3. cattle] lit. possessions, commonly used of possessions in sheep and oxen (Exodus 12:38, Genesis 47:14), but including here other animals as well.

camels] Camels were not used, or bred, in ancient Egypt, nor do they appear ‘in any inscription or painting before the Greek period’ (Erman, p. 493; cf. W. Max Müller, EB. i. 634; Sayce, EHH. 169). They look here like an anachronism: the reference may however be to camels belonging to traders, which had brought merchandise into Egypt across the desert from Arabia, or elsewhere (cf. Genesis 37:25).

grievous] i.e. severe: see on Exodus 8:24.

murrain] the word which, when used of a disease of men, is commonly rendered pestilence (v. 15, Exodus 9:3, and frequently); it is applied to a cattle plague only here and Psalm 78:50.

Egypt does not seem to be often visited by cattle plagues. Pruner (Krankheiten des Orients, p. 108 ff.), and Lepsius (Letters from Eg., p. 44), cited by Kn., mention, however, a severe epidemic which began in 1842, and by June, 1843, had raged for nine months (Mrs Poole, The Englishwoman in Egypt, 1844, ii. 114 f.), causing great mortality among oxen and sheep, though it did not affect camels or horses. Pruner attributed this epidemic to the water of the Nile, which was low and impure at the time when it began: cattle which were at a distance from the Nile, and could obtain good water, were not attacked by it. There have also been cattle plagues in Egypt in recent years.

Verse 3. - Thy cattle which is in the field. The word "cattle" here is to be taken generally, as including under it the various kinds particularised. The cattle are mentioned as being at this time "in the field," because during the inundation all of them were brought in and housed, while, after the waters had retired, and the land had dried, most of them were turned out to graze. This is always the time at which epidemics break out. The horses, the asses, etc. Horses, which had been unknown prior to the Hyksos invasion, and which consequently do not appear in the list of animals presented to Abraham (Genesis 12:16), first became common under the eighteenth dynasty, when they seem to have been employed exclusively in war. Their use for agricultural purposes, which is perhaps here indicated, was not till later. (See Chabas, Etudes sur l'Antquite' Historic, p. 421.) The ass was employed in great numbers at all times in Egypt. Women and children rode on them, men sometimes in a sort of litter between two of them. They were chiefly used for carrying burthens, which were sometimes of enormous size (Lepsius, Denkmaler, Part 2. pls. 42a, 47, 56, 80c, etc.). The camels. Camels are not represented on any Egyptian monument; but they are occasionally mentioned in the inscriptions (Chabas, Etudes, pp. 400-13). They are called kauri or kamaru. There is no doubt of their employment by the Egyptians as beasts of burthen in the traffic with Syria and with the Sinaitic peninsula. Exodus 9:3"The hand of Jehovah will be (הויה, which only occurs here, as the participle of היה, generally takes its form from הוה, Nehemiah 6:6; Ecclesiastes 2:22) against thy cattle...as a very severe plague (דּבר that which sweeps away, a plague), i.e., will smite them with a severe plague. A distinction was again made between the Israelites and the Egyptians. "Of all (the cattle) belonging to the children of Israel, not one (דּבּר Exodus 9:4, equals אחד Exodus 9:6) shall die." A definite time was also fixed for the coming of the plague, as in the case of the previous one (Exodus 8:23), in order that, whereas murrains occasionally occur in Egypt, Pharaoh might discern in his one the judgment of Jehovah. Exodus 9:3 Interlinear
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