Exodus 8:20-32 comments: swarms of flies

20 ¶  And the LORD said unto Moses, Rise up early in the morning, and stand before Pharaoh; lo, he cometh forth to the water; and say unto him, Thus saith the LORD, Let my people go, that they may serve me. 21  Else, if thou wilt not let my people go, behold, I will send swarms of flies upon thee, and upon thy servants, and upon thy people, and into thy houses: and the houses of the Egyptians shall be full of swarms of flies, and also the ground whereon they are. 22  And I will sever in that day the land of Goshen, in which my people dwell, that no swarms of flies shall be there; to the end thou mayest know that I am the LORD in the midst of the earth. 23  And I will put a division between my people and thy people: to morrow shall this sign be. 24  And the LORD did so; and there came a grievous swarm of flies into the house of Pharaoh, and into his servants’ houses, and into all the land of Egypt: the land was corrupted by reason of the swarm of flies. 25  And Pharaoh called for Moses and for Aaron, and said, Go ye, sacrifice to your God in the land. 26  And Moses said, It is not meet so to do; for we shall sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians to the LORD our God: lo, shall we sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians before their eyes, and will they not stone us? 27  We will go three days’ journey into the wilderness, and sacrifice to the LORD our God, as he shall command us. 28  And Pharaoh said, I will let you go, that ye may sacrifice to the LORD your God in the wilderness; only ye shall not go very far away: intreat for me. 29  And Moses said, Behold, I go out from thee, and I will intreat the LORD that the swarms of flies may depart from Pharaoh, from his servants, and from his people, to morrow: but let not Pharaoh deal deceitfully any more in not letting the people go to sacrifice to the LORD. 30  And Moses went out from Pharaoh, and intreated the LORD. 31  And the LORD did according to the word of Moses; and he removed the swarms of flies from Pharaoh, from his servants, and from his people; there remained not one. 32  And Pharaoh hardened his heart at this time also, neither would he let the people go.

The rod turning into a serpent, the surface water turning into blood, the frogs, the lice, and now the flies. Baalzebub, a god of the Philistines at Ekron, referenced in 2Kings, chapter one, is the lord of the flies. In a play on this god’s name, we get in the New Testament Beelzebub, the lord of the house, whom Jesus called the prince of devils in Matthew 12:24. In Luke 11:18 we get, by virtue of parallel phrasing, the information that this god is Satan himself.

Matthew 12:24  But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, This fellow doth not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub the prince of the devils.

Luke 11:18  If Satan also be divided against himself, how shall his kingdom stand? because ye say that I cast out devils through Beelzebub.

The Egyptian god of the flies was Kheper or Khepri according to some, pictured with a man’s body and a fly’s head, although some authorities name another god. God insulted and judged the Egyptian hierarchy of gods in these plagues as noted previously.

 It is a matter of common sense to believe these things did not afflict Goshen, where the Hebrews lived, but that exemption from suffering is only mentioned here first as a sign of God’s power in dividing His people from the rest. He had a reason for doing so here which He might not have in a natural disaster now when churches and Christians suffer along with the heathen.

 Pharaoh is now willing for the Hebrews to have a time of worship within his territory but when Moses persists he agrees that they go into the wilderness, only not too far. But again his heart is hardened and he goes back on his willingness to let them go.

When Pharaoh offered that the Hebrews sacrifice to their God in the land Moses declared that the sacrifice they would make to the Lord was the abomination of the Egyptians and that they would attack the Hebrews for doing so in their presence. This was his excuse for why they needed to journey into the wilderness. The Egyptians held several animals as sacred, for instance a cow for Isis, and it must be remembered that much later when the Romans ruled Egypt a Roman official was murdered by a mob for killing a cat. Moses was not willing to sacrifice in a manner unpleasing to God just to keep from causing a riot among the Egyptians for sacrificing in a manner that displeased them.