Exodus 9:18 - Exposition

To-morrow about this time . As it might have been thought that Moses had done nothing very extraordinary in predicting a storm for the next day, a more exact note of time than usual was here given. Compare Exodus 8:23 ; Exodus 9:5 . I will cause it to rain a very grievous hail . Rain, and, still more, hail are comparatively rare in Egypt, though not so rare as stated by some ancient authors (Herod, 3.10; Pomp. Mela, De Situ Orbis , 1.9). A good deal of rain falls in the Lower Country, where the north wind brings air loaded with vapour from the Mediterranean; particularly in the winter months from December to March. Snow, and hail, and thunder are during those months not very uncommon, having been witnessed by many modern travellers, as Pococke, Wansleben, Seetzen, Perry, Tooke, and others. They are seldom, however, of any great severity. Such a storm as here described (see especially Exodus 9:23 , Exodus 9:24 ) would be quite strange and abnormal; no Egyptian would have experienced anything approaching to it, and hence the deep impression that it made ( Exodus 9:27 ). Since the foundation thereof . Not "since the original formation of the country" at the Creation, or by subsequent alluvial deposits, as Herodotus thought (2.5-11), but "since Egypt became a nation" (see Exodus 9:24 ). Modern Egyptologists, or at any rate a large number of them, carry back this event to a date completely irreconcilable with the Biblical chronology—Bockh to b.c. 5702, Unger to b.c. 5613, Mariette and Lenormant to b.c. 5004, Brugsch to b.c. 4455, Lepsius to b.c. 3852, and Bunsen (in one place) to b.c. 3623. The early Egyptian chronology is, however, altogether uncertain, as the variety in these dates sufficiently intimates. Of the dynasties before the (so-called) eighteenth, only seven are proved to be historical, and the time that the Old and Middle Empires lasted is exceedingly doubtful. All the known facts are sufficiently met by such a date as b.c. 2500-2400 for the Pyramid Kings, before whose time we have nothing authentic. This is a date which comes well within the period allowed for the formation of nations by the chronology of the Septuagint and Samaritan versions.