a heavy multitude, as in Exo 10:14; Gen 50:9, etc. These swarms were to fill “the houses of the Egyptians, and even the land upon which they (the Egyptians) were,” i.e., that part of the land which was not occupied by houses; whilst the land of Goshen, where the Israelites dwelt, would be entirely spared. הפלה (to separate, to distinguish in a miraculous way) is conjugated with an accusative, as in Psa 4:4. It is generally followed by בּין (Exo 4:4; Exo 11:7), to distinguish between. עמד: to stand upon a land, i.e., to inhabit, possess it; not to exist, or live (Exo 21:21).
Verse 23
“And I will put a deliverance between My people and thy people.” פּדוּת does not mean διαστολή, divisio (lxx, Vulg.), but redemption, deliverance. Exemption from this plague was essentially a deliverance for Israel, which manifested the distinction conferred upon Israel above the Egyptians. By this plague, in which a separation and deliverance was established between the people of God and the Egyptians, Pharaoh was to be taught that the God who sent this plague was not some deity of Egypt, but “Jehovah in the midst of the land” (of Egypt); i.e., as Knobel correctly interprets it, (a) that Israel's God was the author of the plague; (b) that He had also authority over Egypt; and (c) that He possessed supreme authority: or, to express it still more concisely, that Israel's God was the Absolute God, who ruled both in and over Egypt with free and boundless omnipotence.
verses 24-27
This plague, by which the land was destroyed (תּשּׁחת), or desolated, inasmuch as the flies not only tortured, “devoured” (Psa 78:45) the men, and disfigured them by the swellings produced by their sting, but also killed the plants in which they deposited their eggs, so alarmed Pharaoh that he sent for Moses and Aaron, and gave them permission to sacrifice to their God “in the land.” But Moses could not consent to this restriction. “It is not appointed so to do” (נכון does not mean aptum, conveniens, but statutum, rectum), for two reasons: (1) because sacrificing in the land would be an abomination to the Egyptians, and would provoke them most bitterly (Exo 8:26); and (2) because they could only sacrifice to Jehovah their God as He had directed them (Exo 8:27). The abomination referred to did not consist in their sacrificing animals which the Egyptians regarded as holy. For the word תּועבה (abomination) would not be applicable to the sacred animals. Moreover, the cow was the only
