Exodus 8:19

Then the magicians said unto Pharaoh, This is the finger of God: and Pharaoh's heart was hardened, and he hearkened not unto them; as the LORD had said.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(19) The finger of God.—Rather, of a goal. The magicians meant to say, “This is beyond the power of man: it is supernatural; some god must be helping Moses and Aaron.” They did not mean to profess a belief in One God.

Pharaoh’s heart was hardened.—The mosquitoes did not impress Pharaoh as the frogs had done (Exodus 8:8-15). His heart remained hard. He had no need to harden it by an act of his will. Probably the visitation affected him but little, since he would possess mosquito curtains, and could inhabit the loftier parts of his palace, which would be above the height whereto the mosquito ascends (Herod, ii. 95).

Benson Commentary

Exodus 8:19. This is the finger of God — The devil’s agents, when God permitted them, could do great things; but when he laid an embargo upon them they could do nothing. And their inability in this instance might have shown them whence they had their ability in the former instances, and that they had no power against Moses but what was given them from above. But Pharaoh’s heart was hardened — By himself and the devil. Though he saw his magicians baffled, yet he could not prevail on himself to let the Israelites go. His kingly pride, the desire of detaining so many people in slavish dependance and subjection to him, and, above all, his superstitious prejudices, so blinded his mind that he still remained obdurate. Perhaps he yet considered Moses as a mere magician, like his own, only somewhat more expert in his art.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

8:16-19 These lice were produced out of the dust of the earth; out of any part of the creation God can fetch a scourge, with which to correct those who rebel against him. Even the dust of the earth obeys him. These lice were very troublesome, as well as disgraceful to the Egyptians, whose priests were obliged to take much pains that no vermin ever should be found about them. All the plagues inflicted on the Egyptians, had reference to their national crimes, or were rendered particularly severe by their customs. The magicians attempted to imitate it, but they could not. It forced them to confess, This is the finger of God! The check and restraint put upon us, must needs be from a Divine power. Sooner or later God will force even his enemies to acknowledge his own power. Pharaoh, notwithstanding this, was more and more obstinate.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The finger of God - This expression is thoroughly Egyptian; it need not imply that the magicians recognized Yahweh, the God who performed the marvel. They may possibly have referred it to as a god that was hostile to their own protectors.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

Ex 8:16-19. Plague of Lice.

16. smite the dust of the land, &c.—Aaron's rod, by the direction of Moses, who was commanded by God, was again raised, and the land was filled with gnats, mosquitoes—that is the proper meaning of the original term. In ordinary circumstances they embitter life in Eastern countries, and therefore the terrible nature of this infliction on Egypt may be imagined when no precautions could preserve from their painful sting. The very smallness and insignificance of these fierce insects made them a dreadful scourge. The magicians never attempted any imitation, and what neither the blood of the river nor the nuisance of the frogs had done, the visitation of this tiny enemy constrained them to acknowledge "this is the finger of God"—properly "gods," for they spoke as heathens.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

The finger is put either synecdochically for the hand, as it is Exodus 31:18 Psalm 8:3 144:1; or metaphorically for the power or virtue, as Luke 11:20, compared with Matthew 12:28.

Of God; of that supreme God, whom both the Egyptians and other heathen idolaters acknowledged as superior to all men, and idols, and devils. This they said, lest they should be thought inferior to Moses and Aaron in magical art. But hereby they own the sovereign God to be on Israel’s side; and yet, like the devils, they proceed to fight against him.

He hearkened not unto them; either to his magicians, of whom he last spake; or rather to Moses and Aaron, as the following words show. For relatives oft belong to the remoter antecedents, as Genesis 9:13 1 Samuel 7:17 Mark 2:13.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Then the magicians said unto Pharaoh, this is the finger of God,.... This is to be ascribed to a power superior to human, to a divine power; so long as they could do something similar, or impose upon the senses of men, and make them believe they did the like, they would not acknowledge divine omnipotence; but when they no longer could deceive the sight of Pharaoh and the Egyptian, then they own the effects of a superior power: and this they did partly to detract from the power of Moses and Aaron, because they would not have them pass for more skilful persons in the magic art than themselves; and therefore suggest, that this was done not by virtue of any human skill and art, but by the power of the Supreme Being; and partly to detract from the honour of the God of Israel; for they do not say this is the finger of Jehovah, whom they accounted, as Dr. Lightfoot (g) observes, as a petty trivial god, but this is the finger of Elohim, the Supreme Deity. It is conjectured by some (h), that in memory of this plague the Egyptian priests scrape their whole bodies, lest there should be a louse or any unclean thing on them when they worship their gods, as Herodotus (i) relates:

