He sent swarms of flies among them, which devoured them; and frogs, which destroyed them.
Read Chapter 78
George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
Flies. Cænomyiam. Many copies of the Septuagint have kynomiam, "the dog-fly "which St. Jerome, (Calmet) and St. Augustine properly correct. (Berthier) (Exodus viii. 24.)
Now, just as, in consequence of an irregular mode of living, a deadly bilious humour may be formed in the inwards, which the physician by his art may bring on to be a sick-vomiting, without being himself chargeable with producing the sick humour in the man's body; for excess in diet was what produced it, while the physician's science only made it show itself; so, although it may be said that the painful retribution that falls upon those who are by choice wicked comes from God, it would be only in accordance with right reason, to think that ills of that kind find both their beginnings and their causes in ourselves. For to one who lives without sin there is no darkness, no worm, no hell (Gehenna), no fire, nor any other of these words or things of terror; just as the plagues of Egypt were not for the Hebrews,— those fine lice annoying with invisible bites, the dog-fly fastening on the body with its painful sting, the hurricanes from heaven falling upon them with hailstones, the husbandma...
