5And the Lord said to Moses, “Say to Aaron, ‘Stretch out your hand with your staff over the rivers, the canals, and the pools, and make frogs come up on the land of Egypt.’ ”
There is little doubt that the Hebrew and Greek words mean “frog”. The plague of frogs mentioned in Exodus comes after the plague of polluted water. The frogs seem to have left the water and come into the villages. Since frogs eat flies and thus control fly populations, it seems likely that the death of the frogs was one of the causes of the next two plagues to trouble Egypt, namely gnats and flies.
The two most common frogs in the Middle East and Egypt are the Edible Frog Rana esculenta and the Spotted Frog Rana punctata. They are both about 70 millimeters (3 inches) long and are brown or olive-green in color. They live in the water almost all of the time and eat gnats, flies, and other waterside insects. They lay eggs, which hatch as tadpoles and gradually grow legs. The hind legs are much bigger and better developed than the front legs, since the hind legs are used for jumping.
Frogs were considered unclean by the Jews and also by the Egyptians and Persians, who associated them with demons.
Frogs are found all over the world, and there should be no problem in finding a local equivalent.
Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Exodus 8:5:
Kupsabiny: “God again told Moses that, ‘Tell Aaron to stretch his hand and raise the stick towards the rivers, streams, ponds and other places of water so that the frogs may come to fill the land completely.’” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
Newari: “The Lord told Moses again, ‘Tell Aaron, take your stick and point towards the streams, canals, and ponds, and the land of Egypt will be covered with the frogs” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
Hiligaynon: “The LORD still/again said/[continued to say] to Moises, ‘Tell Aaron to stretch-out his hand with a staff/walking-stick towards the rivers, streams, and ponds, and the frogs will-come-out/appear upon the whole of Egipto.’” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
Bariai: “And then the Chief spoke to Moses again like this, ‘Tell Aron to hold his walking stick up and then straighten his arm, and then lift it up so that it points toward all the big and small rivers and lakes in the Isip area. [When] it’s like that then the frogs will be full in the area of Isip.’” (Source: Bariai Back Translation)
Opo: “And The Lord also said to Moses «you say to Aaron ‹Take cane your, you lift hand on top of river, and canal, and lakes, in order that frog it might climb [this direction] out on land of Egypt!›»” (Source: Opo Back Translation)
English: “Yahweh also said to Moses/me, ‘Say this to Aaron: ‘Hold your stick in your hand and stretch it out as though you were stretching it over the river, the canals, and over the pools, and cause frogs to come up from all this water and cover the land of Egypt.’’” (Source: Translation for Translators)
American Sign Language also uses the sign depicting the horns but also has a number of alternative signs (see here ).
In French Sign Language, a similar sign is used, but it is interpreted as “radiance” (see below) and it culminates in a sign for “10,” signifying the 10 commandments:
The horns that are visible in Michelangelo’s statue are based on a passage in the Latin Vulgate translation (and many Catholic Bible translations that were translated through the 1950ies with that version as the source text). Jerome, the translator, had worked from a Hebrew text without the niqquds, the diacritical marks that signify the vowels in Hebrew and had interpreted the term קרו (k-r-n) in Exodus 34:29 as קֶ֫רֶן — keren “horned,” rather than קָרַו — karan “radiance” (describing the radiance of Moses’ head as he descends from Mount Sinai).
In Swiss-German Sign Language it is translated with a sign depicting holding a staff. This refers to a number of times where Moses’s staff is used in the context of miracles, including the parting of the sea (see Exodus 14:16), striking of the rock for water (see Exodus 17:5 and following), or the battle with Amalek (see Exodus 17:9 and following).
In Vietnamese (Hanoi) Sign Language it is translated with the sign that depicts the eye make up he would have worn as the adopted son of an Egyptian princess. (Source: The Vietnamese Sign Language translation team, VSLBT)
“Moses” in Vietnamese Sign Language, source: SooSL
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Like a number of other East Asian languages, Japanese uses a complex system of honorifics, i.e. a system where a number of different levels of politeness are expressed in language via words, word forms or grammatical constructs. These can range from addressing someone or referring to someone with contempt (very informal) to expressing the highest level of reference (as used in addressing or referring to God) or any number of levels in-between.
One way Japanese shows different degree of politeness is through the usage of an honorific construction where the morpheme are (され) is affixed on the verb as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. This is particularly done with verbs that have God as the agent to show a deep sense of reverence. Here, iw-are-ru (言われる) or “say” is used.
And the LORD said to Moses is an important break from the preceding verses, for it marks a transition in the basic pattern of the plague stories from part (a) to part (c). (See the pattern of the plagues, as listed on page 162.) We may assume, then, that the warning to the Pharaoh (part b) was delivered by Moses between verses 4 and 5. This is now a command to initiate the second plague.
Say to Aaron introduces the words from the LORD that Moses is to say to Aaron. Stretch out your hand refers to Aaron’s hand, and with your rod refers to Aaron’s “staff” (New Revised Standard Version), or “walking stick” (Good News Translation). This is the same action that was commanded of Aaron in 7.19, although the wording is slightly different. For rivers, canals, and pools, see the discussion at 7.19a. (Note that the pronoun “their” is not used, and “waters” and “ponds” are not mentioned.) The Hebrew word for pools in 8.5 is the same word that Revised Standard Version renders as “ponds” in 7.19.
Cause frogs to come upon the land of Egypt is a command still addressed to Aaron. His action will activate the plague. Good News Translation adds some information here by borrowing from the next verse: “and cover the land of Egypt.”
Quoted with permission from Osborn, Noel D. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Exodus. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1999. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
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