Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Exodus 9:31
And the flax and the barley was smitten: for the barley [was] in the ear, and the flax [was] bolled.
31, 32. A supplementary notice, which interrupts the connexion between vv. 29f. and 33, stating, more explicitly than v. 25b, what crops had suffered in the fields. On account of the information on Egyptian matters which it contains, the notice is referred by Di. and others to E. In Egypt, according to a farmer living in the Delta (cited by W. R. Smith, Journ. of Phil. xii. 300), flax blossoms and barley ripens in Jan.; but, he adds, the seasons vary, and so the travellers cited by Kn. mention mostly Feb.: wheat and spelt are ripe, in any case, about a month later. As the wheat and the spelt were not yet up, the hail will be represented as coming in Jan. (Kn.), if not earlier.
Flax was much cultivated in Egypt: for linen was worn constantly by men of rank, and exclusively by the priests (Hdt. ii. 37); wrappings for mummies were also made of it. There are many representations on the Egyptian monuments of the processes by which flax was converted into linen; and the linen itself was often of remarkable transparency and fineness (Erman, pp. 448, 449 f.; Wilk.-B. ii.157 f., 165 f.; cf. Gen 41:42; Eze 27:7; Hdt. ii. 81, 105).
was bolled ] was in bud. The Heb. word occurs only here in the OT.; but, as Ges. shews, this is the meaning of gib‘l in the Mishna.
‘Bolled’ is a now obsolete expression meaning podded (lit. swollen, akin to bowl, bellows, billow, &c.) for seed. The old verb was bolnen, to swell. Aldis Wright mentions that the later of the Wycliffite versions has in Col 2:18 bolnyd for ‘puffed up,’ and that in Holland’s Pliny ‘ bolled leekes’ is the rendering of ‘porrum capitatum.’ He adds that ‘bolled’ in the sense of podded is still in use in Ireland, as it is also in Lincolnshire (Jos. Wright, Dialect Dict. i. 332): cf. the remark on the word in the Preface to RV.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Verse 31. The flax and the barley was smitten] The word pishtah, flax, Mr. Parkhurst thinks, is derived from the root pashat, to strip, because the substance which we term flax is properly the bark or rind of the vegetable, pilled or stripped off the stalks. From time immemorial Egypt was celebrated for the production and manufacture of flax: hence the linen and fine linen of Egypt, so often spoken of in ancient authors.
Barley] seorah, from saar, to stand on end, to be rough, bristly, c. hence sear, the hair of the head, and sair, a he-goat, because of its shaggy hair; and hence also barley, because of the rough and prickly beard with which the ears are covered and defended.
Dr. Pocock has observed that there is a double seed-time and harvest in Egypt: Rice, India wheat, and a grain called the corn of Damascus, and in Italian surgo rosso, are sown and reaped at a very different time from wheat, barley and flax. The first are sown in March, before the overflowing of the Nile, and reaped about October; whereas the wheat and barley are sown in November and December, as soon as the Nile is gone off, and are reaped before May.
Pliny observes, Hist. Nat., lib. xviii., cap. 10, that in Egypt the barley is ready for reaping in six months after it is sown, and wheat in seven. In AEgypto HORDEUM sexto a satu mense, FEUMENTA septimo metuntur.
The flax was bolled.] Meaning, I suppose, was grown up into a stalk: the original is gibol, podded or was in the pod.
The word well expresses that globous pod on the top of the stalk of flax which succeeds the flower and contains the seed, very properly expressed by the Septuagint, , but the flax was in seed or was seeding.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The flax and the barley were not so necessary for human life as the wheat and rye. Thus God still sends smaller judgments to usher in the greater.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
31, 32. the flax and the barley wassmitten, &c.The peculiarities that are mentioned in thesecereal products arise from the climate and physical constitution ofEgypt. In that country flax and barley are almost ripe when wheat andrye (spelt) are green. And hence the flax must have been”bolled”that is, risen in stalk or podded in February,thus fixing the particular month when the event took place. Barleyripens about a month earlier than wheat. Flax and barley aregenerally ripe in March, wheat and rye (properly, spelt) in April.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And the flax and the barley was smitten,…. With the hail, thunder, and lightning, and were beat down, bruised, broken, and blasted, and destroyed; of the former there were great quantities produced in Egypt, which was famous for linen, much was made there, and there were many that wrought in fine flax, see Isa 19:9 and the latter were used not only to feed their cattle, but to make a drink of, as we do, ale and strong beer; and so the Egyptians use it to this day, as Dr. Shaw p says, both to feed their cattle, and after it is dried and parched, to make a fermented, intoxicating liquor, called “bonzah”; probably the same with the barley wine of the ancients, and a species of the “sicar”, or strong drink of the Scriptures:
for the barley [was] in the ear, and the flax [was] bolled; or in the stalk, quite grown up, and so the ears of the one were beat off, and the stalks of the other battered with the hail, and broken and destroyed.
