The Eighth Plague Continued (Exodus 10:12-20)

12 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand [with the staff of God] over the land of Egypt [did her turn in a circle?] for the locusts, so that they may come upon the land of Egypt and eat every plant in the land [“and all the fruit of the trees” left out of the MT but in the SP and LXX; see v. 15], all that the hail has left.” 13 So Moses stretched out his staff over the land of Egypt [symbolically], and the Lord brought an east wind upon the land all that day and all that night. When it was morning, the east wind had brought the locusts. [God did not create the locusts out of nothing but brought them via the wind from a land where they had already bred in abundance.] 14 The locusts came up over all the land of Egypt and settled on the whole country of Egypt, such a dense swarm of locusts as had never been before, nor ever will be again. [Since most of the vegetation in Egypt grew along the Nile, that is most likely the area in which they gathered in dense groupings.] 15 They covered the face of the whole land, so that the land was darkened, and they ate all the plants in the land and all the fruit of the trees that the hail had left. [Locusts are grasshoppers that have matured under ideal conditions in sandy soil where grasshopper eggs are deposited. In the larval stage they rub together so frequently when in large numbers that they turn brown in pigmentation instead of the usual green when eggs develop in greater isolation. The darkening of the land by the brown locusts foreshadows the plague to darkness to follow.] Not a green thing remained, neither tree nor plant of the field, through all the land of Egypt. [Soon Egypt would have no food in stark contrast to what she had under Joseph’s leadership.] 16 Then Pharaoh hastily called Moses and Aaron and said, “I have sinned against the Lord your God, and against you. 17 Now therefore, forgive my sin, please, only this once, and plead with the Lord your God only to remove this death from me.” [Nothing Pharaoh says is very new, leading the reader to have some skepticism regarding his repentance’s genuineness. However, there are a few difference than have happened before. First, he recalls Moses and Aaron quickly. Second, he adds that he has “sinned the Lord your God” in addition to Moses and Aaron. Third he asks for forgiveness, admitting he was wrong and they—and the one true God—were right. By requesting, “remove this death from me,” Pharaoh’s point was that he saw Egypt dying before his very eyes from the two most recent plagues. The plagues are leading from inconvenience and temporary hardship to death. Paul makes a similar point in Romans 6:23 when he says, “The wages of sin is death.” It is not that every sin leads instantly to death but rather that every sin does move the sinner further down the inevitable path to death, which is the ultimate punishment for evildoers in a universe created and sustained by a holy, omnipotent God.] 18 So he went out from Pharaoh and pleaded with the Lord. 19 And the Lord turned the wind into a very strong west wind, which lifted the locusts and drove them into the Red Sea. Not a single locust was left in all the country of Egypt. 20 But the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he did not let the people of Israel go. [These are reminders that the plagues and the ending of the plagues is all by the hand of God.]