became lice] The word Cmni in the Hebrew is variously rendred: some take it for gnats; (but they are rather comprehended in the plague of flies afterwards) some for fleas: but they were not like to be plague enough, because they were more movable, and lesse loathsome then other vermine: the most and best Interpreters render the word lice; yet it may be as they came in an extraordinary manner, so they were of an extraordinary kind; such haply as the like was neither before, nor since, as is noted of the locusts, Chap. 10. vers. 14. By such little creatures, armed with a power from God, the greatest Tyrants may be plagued, yea devoured, as were Herod by wormes, Acts 12:23. and Galerius and Maximinus. Bucolz. Jud. Chron. on the yeare 311. pag. 188. and on 313. pag. 190. and by lice Pherecydes was devoured, A Elian. var. hist. 50: 5. 100: 18.
all the dust] That is, a great deale of it, as all Judea, Matthew 3:5. for a great part of the people of Judea: or all the dust, that is, the dust all over the land, no place being free.