Matthew Henry on Exodus 9:8-12
Observe here, concerning the plague of boils and blains,
I. When they were not wrought upon by the death of their cattle, God sent a plague that seized their own bodies, and touched them to the quick. If less judgments do not do their work, God will send greater. Let us therefore humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God, and go forth to meet him in the way of his judgments, that his anger may be turned away from us.
II. The signal by which this plague was summoned was the sprinkling of warm ashes from the furnace, towards heaven (Exo 9:8, Exo 9:10), which was to signify the heating of the air with such an infection as should produce in the bodies of the Egyptians sore boils, which would…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Exodus 9:10
Moses took ashes from the furnace--Hebrew, "brick-kiln." The magicians, being sufferers in their own persons, could do nothing, though they had been called; and as the brick-kiln was one of the principal instruments of oppression to the Israelites [Deu 4:20; Kg1 8:51; Jer 11:4], it was now converted into a means of chastisement to the Egyptians, who were made to read their sin in their punishment.
Adam Clarke on Exodus 9:11
The boil was upon the magicians - They could not produce a similar malady by throwing ashes in the air; and they could neither remove the plague from the people, nor from their own tormented flesh. Whether they perished in this plague we know not, but they are no more mentioned. If they were not destroyed by this awful judgment, they at least left the field, and no longer contended with these messengers of God. The triumph of God's power was now complete, and both the Hebrews and the Egyptians must see that there was neither might, nor wisdom, nor counsel against the Lord; and that, as universal nature acknowledged his power, devils and men must fail before him.
John Gill on Exodus 9:12
And the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh,.... He having often, and so long hardened his own heart, God gave him up to judicial hardness of heart, to his own corruptions, the temptations of Satan, and the lying magicians about him, to make an ill use of everything that offered to him, and put a wrong construction on all that befell him, so that whatever was said to him, or inflicted on him, made no impression to any purpose:
and he hearkened not unto them; to Moses and Aaron, and to the Lord by them:
as the Lord had spoken to Moses; both that he would harden his heart, and he should not hearken to them; all this was no other than what the Lord had said should be, Exodus 4:21.