and Pharaoh's heart was hardened, and he hearkened not unto them; either not unto the magicians owning the hand of God, and his divine power in the plague inflicted; or to Moses and Aaron demanding the dismission of the people of Israel, which latter seems to be confirmed by the usual phrase, as follows:

as the Lord had said; see Exodus 7:4.

(g) Ut supra. (Works, vol. 1. p. 705, 706.) (h) Vid. Scheuchzer. Physica Sacra, vol. 1. p. 132. (i) Euterpe, sive, l. 2. c. 37.

Geneva Study Bible

Then the magicians said unto Pharaoh, This is {f} the finger of God: and Pharaoh's heart was hardened, and he hearkened not unto them; as the LORD had said.

(f) They acknowledged that this was done by God's power and not by sorcery; Lu 11:20.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 19. - The magicians said unto Pharaoh, This is the finger of God. Or "of a God." It is not probable that the magicians believed in a single God, or intended in what they said to express any monotheistic idea. All that they meant to say was - "This is beyond the power of man - it is supernatural - some god must be helping the Israelites." No doubt they had come to this conclusion by a careful scrutiny of all the miracles hitherto wrought by Aaron. He hearkened not unto them. The magicians were minded to resist no longer; but Pharaoh was otherwise minded. It is quite possible that the mosquito plague did not greatly annoy him. He would probably possess lofty apartments above the height to which the mosquito ascends (Herod. 2:95); or he may have guarded himself by mosquito curtains of the finest Egyptian muslin. His subjects would naturally suffer from such a plague far more than he. As the Lord had said. See the comment on the same phrase in ver. 11

CHAPTER 8:20-24 THE FOURTH PLAGUE. Exodus 8:19

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

"The magicians did so with their enchantments (i.e., smote the dust with rods), to bring forth gnats, but could not." The cause of this inability is hardly to be sought for, as Knobel supposes, in the fact that "the thing to be done in this instance, was to call creatures into existence, and not merely to call forth and change creatures and things in existence already, as in the case of the staff, the water, and the frogs." For after this, they could neither call out the dog-flies, nor protect their own bodies from the boils; to say nothing of the fact, that as gnats proceed from the eggs laid in the dust or earth by the previous generation, their production is not to be regarded as a direct act of creation any more than that of the frogs. The miracle in both plagues was just the same, and consisted not in a direct creation, but simply in a sudden creative generation and supernatural multiplication, not of the gnats only, but also of the frogs, in accordance with a previous prediction. The reason why the arts of the Egyptians magicians were put to shame in this case, we have to seek in the omnipotence of God, restraining the demoniacal powers which the magicians had made subservient to their purposes before, in order that their inability to bring out these, the smallest of all creatures, which seemed to arise as it were from the dust itself, might display in the sight of every one the impotence of their secret arts by the side of the almighty creative power of the true God. This omnipotence the magicians were compelled to admit: they were compelled to acknowledge, "This is the finger of God." "But they did not make this acknowledgment for the purpose of giving glory to God Himself, but simply to protect their own honour, that Moses and Aaron might not be thought to be superior to them in virtue or knowledge. It was equivalent to saying, it is not by Moses and Aaron that we are restrained, but by a divine power, which is greater than either" (Bochart). The word Elohim is decisive in support of this view. If they had meant to refer to the God of Israel, they would have used the name Jehovah. The "finger of God" denotes creative omnipotence (Psalm 8:3; Luke 11:20, cf. Exodus 31:18). Consequently this miracle also made no impression upon Pharaoh.