Bible Dictionaries
Lice

Fausset's Bible Dictionary

kinnim . (See EXODUS; EGYPT.) Mosquitoes, troublesome in Egypt toward October, soon after the plague of frogs, not only giving pain, but entering the body through the nostrils and ears; so Septuagint, Philo, and Origen. But mosquitoes' larvae are deposited in stagnant waters, whereas Exodus (Exodus 8:17) states "all the dust became lice throughout all the land of Egypt." Sir S. Baker writes similarly from experience, "it is as though the very dust were turned into lice"; a tick no larger than a grain of sand becomes swollen with blood to the size of a hazel nut. The Egyptian chenems (related to kinnim) ), "mosquito," retained in the Coptic, favors the former. The Egyptian ken , "force," "plague," may apply to either view.

Bibliography Information
Fausset, Andrew R. Entry for 'Lice'. Fausset's Bible Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/​dictionaries/​eng/​fbd/​l/lice.html. 1949.