Exodus 9:6

6. And all the cattle of Egypt died Here the universal term all is not used in its absolute sense, as meaning each and every one, but it means simply very many . We find that there were other cattle left to be smitten by the boils, (Exodus 9:10,) and still others to be killed by the hail . Exodus 9:25. A like usage is seen in the description of the plague of the locusts, (Exodus 10:12,) which are said to have eaten up all that the hail… left, and yet the hail smote every herb and brake every tree. Exodus 9:25. The Hebrew idiom often thus uses universal terms in a general sense . See Acts 2:5; Colossians 1:23.

There are several instances on record of a similar murrain in Egypt. Lepsius and Poole describe such an infliction which they witnessed in 1842, and a similar one occurred in 1853, resembling the cattle disease which prevailed so extensively throughout America in 1872. But the occurrence of the plague according to definite prediction, and the sparing of the cattle of the Israelites, were the miraculous marks of this visitation.

This was, as yet, the heaviest infliction; for as the Egyptian wealth largely consisted in cattle, their means of support were now in a great degree destroyed. Jehovah shows these idolaters that he holds their supplies of food and clothing in his hands. Yet their crops, and many of their cattle, were yet left.