Essay for Exodus 9:13

Long like its corresponding predecessors (numbers 1 and 4), the seventh plague prefaces its occurrence with an emphatic introduction by God, and its warning gives God-fearing Egyptians a chance to save themselves (vv.19–21), something new. The description of the plague itself is fraught with spectacle, presaging Sinai with its use of thunder and fire. There is also the ominous note, twice in the text (vv.18, 24), that such a plague was unique in Egyptian annals. The plagues, at least for the Egyptians, now transcend the realms of normal, explainable experience, as well as of historical recollection.