p Travels, tom. 2. c. 2. sect. 5. p. 407. Ed. 2.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
The account of the loss caused by the hail is introduced very appropriately in Exo 9:31 and Exo 9:32, to show how much had been lost, and how much there was still to lose through continued refusal. “ The flax and the barley were smitten, for the barley was ear, and the flax was ( blossom); i.e., they were neither of them quite ripe, but they were already in ear and blossom, so that they were broken and destroyed by the hail. “ The wheat, ” on the other hand, “ and the spelt were not broken down, because they were tender, or late” ( ); i.e., they had no ears as yet, and therefore could not be broken by the hail. These accounts are in harmony with the natural history of Egypt. According to Pliny, the barley is reaped in the sixth month after the sowing-time, the wheat in the seventh. The barley is ripe about the end of February or beginning of March; the wheat, at the end of March or beginning of April. The flax is in flower at the end of January. In the neighbourhood of Alexandria, and therefore quite in the north of Egypt, the spelt is ripe at the end of April, and farther south it is probably somewhat earlier; for, according to other accounts, the wheat and spelt ripen at the same time (vid., Hengstenberg, p. 119). Consequently the plague of hail occurred at the end of January, or at the latest in the first half of February; so that there were at least eight weeks between the seventh and tenth plagues. The hail must have smitten the half, therefore, of the most important field-produce, viz., the barley, which was a valuable article of food both for men, especially the poorer classes, and for cattle, and the flax, which was also a very important part of the produce of Egypt; whereas the spelt, of which the Egyptians preferred to make their bread ( Herod. 2, 36, 77), and the wheat were still spared.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
31. And the flax and the barley. He relates the calamity which the hail inflicted; and shows that a part of the fruits of the earth was destroyed, viz., that which had already grown into stalk; but that the seeds which grow more slowly were spared. For God desired to give a remnant of hope, which might invite the king and his people to repentance, if only their wickedness were curable.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(31) The flax and the barley was smitten.Flax was grown largely in Egypt, since linen garments were very generally worn by the people, and were the necessary attire of the priests (Herod. ii. 37). Mummies also were swathed in linen bandages (Herod. ii. 86); and soldiers wore linen corselets (Herod. ii. 182, 3:47). Barley was grown as food for horses, as an element in the manufacture of beer, and as a material for an inferior kind of bread. The flax is bolledi.e., forms its seed-vesseltowards the end of January or beginning of February, and the barley comes into ear about the same time. These facts fix the date of this plague, and help to fix the dates both of the earlier and the later ones.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
31, 32. And the flax and the barley was smitten Flax was a most important crop in Egypt, as great quantities of linen were required for clothing and for the bandages of mummies, as well as for exportation . The barley was in the ear and the flax was bolled These verses give us the first decisive indication of the time of the year when these events took place . The barley was in the ear and the flax was in the flower or blossom . In Egypt flax flowers at the end of January, and flax and barley are both ripe at the end of February or the first of March; but wheat and doora do not ripen till April . This plague, then, took place in the last of January or the first of February. From January to April is also the very time when cattle there are in pasture. The author thus shows a minute acquaintance with the agriculture and natural history of Egypt.
The wheat and the rye Rather, wheat and spelt, a grain closely resembling wheat, the common food of the ancient Egyptians, and now well known and much used under the name of doora. All the processes of cultivating and gathering these grains, and the operations of watering the flax, beating the stalks when gathered, and of manufacturing them into twine and cloth, are fully represented in the paintings of the Egyptian tombs. Wilkinson states that the Egyptian linen was remarkably fine in texture, equal in quality to the best now made, and superior to the modern article in the evenness of its threads. Zoan or Tanis was famous for its flax fields. The storm that would destroy barley in the ear, and flax in the blossom, would be too early in the season to cut off the wheat and spelt, which were not yet high enough to be broken by the hail, and consequently escaped destruction.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Exo 9:31. The flax and the barley were smitten For the flax was bolled, that is, was risen in stalk; and the barley was in the ear. Now, as this event happened in the month Abib, which answers to the latter end of our March and the beginning of April, we may hence learn the season of sowing and reaping their barley in Egypt; between which, according to the naturalists, there were six months. It has been proved, that their harvest commenced about the beginning of April, and was finished about the end of May.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Was not Moses in all this a type of the ever-blessed Jesus?
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Exo 9:31 And the flax and the barley was smitten: for the barley [was] in the ear, and the flax [was] bolled.
Ver. 31, 32. And the flax and the barley. ] We need not wonder that in Egypt their barley harvest was so long before their wheat harvest; since, from the overflow of the Nile, and the difference of the climate, it must, needs be otherwise with them than with other countries.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Note the Introversion in this verse.
a flax – These ripened in middle of February or
b barley – early. in March. Israel left early in
b barley – April.
a flax
boiled. A word of Scandinavian origin, like bulged, i.e. swelled, or ripe. But Hebrew = blossom, i.e. the cap: sules formed. True to the seasons in Egypt to this day.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
flax: The word pishteh, flax, Mr. Parkhurst thinks may be derived from pashat, to strip, because the substance which we call flax is properly the filaments of the bark or rind of the vegetable, stripped off the stalks. From time immemorial, Egypt was celebrated for the production and manufacture of flax; and hence the linen and fine linen of Egypt, so often spoken of in scripture and ancient authors.
the barley: The Hebrew seorah, barley, in Arabic shair, and shairat, is so called from its rough, bristly beard, with which the ears are covered and defended; from saar, to stand on end as the hair of the head. Hence sear, the hair of the head. Dr. Pococke has observed that there is a double seed time and harvest in Egypt; rice, India wheat, and a grain called the corn of Damascus, are sown and reaped at a very different time from wheat, barley, and flax. The first are sown in March, before the overflowing of the Nile, and reaped about October; whereas the wheat and barley are sown in November and December, as soon as the Nile has gone off, and reaped before May. Rth 1:22, Rth 2:23, Amo 4:9, Hab 3:17
Reciprocal: Isa 28:25 – in the principal
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Exo 9:31. The flax and barley were smitten Which were not so necessary for human life as the wheat and rye. Thus God sends smaller judgments before the greater. The flax was bolled Grown into a stalk.