Again, after that plague of blood had run its course in vain for seven days, that of frogs rose up from the streams, rivers, and ponds, and the land was covered with these actively disgusting objects, as the waters had shocked and sickened them before (Ex. 8:1-15). How humbling this second judgment must have been to a people who included frogs among their sacred animals – to see them, an object of detestation, crowd their houses, and beds, and ovens, and kneading-troughs! Never do these animals annoy the Egyptians at the beginning of the year; still less do they come and go at the command of a man like Moses.
The third and fourth plagues (in our version, lice and swarms of flies, Exodus 8:16-32) may be open to discussion as to their specific character; but there can be no doubt that they dealt with man and beast with increasing intensity and the more distressingly if they interfered with personal cleanliness, and made the killing of what they venerated needful in self-defense. The rationalist counts at least the first of these “a natural phenomenon of the country,” the wonder being its origination by Aaron and the exemption of the Israelites. He is thus more incredulous than the magicians who said to Pharaoh, “This is the finger of God” – not a mere combination of unusual circumstances with a natural phenomenon.