Exodus 10

The TorahRooted Bible (TRB), translated directly from the Hebrew and Greek.

The plague of locusts

¹ Then Yahweh said to Moses, "Go in to Pharaoh, for I have made his heart heavy and the heart of his servants, that I may set these signs of Mine in their midst, ² and that you may tell in the ears of your son and of your son's son how I dealt harshly with the Egyptians, and My signs that I did among them, that you may know that I am Yahweh."

³ So Moses and Aaron went in to Pharaoh and said to him, "Thus says Yahweh, the Elohim of the Hebrews: 'How long will you refuse to humble yourself before Me? Let My people go, that they may serve Me. ⁴ For if you refuse to let My people go, see, tomorrow I will bring locusts into your territory. ⁵ They shall cover the face of the land, so that no one will be able to see the land; and they shall eat what is left of what escaped, what remains to you from the hail, and they shall eat every tree that grows for you out of the field. ⁶ They shall fill your houses, the houses of all your servants, and the houses of all the Egyptians, something neither your fathers nor your fathers' fathers have seen, from the day they came to be on the earth until this day.'" Then he turned and went out from Pharaoh.

⁷ Then Pharaoh's servants said to him, "How long shall this man be a snare to us? Let the men go, that they may serve Yahweh their Elohim. Do you not yet know that Egypt is ruined?" ⁸ So Moses and Aaron were brought back to Pharaoh, and he said to them, "Go, serve Yahweh your Elohim. But who exactly are the ones who will go?" ⁹ Moses said, "We will go with our young and with our old; with our sons and with our daughters, with our flocks and with our herds we will go, for we must hold a feast to Yahweh." ¹⁰ Then he said to them, "So may Yahweh be with you, if I ever let you and your little ones go! Look, evil is set before your faces. ¹¹ Not so! Go now, you men, and serve Yahweh, for that is what you are asking." And they were driven out from Pharaoh's presence.

¹² Then Yahweh said to Moses, "Stretch out your hand over the land of Egypt for the locusts, that they may come up on the land of Egypt and eat every plant of the land, all that the hail has left." ¹³ So Moses stretched out his staff over the land of Egypt, and Yahweh brought an east wind on the land all that day and all that night. When it was morning, the east wind had brought the locusts. ¹⁴ The locusts came up over all the land of Egypt and settled on all the territory of Egypt, very heavy; before them there had never been such locusts, nor after them shall there be such. ¹⁵ For they covered the face of the whole land, so that the land was darkened; and they ate every plant of the land and all the fruit of the trees that the hail had left. Not a green thing remained, neither tree nor plant of the field, throughout all the land of Egypt.

¹⁶ Then Pharaoh hastily called for Moses and Aaron and said, "I have sinned against Yahweh your Elohim and against you. ¹⁷ Now therefore, please forgive my sin only this once, and plead with Yahweh your Elohim that He only take this death away from me." ¹⁸ So he went out from Pharaoh and pleaded with Yahweh. ¹⁹ And Yahweh turned the wind into a very strong west wind, which took up the locusts and drove them into the Red Sea; not a single locust remained in all the territory of Egypt. ²⁰ But Yahweh hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he did not let the children of Israel go.

The plague of darkness

²¹ Then Yahweh said to Moses, "Stretch out your hand toward the heavens, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, a darkness that can be felt." ²² So Moses stretched out his hand toward the heavens, and there was thick darkness in all the land of Egypt for three days. ²³ They did not see one another, and no one rose from his place for three days; but all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings.

²⁴ Then Pharaoh called for Moses and said, "Go, serve Yahweh; only let your flocks and your herds be left behind. Your little ones also may go with you." ²⁵ But Moses said, "You must also give into our hands sacrifices and burnt offerings, that we may offer them to Yahweh our Elohim. ²⁶ Our livestock also shall go with us; not a hoof shall be left behind, for we must take of them to serve Yahweh our Elohim, and we ourselves do not know with what we must serve Yahweh until we arrive there." ²⁷ But Yahweh hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he was not willing to let them go. ²⁸ Then Pharaoh said to him, "Get away from me! Take care that you never see my face again, for on the day you see my face you shall die." ²⁹ Moses said, "You have spoken rightly; I will not see your face again."

Notes

• 10:2 Telling the children is part of the purpose of the plagues: each generation is to hear what Yahweh did in Egypt (Deuteronomy 6:20-22; Psalm 78:4). The command returns at the first Passover (12:26-27; 13:8), and later Jewish tradition named the Passover retelling the Haggadah, "the telling."
• 10:9 "Feast" is chag, the word later used for Israel's pilgrimage feasts, when whole households went up to appear before Yahweh (Deuteronomy 16:14-16). Pharaoh seems to want to keep the families back as a pledge that the men will return; Moses insists that the whole people, young and old, belongs in Yahweh's worship.
• 10:14 Joel describes a later invasion of locusts in words that echo this verse: there has never been anything like it, "nor will there be again after it" (Joel 2:2). Revelation draws on this plague when it pictures locusts rising from the abyss (Revelation 9:3).
• 10:19 "West wind" is literally "sea wind," since the Mediterranean lay to the west of Israel, and the wind is "very strong," chazaq, the same word used of Pharaoh's heart in the next verse. "Red Sea" is Yam Suf; suf means "reeds" (2:3), so many render it "Sea of Reeds," the sea Israel will soon cross (13:18; 15:4).
• 10:21 Egypt honored the sun as a supreme god, Ra (later Amun-Ra), and Pharaoh was called "son of Ra"; many see this plague as a judgment on Egypt's greatest god, as Yahweh later says, "against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments" (12:12). Revelation's fifth bowl brings a like darkness on the throne of the beast (Revelation 16:10).
• 10:29 Moses' word here is followed by one more announcement to Pharaoh in 11:4-8, which many read as spoken in this same meeting, before Moses "went out from Pharaoh in hot anger" (11:8).

Exodus 9 · Exodus 11

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