Exodus 8:16 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

The Lord said unto Moses— We observed on Exodus 8:1 that God, in mercy, was pleased to warn Pharaoh of his judgments before they came: but now, he having notoriously falsified his promise, and shewed a disposition which would not be reclaimed, God orders Moses to bring a third plague, without any sort of warning. The word כנים kinnim, which we render lice, signifies a species of insects. LXX, σκνιπες, or σκνιφες. So the Vulgate, sciniphes or cyniphes, gnats. Origen describes them as winged insects, but so small as to escape any but the acutest sight; and says; that when settled on the body, they pierce it with a most sharp and painful sting. So that these insects seem to have their name from their settling or fixing upon the bodies of men and beasts, and eating into the contexture or substance of them. I have no doubt but they were of some of those species which the Egyptians worshipped as their representative gods; and so, probably, of the cantharides, scaraboeus, or beetle kind. See Parkhurst on the word, and the next note. Bochart strongly supports the idea which our version gives us. If they were lice, they were, most probably, of a kind peculiarly offensive; and, considering the cleanliness for which the Egyptians were so famous, one cannot conceive a more noisome and grievous plague to them than this, in the single view of neatness, separate from its other inconveniences.