Shemot 9:1-7 – The fifth plague in Egypt: The fate of the animals during the plagues in Egypt

שמות ט:ו - "וימת כל מקנה מצרים, וממקנה ישראל לא מת אחד."

Shemot 9:1-4 records that G-d told Moshe to tell Pharaoh that if he would not let the people go, then G-d would send pestilence, the fifth plague, that would kill all of the Egyptian mikneh, animals that were in the field, horses, donkeys, camels, cattle and sheep, livestock, but that the Jewish mikneh would not be harmed. 9:5,6 then records that the pestilence killed all the Egyptian owned mikneh, while none of the Jewish owned mikneh died. 9:7 records that Pharaoh even sent people to ascertain this result, but still Pharaoh did not agree to let the people go.

The declaration that all the mikneh of the Egyptian died during the fifth plague is puzzling since the Torah records the continued existence of Egyptian animals on several occasions after the fifth plague. One example is that 9:9,10 record that the sixth plague, boils, affected the Egyptian behamot. Many people understand that behamot are a subset of mikneh, and then it is surprising how there could be Egyptian behamot during the sixth plague. However, really behamot are ungulates, and then the term behamot is a more general term than mikneh, and includes animals that were not livestock. Thus, 9:9,10 could be referring to deer or even pigs.

A more difficult reference is that 9:19 records that Moshe warned the Egyptians that they should move their mikneh inside to protect them from the seventh plague, hail, and 9:20,21 record that the G-d fearing Egyptians did so but the non-G-d fearing Egyptians left their mikneh in the fields. How did the Egyptians have any mikneh, livestock, after the fifth plague?

Other references to Egyptian animals after the fifth plague are that 9:22,25 record that the hail landed on the behamot that were left in the field. Also, 11:5, 12:29 and 13:15 record that the first born Egyptian behamot were killed during the tenth plague. However, again, these references could be referring to types of animals that are not mikneh and which were not killed in the fifth plague.

Another reference to Egyptian animals is that 14:6,7,23 record that the chariots of Egypt, which were pulled by horses (15:1), chased the Jewish people at Yam Suf, and horses are part of the category of animals called mikneh, as 9:3 refers to horses.

Various explanations have been suggested to explain the existence of Egyptian animals after the plague of pestilence. Rashi (on 9:10) suggests that the pestilence only killed the animals that were in the field, and thus the G-d fearing Egyptians would have brought them inside and they would not have died. One would then interpret 9:6 which records that all the Egyptian animals died, to mean that all the Egyptian animals that were in the field died.

This solution is difficult for at least two reasons. One problem with Rashi's solution is that, as the Bekhor Shor (on 9:6) points out, even according to Rashi, all the animals of the non-G-d fearing Egyptians died in the fifth plague, then how could 9:21 record that the non-G-d fearing Egyptians left their animals in the fields during the seventh plague? Bekhor Shor answers that maybe by chance the non-G-d fearing Egyptians had some animals indoors during the fifth plague. Secondly, this distinction between the G-d fearing and the non-G-d fearing Egyptians is only by the seventh plague, 9:20,21, and not by the fifth plague. If it occurred by the fifth plague, why did the Torah not mention this information as it does by the seventh plague? Rather, more likely, as noted by the Ramban (on 9:3) the fact that 9:3 refers to the animals in the field is because this is the usual place where these types of animals were located, but even if there were animals indoors they were also killed by the pestilence, as stated in 9:6.

A second approach (see Ibn Ezra on 9:6, Rabbenu Bachya on 9:19, and Cassuto, 1967, p. 111) to explain the continued existence of the Egyptian animals after the fifth plague is that the word all in 9:6 should not be understood literally but rather that most of the Egyptian animals died. I doubt this approach since one of the points of the fifth plague was to distinguish between the Egyptian animals and the Jewish animals, and if not all of the Egyptian animals died, then this distinction would have been diminished.

A third approach is that some of the Egyptian animals were saved by the Jews. Shemot Rabbah (11:4) writes that any beast on which a Jew had the slightest claim was saved even if it was in the hands of an Egyptian, and animals that were jointly owned by Egyptians and Jews were not killed. The Netziv (on 9:7) suggests that the Egyptian had rented out their animals to the Jews and these animals survived the fifth plague. These possibilities presuppose a relatively high level of economic integration between the Egyptian and Jews, but this is doubtful since the Jews were slaves.

A fourth possibility is that the Egyptian acquired new animals after the fifth plague. Rabbenu Bachya (on 9:19) and Abravanel (1997, on 9:10, p.131) write that the Egyptians could have purchased animals from neighboring countries. Yet, most likely there was no international trade between Egypt and other countries during the period of the plagues, as who would travel to Egypt during the plagues? Another possibility raised by the Abravanel is that the Egyptians bought animals from the Jewish people. This is a possible explanation since this was feasible and from that fact that Pharaoh sent people to check that the Jewish animals did not die during the fifth plague, 9:7, we know that the Egyptians were aware of the Jewish animals. Yet, would the Egyptians really buy animals from slaves?

I would vary the Abravanel's approach that while maybe some Egyptians (G-d fearing ones?) bought animals from the Jews, most took them by force. (Note the Jews did not lose all of their animals because most likely it was just the messengers of Pharaoh who he sent out who acquired the animals.) This answer could then explain all the later references to the Egyptian animals, mikneh or behamot, except by the horses that led the chariots, since it is very unlikely that the Jews had horses. However, most likely the Egyptian soldiers on chariots who chased the Jews at Yam Suf were stationed at Egyptian forts that were located in the Sinai desert, and they and their horses were not affected by the plagues.

If the Egyptians stole animals from the Jewish people after the end of the fifth plague, then this could offer a new perspective on three other questions concerning the fifth and sixth plagues. One, 9:7 records that Pharaoh hardened his heart in conjunction with learning that no Jewish owned animals died, but this information should have had the opposite effect? The answer could be that when he learned that no Jewish owned animals died, then he knew that he still had a source to acquire more animals to replace his animals that were killed. Two, the Egyptian magicians appear in the first three plagues and then they disappear except for the sixth plague, as 9:11 records that they were particularly harmed by the boils. Maybe this mention and their suffering are because they advised Pharaoh to steal the animals from the Jewish people.  Three, the plagues are usually in ascending order in terms of severity except for the sixth plague, the boils, which appear to be harsher than the seventh, eighth and ninth plagues. Maybe the sixth plague was relatively more severe, boils, since it was a punishment for the theft of the Jewish owned animals after the fifth plague.