1 The Hebraistic (= Ὁ ση) αιµατα of ΜΜ, 36, 39 is preferred here and at xviii,
24 by Τι., Bs., Swete.
itself, in the seventh by introducing Rome’s fall among the physical disasters, and in the prologue by making the plagues come from God’s initiative with- out intercession (as viii. 3 {). How far these new touches are original or due to the influence of current traditions no longer extant, it is impossible to deter- mine. This series of plagues is simply a free adaptation, with modifications and applications, of that in viii.-ix.; the pro- phet wishes to emphasise, by the genu- inely Semitic method of recapitulation (cf. Gen. xli. 32; Ps. Ixii. 11, etc.), the sure and speedy approach of judgment.
Ver. 2. The sixth Egyptian plague, ἵνα noisome and painful ulcer” (the pun- ishment of the impious and rebellious, according to Philo, de Execr. v. 6) breaks out on the adherents of the Czsar-cult.
Ver. 3. ‘‘Coagulated blood,” fatal to animal life (as in first Egyptian plague). This plague is final, as compared, e.g., with that of viii. 8.
Vv. 4-7. No more drinking water. The justice of this particular plague is acknowledged by (5-6) the angel of the element in question and by (7) the altar (personified here, in line of vi. 9, 10, and viii. 3, or of xiv. 18), which echoes the angel’s cry.
Ver. 5. ὅσιος and δίκαιος are used to- gether of God in hieratic inscriptions of dedication throughout Asia Minor, pos- sibly under Jewish influence. Δίκαιος, often a title of messiah (see on iii. 1 and Beer’s note on En. xxxviii. 2), is reserved here for God. Retribution is the out- cofne of God’s intense holiness or ma- jesty (cf. vi. το, xv. 4) asserting itself on béhalf of his people (xv. 3, xix. 2, cf. iii. 7) and in self-vindication.
Ver. 6. The retribution once threatened. on Jerusalem and the Jews (Matt. xxiii. 35) is now transferred apparently to Rome, the later antagonist of the faith (cf. on xviii. 24). Once the Romans made Christian blood run like water. Now, by the irony of providence, they shall find nothing but blood to drink. This moral vengeance (cf. Hawthorne’s House of the Seven Gables), with its grim equivalence between sin and sin’s punishment (xi. 18, xiii. το, xviii. 7; cf. 2 Tim. ii. 12, etc.) is not pushed, how- ever, into the grotesque and elaborately Dantesque details, ¢.g., of the Apocalypse - of Peter. —éféxeav (the verb runs all through this chapter, and this chapter only), cf. Dittenberger’s Sylloge Inscript. Graec. 816" (1 cent. A.D.) ἐγχέαντας τὸ.- ἀναίτιον αἷμα ἀδίκως.- -ἁγ. κ. πρ., all
3—14.