(Exodus) Exodus 8:16-19

Now verse 16, And the Lord said unto Moses, Say unto Aaron, Stretch out thy rod, and smite the dust of the land, that it may become lice throughout all the land of Egypt. And they did so. For Aaron stretched out his hand with his rod, and smote the dust of the earth, and it became lice in man and in beast.

All the dust of the land became lice throughout all the land of Egypt. Now note this, and this is interesting. And the magicians did so with their enchantments to bring forth lice, but they could not.

So there were lice upon man and upon beast. 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.

Now up to this point, the magicians were able to duplicate every miracle, but they are not able to duplicate this. Well, how had they done the others? Well, I must confess, I don't know. But it raises the question, were they fakes? Were they really magicians in our understanding of it? Was it a trick that they were performing? Well, at least at this juncture, they acknowledged the finger of God, and as it were, God is gradually convincing them.

But notice this plague of lice again. The plague of lice was that which actually had to do with the earth god, Geb, or Geb. The judgment, of course, brought loathing upon Geb, the earth god.

And he's closely related to the earth in all of its states. Geb was the one who made his report to Osiris on the state of the harvest, and from him came an emanation of holy oil in which the backbone was immersed in the work of making a dummy. So you see that this thing entered into the very life of these Egyptians.

Actually, this word lice, though, could mean gnats or mosquitoes. Gesenius made that alteration, by the way. And the root meaning means to cover or to nip or to pinch.

And the very interesting thing is that nipping or pinching or covering, I don't think that a mosquito could fulfill all that, or actually a gnat, but certainly lice would. Here is a statement made by a leading zoologist. He says, "...the mites form an enormous order whose function in life is to a large extent to play the scavenger." Well, now, you can well understand with all those frogs around, and the record here says that the land was smelling bad, and these gnats could eventually get rid of them.

They could become a blessing as well as a curse also. Now, we have this word, though, that was given by Mr. Bidnall, and he tells about his experience in the land of Egypt. And I think this is quite interesting in connection with the lice.

He says, "...I noticed that the sand appeared to be in motion. Closer inspection revealed that the surface of the ground was a moving mass of minute ticks, thousands of which were crawling up my legs. I beat a hasty retreat, pondering the words of the Scriptures.

The dust of the land became lice throughout all the land of Egypt." The miracle now is one that could not be duplicated. God's beginning to level it against the very life in the land of Egypt.