THE PLAGUE OF FLIES. 



THE sympathies of men in all ages have gone out to 

 the Pharaoh of the Exodus in one of the deep afflictions 

 that came upon him. Certainly he did deserve some 

 punishment for the way he acted, hardening his heart 

 and refusing to let that people go which other rulers since 

 his day have been only too anxious to drive out ; but 

 somehow it has seemed a little too much that he should 

 have been pestered so with flies. If he was a bald- 

 headed man, his agony must have been something pitiable. 

 Llowever, perhaps it was not quite so bad as it seems. 

 The " elasticity of the original Hebrew ' is always to be 

 counted upon in any difficult passage, and not only the 

 Sepher Hajaschar and the Targum Yerushalmi, with 

 which every schoolboy is familiar, but also the side-notes 

 of the Authorized Version show that the words may quite 

 as well be translated " mixtures of noxious beasts ' as 

 ' swarms of flies." (If I were a statesman I should make 

 it the rule of my life never to be interviewed in anything 

 but the original Hebrew. Then whatever I said that did 

 not happen to suit I could prove really meant something 

 quite different.) So we might as well keep our sympathy 

 to ourselves. It will very likely do us as much good as 

 it will him. 



I am afraid the original Hebrews were not very strong 



16 



