20 And the Lord said unto Moses, Rise up early in the morning, and stand before Pharaoh; lo, he cometh forth to the water; and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord, Let my people go, that they may serve me.

21 Else, if thou wilt not let my people go, behold, I will send swarms of flies upon thee, and upon thy servants, and upon thy people, and into thy houses: and the houses of the Egyptians shall be full of swarms of flies, and also the ground whereon they are.

In the midst of all the larger wonders occurring it is all too easy to miss the little ones that are happening as well. At several points now, God has told Moses the exact time and place he needed to be to meet Pharaoh. I wonder if it ever occurred to Pharaoh what the implications were of Moses and Aaron intercepting him along his way. It meant that God knew Pharaoh and his movements intimately, He might have even revealed some of them to Moses before Pharaoh, himself, knew when and where he would go. If Pharaoh felt anything at Moses’s prescience, he should have felt vulnerable.

In regards to the plague of flies, this curse mixes some of the intimacy of the lice with some of the space-invasion of the frogs. Flies could be on the body like lice, and in the dishes like frogs. They could carrying diseases and dirtying vessels. Perhaps the most unique quality of the flies, though, would be the incessant buzzing. Their constant murmuring in the ears is another representation for when a society embraces false doctrines instead of following God. Moral perversion causes so much distraction and noise, from the literal buzz of gossip to the constant murmur of a dissatisfied conscience.

Itching, noisy, constant irritation. Whether in the form of flies or anxious guilt, this is one agitation that none of us need in our lives!