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VERSE 10.
I have sent among you the Pestilence after the manner of Aegypt, your young men have I slaine with the sword, and have taken away your horses, and I have made the stink of your Camps to come up into your nostrils; yet have yee not returned unto me, saith the Lord.
IN this Verse we have a Fourth and Fifth Rod, where-with the Lord chastned this stubborn people, viz. the Pestilence, and the Sword. Before they were smitten with the Famine, which rich men many times feel not; now follows the Plague and Sword, as usual Concomitants on the former; hence all these three are so oft joyned together in Scripture. These meet with the rich, as well as the poor; yea the Sword ayms prin∣cipally at rich men; Souldiers doe not use to enquire, where dwells the poor man, but where dwells the Vsurer, the rich Oppressor, &c. the poor scape best many times in such com∣bustions, Ier. 39.20.
Q. The Question will be, what Pestilence this was, and when it fell upon Israel?
A. 1. It is conceived that the Pestilence of Aegypt here meant, was not any one particular Plague, but a complica∣tion of Plagues; and specially the Fifth and Tenth Plague of Aegypt, which brought Murrain on the Cattle, and Mortality on men. First, there was so great and so grievous a destruction of Cattel, that all the Horses, Asses, Camels, and all the Cattel of Aegypt dyed (Exod. 9.6, 9.) 2 All their first-born dyed, there was not a house in which there was not one dead, Exod. 12.29. Psal. 78.50, 51. so it was amongst this people, there was a sore slaughter both of men and hor∣ses. The Prophet seems to allude to the dayes of King. Ie∣hoahaz King of Israel; when the King of Syria made so great a slaughter amongst them, that of the whole Army of Israel there were left but fifty Horse-men, ten Chariots, and ten thousand Foot, all the rest were destroyed, and made like the dust by threshing (2 King. 13.7.) Hereupon the Air was corrupted, and the loathsome stench of so many dead Bodies, helpt to bring the Pestilence amongst them.