The ten plagues of Egypt

The Plague of Gnats or Lice

The third plague · Exodus 8:16-19 · The book of Exodus

The third plague turned the dust of the earth into gnats, or lice, on man and beast throughout Egypt. It came with no warning, and this time the magicians could not copy it. They told Pharaoh plainly, This is the finger of God, yet his heart stayed hard.

And they did so; for Aaron stretched out his hand with his rod, and smote the dust of the earth, and it became lice in man, and in beast; all the dust of the land became lice throughout all the land of Egypt.Exodus 8:17 (KJV)

What happened

Without any warning this time, the LORD told Moses to have Aaron stretch out his rod and smite the dust of the earth. He did so, and the dust of the land became lice, or gnats, throughout all Egypt, upon man and upon beast. The smallest particles of the ground itself, the dust under everyone's feet, rose up as a torment that no one could avoid. Where the earlier plagues came from the river, this one came from the very land, so that the whole country, from the ground up, was turned against its people.

The word behind lice is uncertain, and translations render it as lice, gnats, or mosquitoes. Whichever it was, it was a small and swarming misery that settled on people and animals alike, inescapable and defiling, a special horror to Egyptian priests who prized ritual purity above almost anything.

There was no going out to the river this time, no early-morning meeting, no announcement at all. The blow simply fell. The pattern of warning that had marked the first two plagues was broken, and the effect is its own message: a God who need not always give notice, who can raise a torment out of the ground itself at the mere stretching of a rod. Egypt woke to find the very dust beneath its feet risen against it.

The finger of God

This is the plague where Egypt's wise men reached the end of their power. The magicians tried with their enchantments to bring forth lice, as they had matched the blood and the frogs, but they could not. So they came to Pharaoh and said, This is the finger of God. It is a remarkable confession from the mouths of his own advisers, an admission that they had met a power beyond every trick of their craft. Some have linked the plague to the earth-god Geb, or noted the humiliation of priests made unclean by the swarming dust, and those readings are reasonable, though again the text does not name a god. What Exodus does name is the confession itself, wrung from the experts of the empire: this is not magic; this is God. It was the moment Egypt's own defenders laid down their arms and admitted defeat, and their confession stands over all the plagues that follow as a verdict the king heard from his most trusted men, and still, to the ruin of his house, refused to accept.

Pharaoh's hard heart

Even with his own magicians telling him the truth, Pharaoh's heart was hardened, and he hearkened not unto them, as the LORD had said. Here the honest tension of the account is on full display. The evidence could not be plainer, the witnesses could not be closer to him, and still he will not bend. His hardness is not ignorance; it is refusal. And Scripture frames this refusal within the LORD's own purpose, as the LORD had said, so that the reader sees both a man clinging to his pride and a God who has taken that pride up into a plan to make his own power known. God does not create Pharaoh's rebellion, but he is not thwarted by it either; he confirms the stubborn in their stubbornness and turns it toward the freedom of his people.

What it revealed about the LORD

This plague revealed a God whose reach goes down to the dust, who needs no river and no warning, who can raise a judgment out of the very ground. It revealed the limit of every rival power, for the magicians who had kept pace now fell silent and named the finger of God. The living God is not one force among the forces Egypt could manage; he is the Maker of the dust itself, and no craft or spell stands against him.

The plague no one could copy

Every plague so far had allowed Egypt a kind of answer. The magicians had turned water to blood and called up frogs, matching the wonders even as they multiplied the misery. But at the dust of the earth their power ran dry. They strained with all their enchantments to bring forth lice, and could not. It is the first time the account records them failing, and their failure is more eloquent than any success they ever had.

What they said next is one of the most remarkable confessions in the book. They came to Pharaoh, not to reassure him, but to warn him: This is the finger of God. His own experts, the guardians of Egypt's sacred lore, told the king to his face that they had met a power beyond the reach of their craft. They did not name the God of the Hebrews, but they knew they had been overmatched by God himself.

There is comfort in this for anyone who feels small before the powers of the world. The mightiest magicians of the greatest empire on earth were reduced to standing before their king and admitting defeat. What they could not do with all their arts, God did with a handful of dust. No human power, however impressive, stands where the finger of God has moved, and no throne is high enough to be safe from it.

The shadow of redemption

That even Pharaoh's own men could see the finger of God, and that their king still would not turn, shows how deep the bondage of a hard heart runs, and how great a deliverance is needed. No amount of evidence saves a heart that refuses to bow. The exodus will have to be God's own work from first to last, and so will the salvation it foreshadows. Later Jesus would say that he cast out devils by the finger of God, and that the kingdom of God had come. The same finger that struck the dust of Egypt would one day touch the sick, the blind, and the dead, not to torment but to heal, doing for captive souls what no human power could, and bringing the true exodus at last.

There is a deeper comfort still. If a hard heart cannot be argued into surrender, not even by the confession of its own wise men, then salvation can never rest on the strength of our own reasoning or resolve. It must be the gift of God, who alone can take a heart of stone and give a heart of flesh. What the plagues could not do to Pharaoh, and what no evidence can finally do to any of us, the Spirit of God does from within, opening blind eyes and softening what was hard. The finger of God that struck the dust of Egypt is the same power that raised Christ from the dead, and it is that power, not our own, that brings a captive soul out of its long bondage and home. Where Pharaoh clung to his hardness to the ruin of his house, we are invited to let God do the one thing we cannot do for ourselves, and give us a new heart that gladly bows to the true King.

A note on reading the plagues: this account follows Exodus faithfully and does not add to it. The idea that each plague confronted a particular Egyptian god or power is a widely held and often persuasive reading, and it is presented here as an interpretation, not as a certainty. Except on the final night, where Exodus itself says the LORD executed judgment against all the gods of Egypt, the text names no specific deity. What Scripture states plainly is that the LORD alone is God, that he heard the cry of his people, and that he brought them out with a mighty hand.

Related: The plague of frogs · The plague of flies · The ten plagues