:6 of these same plagues.

“Humble thyself” is from anah, the verb used in 1:11–12 for the Egyptians afflicting Israel. The one who afflicted is now asked to bow down. “How long” is the complaint of the Psalms turned into a demand on a king.

“Coast” in the King James means border or territory, not shoreline. Locusts were among the most feared disasters in the ancient world. A swarm can cover hundreds of square miles and eat its own weight in vegetation every day.

“Face of the earth” is literally “the eye of the land”, an idiom also used in Numbers 22:5 of Israel covering Moab’s view. The locusts will blind the ground. “The residue of that which is escaped” names the hail’s survivors twice over, residue and escaped, to leave nothing out.

The warning ends without waiting for Pharaoh’s answer: Moses “turned himself, and went out”, the first time he walks out unbidden. The appeal to fathers and fathers’ fathers is borrowed by Joel 1:2–3 for a later locust plague: “Hath this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers? Tell ye your children of it.”

“Snare” is moqesh, the bait-stick of a bird trap. The servants use the name Moses once gave, “the LORD their God”. “Let the men go” uses the word anashim, adult men, which may be what gave Pharaoh the idea for his offer in verse 11.

“Were brought again” is passive; the servants fetch Moses and Aaron back. Pharaoh begins with “Go, serve” and at once adds a question that undoes it: “who are they that shall go?”, literally “who and who are going?”, asking for names.

Moses’ list comes in four pairs, young and old, sons and daughters, flocks and herds, and ends with “we must hold a feast”, chag, the pilgrimage festival word from 5:1. Nothing of Israel is left out of the list.

The King James “Let the LORD be so with you” is sarcasm: “The LORD had better be with you, if I ever let you go with your little ones!” “Evil is before you” may mean “you have wicked intentions”, or be a pun on Ra, the Egyptian sun god: “Ra is against you.”

“Men” here is gevarim, adult males, a different word from verse 7. Pharaoh claims this is what they asked for, which it was not. “They were driven out” is passive and abrupt; the audience ends in expulsion, the verb garash, used of Adam driven from Eden.

“Stretch out thine hand” is repeated from 9:22, but the rod is not named in God’s command; verse 13 shows Moses using it anyway. “All that the hail hath left” names the target precisely, so the plagues are presented as working together.

An east wind blowing “all that day, and all that night” would bring locusts from Arabia across the Red Sea, the direction swarms actually travel into Egypt. The same wind is used at the sea in 14:21, a “strong east wind all that night”.

“Rested” is nuach, to settle down, the same verb used of the ark resting on Ararat in Genesis 8:4. Joel 2:2 says of another locust army that there has never been the like; both statements are claims of uniqueness in their own context.

“The land was darkened” is a physical detail of dense swarms blocking the sun, and it foreshadows the next plague. “Not any green thing” echoes the “green herb” given as food in Genesis 1:30. Egypt is stripped to the ground.

“In haste” is mihar, the first time Pharaoh hurries. He now names two offences, against the LORD and against Moses and Aaron. The confession is wider than 9:27, but still borrows Moses’ phrase “your God”, not his own.

“Only this once” is a phrase Abraham used in bargaining with God in Genesis 18:32. “This death” is Pharaoh’s own description of the locusts: a famine is death to a land that lives on its harvest. He asks Moses, not the LORD, for forgiveness.

Moses “went out”, as he promised he would in 9:29, and prayed. The account is brief: no words of the prayer are given. Each time Moses prays, the answer is immediate.

“West wind” is literally “sea wind”, yam, since the Mediterranean lies west of Israel. “Red sea” is yam suf, the Sea of Reeds, the same body of water Israel will cross. The locusts drown in the sea that will swallow the army.

Chazaq again, with God as subject. The phrase is short and repeated, and after the confession of verse 16 the hardening closes the plague without any further speech from Pharaoh.

No warning is given for the ninth plague, as none was for the third and sixth. “Darkness which may be felt” is literally “and one shall feel darkness”, the verb mashash, to grope, used of the blind in Deuteronomy 28:29.

“Thick darkness” is two words for darkness together, choshekh afelah, gloom upon gloom. Three days is a long time in a land that worshipped the sun. The sun god, Ra, was the chief deity of Egypt, so his failure was the most public of all.

“Rose any from his place” suggests that people were unable to move. Israel had light “in their dwellings”, literally in their settlements, not simply by lamps. The Book of Wisdom 17 later elaborates this darkness with nightmares, an ancient reading and not the text’s own.

Pharaoh’s third condition: everyone may go, but not the flocks and herds. “Stayed” is yatsag, to set down or leave in place, like a deposit left as security against their return. The little ones are included this time, which he forbade in verse 10.

Moses turns the bargain around: Pharaoh must give them animals as well. “Sacrifices” are zevachim, meals shared with God, and “burnt offerings” are olot, wholly burnt. Egypt will in fact send them away laden (12:32–36).

“Not an hoof” is parsah, a split hoof, the part of the animal least likely to be counted. “We know not with what we must serve” is honest: God has not yet given the Law, so no one knows which animals will be required. The details await Sinai.

The same short phrase as verse 20, but here it follows a refusal rather than a relief. The hardening now comes after each plague without delay.

“See my face no more” uses the language of court: to see a king’s face was to be admitted to his presence. Pharaoh banishes Moses from the palace on pain of death, the first time he threatens Moses’ life directly.

“Thou hast spoken well” is a sharp reply: you are right. Moses will not see Pharaoh’s face again; the next time Pharaoh summons Moses, in 12:31, the book does not say they met face to face. Moses’ final words to Pharaoh continue into the next chapter.