time was also fixed for the coming of the plague, as in the case of the previous one (Exo 8:23), in order that, whereas murrains occasionally occur in Egypt, Pharaoh might discern in his one the judgment of Jehovah.
Verse 6
In the words “all the cattle of the Egyptians died,” all is not to be taken in an absolute sense, but according to popular usage, as denoting such a quantity, that what remained was nothing in comparison; and, according to Exo 9:3, it must be entirely restricted to the cattle in the field. For, according to Exo 9:9 and Exo 9:19, much of the cattle of the Egyptians still remained even after this murrain, though it extended to all kinds of cattle, horses, asses, camels, oxen, and sheep, and differed in this respect from natural murrains.
Verse 7
But Pharaoh's heart still continued hardened, though he convinced himself by direct inquiry that the cattle of the Israelites had been spared.
verses 8-12
The sixth plague smote man and beast with Boils Breaking Forth in Blisters. - שׁחין (a common disease in Egypt, Deu 28:27) from the unusual word שׁחן (incaluit) signifies inflammation, then an abscess or boil (Lev 13:18.; 2Ki 20:7). אבעבּעת, from בּוּע, to spring up, swell up, signifies blisters, φλυκτίδες (lxx), pustulae. The natural substratum of this plague is discovered by most commentators in the so-called Nile-blisters, which come out in innumerable little pimples upon the scarlet-coloured skin, and change in a short space of time into small, round, and thickly-crowded blisters. This is called by the Egyptians Hamm el Nil, or the heat of the inundation. According to Dr. Bilharz, it is a rash, which occurs in summer, chiefly towards the close at the time of the overflowing of the Nile, and produces a burning and pricking sensation upon the skin; or, in Seetzen's words, “it consists of small, red, and slightly rounded elevations in the skin, which give strong twitches and slight stinging sensations, resembling those of scarlet fever”. The cause of this eruption, which occurs only in men and not in animals, has not been determined; some attributing it to the water, and others to the heat. Leyrer, in Herzog's Cyclopaedia, speaks of the “Anthrax which stood in a causal relation to the fifth plague; a black, burning abscess, which frequently occurs after a murrain, especially the cattle distemper, and which might be called to mind by the name ἄνθραξ, coal, and the symbolical sprinkling of the soot of the
