Exodus 8:18
And the magicians with their enchantments practiced in like manner, to bring forth sciniphs, and they could not and there were sciniphs as well on men as on beasts.
Open Exodus 8:18 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Feceruntque similiter malefici incantationibus suis, ut educerent sciniphes, et non potuerunt : erantque sciniphes tam in hominibus quam in jumentis.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- ἐποίησαν δὲ ὡσαύτως καὶ οἱ ἐπαοιδοὶ ταῖς φαρμακίαις αὐτῶν ἐξαγαγεῖν τὸν σκνῖφα, καὶ οὐκ ἠδύναντο· καὶ ἐγένοντο οἱ σκνῖφες ἐν τοῖς ἀνθρώποις καὶ ἐν τοῖς τετράποσιν.
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Exodus 8:14
- וַיַּעֲשׂוּ כֵ֨ן הַחַרְטֻמִּ֧ים בְּלָטֵיהֶ֛ם לְהוֹצִ֥יא אֶת הַכִּנִּ֖ים וְלֹ֣א יָכֹ֑לוּ וַתְּהִי֙ הַכִּנָּ֔ם בָּאָדָ֖ם וּבַבְּהֵמָֽה
Haydock's commentary
Practiced, fecerunt; the same expression as ver. 7: whence some argue, that the former were delusions, not real changes. (Haydock)
God was pleased to shew here the vanity of their attempts, and the imbecility of the devil, who could not even bring a single animalcule or insect, though he had before appeared to work great wonders. (Tirinus)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Augustine Expositions on the Book of Psalms, Psalm LXXVIII
27. And if such be the case, if through evil angels God did inflict those plagues upon the Egyptians, shall we dare to say that the water also was turned into blood by means of those same angels, and that frogs were created by means of the same, the like whereunto even the magicians of Pharaoh were able to make by their enchantments; so as that evil angels stood on both sides, on the one side afflicting them, on the other side deceiving them, according to the judgment and dispensation of the most just and most omnipotent God, who doth justly make use of even the naughtiness of unrighteous men? I dare not to say so. …