צפרדע; Arabic, _akurrak_; Greek, βάτραχος; Exod. viii, 2–14; Psalm
lxxviii, 45; cv, 30; Rev. xvi, 13. When God plagued Pharaoh and his
people, the river Nile, which was the object of great admiration to the
Egyptians, was made to contribute to their punishment. “The river
brought forth frogs abundantly;” but the circumstance of their coming up
into the bed chambers, and into the ovens and kneading troughs, needs
explanation to us, whose domestic apartments and economy are so
different from those of the ancient nations. Their lodgings were not in
upper stories, but in recesses on the ground floor; and their ovens were
not like ours, built on the side of a chimney, and adjacent to a
fireplace, where the glowing heat would frighten away the frogs, but
they dug a hole in the ground, in which they placed an earthen pot,
which having sufficiently heated, they stuck their cakes to the inside
to be baked. To find such places full of frogs when they came to heat
them in order to bake their bread, and to see frogs in the beds where
they sought repose, must have been both disgusting and distressing in
the extreme. Frogs were reckoned unclean by the Hebrews.
lxxviii, 45; cv, 30; Rev. xvi, 13. When God plagued Pharaoh and his
people, the river Nile, which was the object of great admiration to the
Egyptians, was made to contribute to their punishment. “The river
brought forth frogs abundantly;” but the circumstance of their coming up
into the bed chambers, and into the ovens and kneading troughs, needs
explanation to us, whose domestic apartments and economy are so
different from those of the ancient nations. Their lodgings were not in
upper stories, but in recesses on the ground floor; and their ovens were
not like ours, built on the side of a chimney, and adjacent to a
fireplace, where the glowing heat would frighten away the frogs, but
they dug a hole in the ground, in which they placed an earthen pot,
which having sufficiently heated, they stuck their cakes to the inside
to be baked. To find such places full of frogs when they came to heat
them in order to bake their bread, and to see frogs in the beds where
they sought repose, must have been both disgusting and distressing in
the extreme. Frogs were reckoned unclean by the Hebrews.