Keluaran 8:24

8:24 The Lord did so; a ¹  thick ²  swarm of flies came into ³  Pharaoh’s house and into the houses ⁴  of his servants, and throughout the whole land of Egypt the land was ruined ⁵  because of the swarms of flies.

Keluaran 12:30

12:30 Pharaoh got up ⁶  in the night, ⁷  along with all his servants and all Egypt, and there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was no house ⁸  in which there was not someone dead.

[8:24]  ¹ tn Heb “and there came a….”

[8:24]  ² tn Heb “heavy,” or “severe.”

[8:24]  ³ tn Here, and in the next phrase, the word “house” has to be taken as an adverbial accusative of termination.

[8:24]  ⁴ tn The Hebrew text has the singular here.

[8:24]  ⁵ tc Concerning the connection of “the land was ruined” with the preceding, S. R. Driver (Exodus, 68) suggests reading with the LXX, Smr, and Peshitta; this would call for adding a conjunction before the last clause to make it read, “into the house of Pharaoh, and into his servants’ houses, and into all the land of Egypt; and the land was…”

[8:24]  tn The Hebrew word תִּשָּׁחֵת (tishakhet) is a strong word; it is the Niphal imperfect of שָׁחַת (shakhat) and is translated “ruined.” If the classification as imperfect stands, then it would have to be something like a progressive imperfect (the land was being ruined); otherwise, it may simply be a preterite without the vav (ו) consecutive. The verb describes utter devastation. This is the verb that is used in Gen 13:10 to describe how Yahweh destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. Swarms of flies would disrupt life, contaminate everything, and bring disease.

[12:30]  ⁶ tn Heb “arose,” the verb קוּם (qum) in this context certainly must describe a less ceremonial act. The entire country woke up in terror because of the deaths.

[12:30]  ⁷ tn The noun is an adverbial accusative of time – “in the night” or “at night.”

[12:30]  ⁸ sn Or so it seemed. One need not push this description to complete literalness. The reference would be limited to houses that actually had firstborn people or animals. In a society in which households might include more than one generation of humans and animals, however, the presence of a firstborn human or animal would be the rule rather than the exception.