The third plague was lice, because the Egyptian priests affected great external purity, wore linen under their woollen garments, and shaved their heads, according to Herodotus, every third day, to prevent any louse, or any other detestable object, from finding a comfortable shelter. Some scholastics have ventured to insinuate that this insect was a species of gnat; but St. Jerome and Origen very properly observe that this would have been a presumptious anticipation of the plague of flies, which constituted the fourth visitation, because flies were also held sacred by the Egyptians, and were worshipped under the name of Achon, Acoron, and Zebub, more particularly in the city of Acaron or Accoron. Baal was the god of flies, and the fly was worshipped at Ekron, where it was called Baal-ze-bub,—hence Belzebub.
The next plague was the murrain of beasts; because it was necessary that the Israelites should not only see that the cattle of the Egyptians were all infected, while theirs were exempted from the evil; but that their very living symbol of the bull Apis, in whom the soul of Osiris had taken up its dwelling, was affected with epizooty in common with other herds of horned deities, who were called Dii Stercorei; though it appears that the ass and the camel were involved in the same calamity.
Our commentator attempts to account for the sixth plague of boils and blains with equal ingenuity. He affirms that this cruel disorder was sent among the Egyptians to show the Israelites that the medical men to whom they attributed divine powers, could neither cure nor alleviate the disease. The science of medicine bequeathed by Isis to her son Orus was of no avail, and the learned records of Tosorthrus yielded no information. In vain did their leeches search their cryptæ and sacred caverns, or consult their mystic obelisks, which, according to Manetho, were inscribed with the aphorisms of medical experience; their physicians only increased the number of the botches of the land. The Scriptures state that this pestilential malady was produced by the ashes that Aaron and Moses scattered up towards heaven to be wafted over the country. Bryant also accounts for this circumstance, and attributes this method of extending the calamity to the barbarous practice of the Egyptians of burning human victims and scattering the ashes in the air, in a like manner to propitiate their gods.
The fall of rain, hail, fire, and thunder, that constituted the seventh plague, was a chastisement inflicted on the worshippers of these supposed elements. Their Isis presided over the waters, and Osiris and Hephaistus governed fire. Moreover the flax was smitten, whereby the Egyptians were deprived of the means of making linen, the finest of which was their boast and their pride. The barley was also destroyed, and they had no materials for brewing their favourite potation, barley-wine; a species of beer which constituted their chief beverage when the waters of the Nile were turbid and not potable.[14]
But, according to Jacob Bryant, this destruction was not deemed sufficient, since the fecundity of Egypt would soon have replenished their granaries, manufactures, and breweries; therefore locusts were sent to devour every thing that the former devastation had spared; and this plague was a punishment of their belief that Hercules and Apollo had the power of controlling these ravenous insects, which were called Parnopes and Cornopes, whence Apollo was named Parnopius, and Hercules Cornopion. It also appears that the grasshoppers, or cicadæ, were venerated, both as sacred and musical; and the Athenians wore golden ones in their hair, to denote the antiquity of their race of earth-born breed.
Now it is somewhat singular, that while our ingenious author makes such learned inquiries to account for the motives that induced God thus to visit the Egyptians, he does not venture to assign motives for similar calamities which befel other nations and countries; although his researches on the subject are so curious and interesting, that they deserve insertion.
The following is the account given by Beauplam of the destructive inroad of these devourers in the Ukraine:—“Next to the flies, let us talk of the grasshoppers or locusts, which here are so numerous, that they put one in mind of the scourge of God sent upon Egypt when he punished Pharaoh. These creatures do not only come in legions, but in whole clouds, five or six leagues in length, and two or three in breadth, eating up all sorts of grain or grass, so that wheresoever they come, in less than two hours they crop all they can find, which causes great scarcity of provisions. It is not easy to express their numbers, for all the air is full and darkened; and I cannot better represent their flight to you, than by comparing it to the flakes of snow driven by the wind in cloudy weather; and when they alight to feed, the plains are all covered. They make a murmuring noise as they eat, and in less than two hours they devour all close to the ground; then rising, they suffer themselves to be carried away by the wind. When they fly, though the sun shines never so bright, the air is no lighter than when most clouded. In June 1646, having stayed in a new town called Novogorod, I was astonished to see so vast a multitude. They were hatched here last spring; and being as yet scarcely able to fly, the ground was all covered, and the air so full of them, that I could not eat in my chamber without a candle, all the houses being full of them, even the stables, barns, chambers, garrets, cellars, &c. I have seen at night, when they sit to rest themselves, that the roads have been four inches thick of them, one upon another. By the wheels of the carts and the feet of our horses bruising these creatures, there came from them such a stink, as not only offended the nose but the brain. I was not able to endure the stench, but was forced to wash my nose with vinegar, and to hold a handkerchief dipped in it to my nostrils perpetually. These vermin increase and multiply thus: they generate in October, and with their tails make a hole in the ground, and having laid three hundred eggs in it, and covered them with their feet, die; for they never live above six months and a half. And though the rains should come, they would not destroy the eggs; nor does the frost, never so sharp, hurt them. But they continue to the spring, which is about mid-April; when the sun warming the earth, they are hatched, and leap about, being six weeks old before they can fly; when stronger, and able to fly, they go wherever the wind carries them. If it should happen that a north-east wind prevails, it carries them all into the black sea; but if the wind blows from any other quarter, they go into some other country to do mischief. I have been told by persons who understand the languages well, that the words Boze Guion, which mean the scourge of God, are written in Chaldee characters upon their wings.”
Norden mentions that there were supposed to be hieroglyphic marks upon the heads of these insects. Such was the pestilential scourge of the Ukraine; although I do not apprehend that its inhabitants ever worshipped Parnopius or Cornopion, or decorated their filthy heads with golden grasshoppers. Other regions were occasionally visited by these insects. Ludolphus, in speaking of Ethiopia, says, “But much more pernicious than these (the numerous serpents) are the locusts, which do not frequent the desert and sandy places, like the serpents, but the places best manured, and orchards laden with fruit. They appear in prodigious multitudes, like a cloud which obscures the sun; nor plants, nor trees, nor shrubs appear untouched, and wherever they feed, what is left appears as it were parched with fire. A general mortality ensues; and regions lie waste for years.”
Francis Alvarez thus speaks of the same calamity in the country of Prester John. “In this country, and in all the dominions of Prete Janni, there is a very great and horrible plague: this arises from an innumerable number of locusts, which eat and consume all the corn and the trees. And the number of these creatures is so great as to be incredible, and with their numbers they cover the earth, and fill the air in such wise, that it is a hard matter to see the sun. And if the damage they do were general through all the provinces, the people would perish with famine. But one year they destroy one province, sometimes two or three of the provinces; and wherever they go the country remaineth more ruined and destroyed than if it had been set on fire.” The author adds, that he exorcised them upon their invading a district in which he resided, when they all made off; but in the mean time, he adds, “there arose a great storm and thunder towards the sea, which came right against them. It lasted three hours, with an exceeding great shower and tempest. It was a dreadful thing to behold the dead locusts, (whom, by the way he had exorcised,) which we measured to be above two fathoms high upon the banks of the rivers.”
Barbot, in describing Upper Guinea, tells us that “famines are some years occasioned by the dreadful swarms of grasshoppers or locusts, which come from the eastward, and spread all over the country in such prodigious multitudes, that they darken the air, passing over our heads like a mighty cloud.”