Exodus 8:21
But if thou wilt not let them go, behold I will send in upon thee, and upon thy servants, and upon thy houses all kind of flies: and the houses of the Egyptians shall be filled with flies of divers kinds, and the whole land wherein they shall be.
Open Exodus 8:21 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Quod si non dimiseris eum, ecce ego immittam in te, et in servos tuos, et in populum tuum, et in domos tuas, omne genus muscarum : et implebuntur domus Ægyptiorum muscis diversi generis, et universa terra in qua fuerint.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- ἐὰν δὲ μὴ βούλῃ ἐξαποστεῖλαι τὸν λαόν μου, ἰδοὺ ἐγὼ ἐπαποστέλλω ἐπὶ σὲ καὶ ἐπὶ τοὺς θεράποντάς σου καὶ ἐπὶ τὸν λαόν σου καὶ ἐπὶ τοὺς οἴκους ὑμῶν κυνόμυιαν, καὶ πλησθήσονται αἱ οἰκίαι τῶν Αἰγυπτίων τῆς κυνομυίης, καὶ εἰς τὴν γῆν ἐφ᾽ ἧς εἰσὶν ἐπ᾽ αὐτῆς.
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Exodus 8:17
- כִּ֣י אִם אֵינְךָ֮ מְשַׁלֵּ֣חַ אֶת עַמִּי֒ הִנְנִי֩ מַשְׁלִ֨יחַ בְּךָ֜ וּבַעֲבָדֶ֧יךָ וּֽבְעַמְּךָ֛ וּבְבָתֶּ֖יךָ אֶת הֶעָרֹ֑ב וּמָ֨לְא֜וּ בָּתֵּ֤י מִצְרַ֨יִם֙ אֶת הֶ֣עָרֹ֔ב וְגַ֥ם הָאֲדָמָ֖ה אֲשֶׁר הֵ֥ם עָלֶֽיהָ
Haydock's commentary
Flies. Hebrew heharob. Septuagint, "dog-flies." Some include under this plague all sorts of wild beasts. (Josephus, [Antiquities?] ii. 13; Wisdom xi. 9, 16, 18.) Insects are very troublesome, and the pagans honoured Jupiter with the title of Apomuios, because he delivered them from flies. Beelzebub, "the god-fly," got his name for the same reason, 4 Kings i. 1. (Calmet)
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
Origen Origen's Commentary on the Gospel of John, Chapter XI
“And the passover of the Jews was at hand.” Inquiring into the accuracy of the most wise John (on this passage), I put myself the question, What is indicated by the addition “of the Jews”? Of what other nation was the passover a festival? Would it not have been enough to say, “And the passover was at hand”? It may, however, be the case that the human passover is one thing when kept by men not as Scripture intended, and that the divine passover is another thing, the true passover, observed in spirit and truth by those who worship God in spirit and in truth; and then the distinction indicated in the text may be that between the divine passover and that said to be of the Jews. We should attend to the passover law and observe what the Lord says of it when it is first mentioned in Scripture. …
St John Cassian The Conferences of John Cassian. Part I. Containing Conferences I-X, Chapter V. On the perfection of the soul, as drawn from the comparison of the Centurion in the gospel
Of this perfect mind then there is an excellent figure drawn in the case of the centurion in the gospel; whose virtue and consistency, owing to which he was not led away by the rush of thoughts, but in accordance with his own judgment either admitted such as were good, or easily drove away those of the opposite character, are described in this tropical form: “For I also am a man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it.” If then we too strive manfully against disturbances and sins and can bring them under our own control and discretion, and fight and destroy the passions in our flesh, and bring under the sway of reason the swarm of our thoughts, and drive back from our breast the terrible hosts of the powers opposed to us by the life-giving standard of the Lord’s cr …
The Fathers are given as they wrote. Where a passage lays the Passion on the Jewish people, the Church teaches that it cannot be charged against all the Jews then living, nor against the Jews of today, and that all sinners were its authors (CCC 597, 598).