Exodus 9:31-32

31, 32. And the flax and the barley was smitten Flax was a most important crop in Egypt, as great quantities of linen were required for clothing and for the bandages of mummies, as well as for exportation . The barley was in the ear and the flax was bolled These verses give us the first decisive indication of the time of the year when these events took place . The barley was in the ear and the flax was in the flower or blossom . In Egypt flax flowers at the end of January, and flax and barley are both ripe at the end of February or the first of March; but wheat and doora do not ripen till April . This plague, then, took place in the last of January or the first of February. From January to April is also the very time when cattle there are in pasture. The author thus shows a minute acquaintance with the agriculture and natural history of Egypt.

The wheat and the rye Rather, wheat and spelt, a grain closely resembling wheat, the common food of the ancient Egyptians, and now well known and much used under the name of doora. All the processes of cultivating and gathering these grains, and the operations of watering the flax, beating the stalks when gathered, and of manufacturing them into twine and cloth, are fully represented in the paintings of the Egyptian tombs. Wilkinson states that the Egyptian linen was remarkably fine in texture, equal in quality to the best now made, and superior to the modern article in the evenness of its threads. Zoan or Tanis was famous for its flax fields. The storm that would destroy barley in the ear, and flax in the blossom, would be too early in the season to cut off the wheat and spelt, which were not yet high enough to be broken by the hail, and consequently escaped destruction.