Keluaran 8:16

The Third Blow: Gnats

8:16 ¹ The Lord said to Moses, “Tell Aaron, ‘Extend your staff and strike the dust of the ground, and it will become ²  gnats ³  throughout all the land of Egypt.’”

Keluaran 29:27

29:27 You are to sanctify the breast of the wave offering and the thigh of the contribution, ⁴  which were waved and lifted up as a contribution from the ram of consecration, from what belongs to Aaron and to his sons.

Keluaran 34:4

34:4 So Moses ⁵  cut out two tablets of stone like the first; ⁶  early in the morning he went up ⁷  to Mount Sinai, just as the Lord had commanded him, and he took in his hand the two tablets of stone.

[8:16]  ¹ sn The third plague is brief and unannounced. Moses and Aaron were simply to strike the dust so that it would become gnats. Not only was this plague unannounced, but also it was not duplicated by the Egyptians.

[8:16]  ² tn The verb is the perfect tense with vav (ו) consecutive, meaning “and it will be.” When הָיָה (hayah) is followed by the lamed (ל) proposition, it means “become.”

[8:16]  ³ tn The noun is כִּנִּים (kinnim). The insect has been variously identified as lice, gnats, ticks, flies, fleas, or mosquitoes. “Lice” follows the reading in the Peshitta and Targum (and so Josephus, Ant. 2.14.3 [2.300]). Greek and Latin had “gnats.” By “gnats” many commentators mean “mosquitoes,” which in and around the water of Egypt were abundant (and the translators of the Greek text were familiar with Egypt). Whatever they were they came from the dust and were troublesome to people and animals.

[29:27]  ⁴ sn These are the two special priestly offerings: the wave offering (from the verb “to wave”) and the “presentation offering” (older English: heave offering; from a verb “to be high,” in Hiphil meaning “to lift up,” an item separated from the offering, a contribution). The two are then clarified with two corresponding relative clauses containing two Hophals: “which was waved and which was presented.” In making sacrifices, the breast and the thigh belong to the priests.

[34:4]  ⁵ tn Heb “he”; the referent has been specified here and the name “Moses,” which occurs later in this verse, has been replaced with the pronoun (“he”), both for stylistic reasons.

[34:4]  ⁶ sn Deuteronomy says that Moses was also to make an ark of acacia wood before the tablets, apparently to put the tablets in until the sanctuary was built. But this ark may not have been the ark built later; or, it might be the wood box, but Bezalel still had to do all the golden work with it.

[34:4]  ⁷ tn The line reads “and Moses got up early in the morning and went up.” These verbs likely form a verbal hendiadys, the first one with its prepositional phrase serving in an adverbial sense.