The Plague of Flies

Gnats or some other kind of flying, biting insect filled the land of Egypt when the Lord sent a third plague to convince Pharaoh to release the Israelites. Yet the king continued to harden his heart (Ex. 8:16–19). This resulted in yet another plague of insects on the Egyptians, as we read in today’s passage.

As in the case of the third plague, the Hebrew does not precisely identify the insects that came upon Egypt. The words “of flies” in Exodus 8:21–24 do not appear in the Hebrew, which contains only the word “swarms.” Thus, there is some uncertainty as to what kind of flying insect appeared in the fourth plague. Most likely, several different species of flies appeared. Notably, one of the ancient translations of Exodus from Hebrew into the Greek language identifies the insects as “dog-flies,” an insect that sucked blood from its victims and led to eye disease and blindness among the ancient Egyptians. In any case, this plague represents an intensification of the harm dealt by the Lord’s judgments. Things were getting worse, not better, for the Egyptians.

Flies were a common but tolerable nuisance in ancient Egypt, but the increase of flies in the fourth plague made things essentially unbearable. This time, however, there was a marked difference between the Egyptians and the Israelites. Moses does not report that the Israelites escaped entirely the Nile’s transformation into blood or the multiplication of frogs and gnats (Ex. 7:14–8:19). Yet the Israelites did not suffer from the plague of flies. As Moses tells us in Exodus 8:22–23, God set apart the land of Goshen in Egypt, where the Israelites lived east of the Nile River, and did not increase the flies there. God makes a distinction between His people and the people of Egypt in anticipation of Israel’s full and final deliverance.

The Lord’s distinguishing between His people and the citizens of this world as a precursor to our ultimate salvation has been our Creator’s practice throughout history. Under the old covenant, the old covenant people were marked out from the world by circumcision and the law of Moses (Gen. 17; Ex. 19), and under the new covenant, our baptism distinguishes us from those who are outside the covenant of grace in Christ and thus are without hope in the world (1 Peter 3:18–22). All those who improve on their baptism, as Westminster Larger Catechism 167 puts it, by turning from sin and trusting in Christ alone for salvation receive eternal life.