Wyjścia 10:12 Komentarz: Tze'enah Ure'enah, Rashi, Sforno & Or HaChaim

“Hold out your arm over the land of Egypt for the locusts” [10:12]. The Holy One said to Moses: Hold out your hand over the land of Egypt and locusts will come over the land of Egypt. Moses held out his hand and God caused a great wind to blow from the east for a whole day and night. The wind brought the locusts over the whole land of Egypt and there were so many locusts that they covered the whole land of Egypt. It was dark because of so many locusts. They ate all the vegetation and grain. Therefore, locusts are mentioned seven times in the Torah portion, since there were all sorts of locusts, large and small, red, black, white, green and brown.⁶Bahya, Exodus, 10:14.

בארבה means on account of the plague of locusts (the prefix ב signifies “on account of”).

על ארץ מצרים בארבה. A reference to the region from which the locusts generally came, i.e from the southern part of the continent. We have references of this kind in Isaiah 5,26 describing that these locusts traveled long distances before arriving in Egypt.