But against any of the children of Israel shall not a dog move his tongue, against man or beast: that ye may know how that the LORD doth put a difference between the Egyptians and Israel.
Not a dog. No town or village in Egypt, or in the East generally, is free from the nuisance of dogs, which in great numbers prowl about the streets, and make the most hideous and incessant noise at any passengers at night. What an emphatic significances does the knowledge of this circumstance give to the fact testified in the sacred record, that on the awful night that was coming, when the air should be rent with the piercing shrieks of mourners, so great and universal would be the panic inspired by the hand of God that not a dog would move his tongue against the children of Israel. No circumstance could exhibit a more striking picture of the peace, tranquillity, and order which should reign among the Hebrews on their removal at midnight, than the silence of the loquacious dogs.
That ye may know how that the Lord doth put a difference between the Egyptians and Israel. A striking difference had already been made during the continuance of two of the preceding plagues, and communicated to Pharaoh (Exodus 9:6; Exodus 10:23). But the difference was to be manifested in a far more conspicuous and unmistakeable manner, necessitated by the obduracy of Pharaoh and the participation by the Egyptians of their monarch's tyrannical and cruel treatment of Israel. No doubt the separation of the posterity of Abraham, and the announcement of their special destiny had been made four centuries before. But it was confined to private revelations to the patriarchs, and little or no progress had followed toward the accomplishment of the promise. The time was at hand when Providence was to commence a definite course of action toward its fulfillment-when Israel was to pass from the condition of a family into the character of a nation-when they who had been intermingled with the people of a pagan kingdom were to rise into independent existence, and be established in a land assigned them by a special act of divine grace. This promise, which had apparently been forgotten, was repeated to Moses by God, in commissioning him to demand the liberation of the Hebrews from Egypt (Exodus 3:8). And though their inauguration as a special people was not to take place until a period still future, the compulsory mode of their release rendered it necessary that, even before that time, 'the Lord should put a difference between the Egyptians and Israel.'