Question: How much time elapsed between each of The plagues in Egypt? In Exodus 9:1-7, God sent pestilence that killed all the livestock in Egypt. In 9:18ff hail and fire struck every beast and livestock that was not brought into safety…. Just wondering where the livestock came from to replenish Egypt? Thank you!
Profile: Female, North America, Christian, 56–65
Answered by: Dax Lewis, who has been a volunteer with us since September, 2018.
Answer: Thank you for writing in to GotQuestions with your following question: How much time elapsed between each of The plagues in Egypt? In Exodus 9:1-7, God sent pestilence that killed all the livestock in Egypt. In 9:18ff hail and fire struck every beast and livestock that was not brought into safety…. Just wondering where the livestock came from to replenish Egypt?
This is a great question! I have three possible answers and I can’t fall hard on which one is right. So, I will present the possible solutions to you and let you figure out which one you would understand as most probable.
The first explanation is that the word “all” is hyperbolic. It is an exaggerated term, meaning a lot. We speak the same way today. If I said, “Everyone in town was at the car wash on the first nice day of spring.” you understand that I don’t really mean every single person in town was at the one car wash. It just means they were busy and lots of people had the same idea at the same time.
The second explanation is closely related to the first one. The Hebrew word “kol” typically means all of something, literally. However, it can be used to mean “all sorts of” or “from all over” as the New American Commentary mentions. So, the translators could have missed the mark slightly on which sense this Hebrew word was used in this context.
The third possibility is that Exodus 9:3 gives us a hint. It says in that verse that all the livestock “in the field” (ESV) would die. Some animals were kept in shelters during portions of the year. So, in this case, all the ones kept in what we would call “pastures” today, were killed.
Verse 19 has Moses telling Pharoah to get all the livestock in the field into some shelter or they will die in the hailstorm tomorrow.
Also, there were still livestock left at the final plague of the first born. I don’t think much time elapsed between plagues. In fact, I think they were fairly consecutive. Verse 13 mentions for Moses to “Rise up early in the morning” after the 6th plague had fallen. The context reads like this is the very next day that Moses should confront Pharoah, yet again.
I hope this helps!
