Discovery BoxExodus 8:5 
Context8:5 The Lord spoke to Moses, “Tell Aaron, ‘Extend your hand with your staff 1 over the rivers, over the canals, and over the ponds, and bring the frogs up over the land of Egypt.’”
Exodus 8:17
Context8:17 They did so; Aaron extended his hand with his staff, he struck the dust of the ground, and it became gnats on people 2 and on animals. All the dust of the ground became gnats throughout all the land of Egypt.
Exodus 8:24
Context8:24 The Lord did so; a 3 thick 4 swarm of flies came into 5 Pharaoh’s house and into the houses 6 of his servants, and throughout the whole land of Egypt the land was ruined 7 because of the swarms of flies.
1 sn After the instructions for Pharaoh (7:25-8:4), the plague now is brought on by the staff in Aaron’s hand (8:5-7). This will lead to the confrontation (vv. 8-11) and the hardening (vv. 12-15).
2 tn Heb “man,” but in the generic sense of “humans” or “people” (also in v. 18).
3 tn Heb “and there came a….”
4 tn Heb “heavy,” or “severe.”
5 tn Here, and in the next phrase, the word “house” has to be taken as an adverbial accusative of termination.
6 tn The Hebrew text has the singular here.
7 tc Concerning the connection of “the land was ruined” with the preceding, S. R. Driver (Exodus, 68) suggests reading with the LXX, Smr, and Peshitta; this would call for adding a conjunction before the last clause to make it read, “into the house of Pharaoh, and into his servants’ houses, and into all the land of Egypt; and the land was…”
tn The Hebrew word תִּשָּׁחֵת (tishakhet) is a strong word; it is the Niphal imperfect of שָׁחַת (shakhat) and is translated “ruined.” If the classification as imperfect stands, then it would have to be something like a progressive imperfect (the land was being ruined); otherwise, it may simply be a preterite without the vav (ו) consecutive. The verb describes utter devastation. This is the verb that is used in Gen 13:10 to describe how Yahweh destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. Swarms of flies would disrupt life, contaminate everything, and bring disease.
