Exodus Egyptian animals

[Ken_S]

Ex:chapter 7 vs 6 “All the livestock of the Eqyptians died”
then in chapter 9 vs 3 “the LORD will afflict all your livestock”
Where did the livestock in ch 9 come from ?

 

[Ron_Conte]

Ex:chapter 7 vs 6 “All the livestock of the Eqyptians died”
then in chapter 9 vs 3 “the LORD will afflict all your livestock”
Where did the livestock in ch 9 come from ?

It seems likely that the span of time between some of the successive afflictions was, at times, as long as a year or a few years. We always imagine that successive verses in Scripture occurred immediately after one another, but such is not the case. So the livestock were replenished over the course of time from other regions.

For example:

[Jeremiah 27]
{27:1} In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, the king of Judah, this word came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying:
{27:2} “Thus says the Lord to me: Make bands and chains for yourself. And you shall place them on your neck.
{27:3} And you shall send them to the king of Edom, and to the king of Moab, and to the king of the sons of Ammon, and to the king of Tyre, and to the king of Sidon, by the hand of the messengers who came to Jerusalem, to Zedekiah, the king of Judah.

Clearly a number of years has passed between verse 1-2 and verse 3. The prophet was prophesying for a number of years wearing chains as a visible sign accompanying his prophecy, then finally he sends these to various kings, as the exclamation point at the end of that series of prophecies.

 

[Fidelis]

There are a number of possible explanations, including the one above.

One thing to keep in mind is that in the Bible, we often see “all” used to mean “a substantial amount.” Kind of like when we say “I was at the mall to do some last minute Christmas shopping and everyone in town was there.” Of course we know that’s not literally true, but is just an expression.

Similarly, we see in the Gospels,“And there went out to him all the country of Judea, and all the people of Jerusalem; and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.” (Mark 1:5). It says “all the country of Judea, and all the people of Jerusalem” went out but we can imagine that there were many, such as the Roman occupiers, Herod, the Essenes, etc, that didn’t.

 

[Ken_S]

Thx both of you. Food for thought.
How about a 3rd p.o.v.
One gent I know put this on the table too. Since the Hebrews were still slaves, perhaps the Egyptians felt quite comfortable with releaving the Hebrews of their cattle only to be now classified as “Egyptian livestock”