Exodus 9:8

Jerome's Latin Vulgate

Et dixit Dominus ad Moysen et Aaron: Tollite plenas manus cineris de camino, et spargat illum Moyses in cælum coram Pharaone.

Parallel Translations

Clementine Latin Vulgate (1592)
Hæc quoque dixit Deus ad Noë, et ad filios ejus cum eo :

Nova Vulgata (1979)
Et dixit Dominus ad Moysen et Aaron: "Tollite plenas manus cineris de camino, et spargat illum Moyses in caelum coram pharaone;

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Take to: This was a significant command; not only referring to the fiery furnace, which was a type of the slavery of the Israelites, but to a cruel rite common among the Egyptians. They had several cities styled Typhonian, in which at particular seasons they sacrificed men, who were burnt alive; and the ashes of the victim were scattered upwards in the air, with the view, probably, that where any atom of dust was carried, a blessing was entailed. The like, therefore, was done by Moses, though with a different intention, and more certain effect. See Bryant, pp. 93-106. Exodus 8:16

Reciprocal: Ezekiel 10:2 - coals Revelation 16:2 - a noisome

Gill's Notes on the Bible

And the Lord said unto Moses and unto Aaron,.... This very probably was the day following, on the third day of the month Abib, about the eighteenth of March, that orders were given to bring on the following plague:

take to you handfuls of ashes of the furnace; either in which the bricks were burnt, or rather in which food was boiled, since it can scarcely he thought there should be brickkiln furnaces so near Pharaoh's court; though perhaps some reference may be had to them, and to the labour of the children Israel at them, and as a just retaliation for their oppression of them in that way. These ashes were such as were blown off the coals, and though fresh, yet not so hot but that they could take and hold them in their hands:

and let Moses sprinkle it towards the heaven, in the sight of Pharaoh; this was to be done before Pharaoh, that he might be an eyewitness of the miracle, he himself seeing with his own eyes that nothing else were cast up into the air but a few light ashes; and this was to be done towards heaven, to show that the plague or judgment came down from heaven, from the God of heaven, whose wrath was now revealed from thence; and Moses he was to do this; he alone, as Philo z thinks, or rather both he and Aaron, since they were both spoken to, and both filled their hands with ashes; it is most likely that both cast them up into the air, though Moses, being the principal person, is only mentioned.

z De Vita Mosis, l. 1. p. 622.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

This marks a distinct advance and change in the character of the visitations. Hitherto, the Egyptians had not been attacked directly in their persons. It is the second plague which was not preceded by a demand and warning, probably on account of the special hardness shown by Pharaoh in reference to the murrain.

Ashes of the furnace - The act was evidently symbolic: the ashes were to be sprinkled toward heaven, challenging, so to speak, the Egyptian deities. There may possibly be a reference to an Egyptian custom of scattering to the winds ashes of victims offered to Typhon.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

The SIXTH plague - the BOILS and BLAINS

Verse Exodus 9:8. Handfuls of ashes of the furnace — As one part of the oppression of the Israelites consisted In their labour in the brick-kilns, some have observed a congruity between the crime and the punishment. The furnaces, in the labour of which they oppressed the Hebrews, now yielded the instruments of their punishment; for every particle of those ashes, formed by unjust and oppressive labour, seemed to be a boil or a blain on the tyrannic king and his cruel and hard-hearted people.