The LORD did according to the word of Moses means that “Yahweh granted Moses’ prayer” (Jerusalem Bible), or “The Lord heard his prayer” (Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch). The And at the beginning of the verse is only a connective word that may be omitted, or translated as “Then” or “So.” The following clause describes how the LORD removed the frogs.

The frogs died out of the houses suggests the frogs were still in the houses when they died. Good News Translation, on the other hand, simply describes which frogs were the ones that died without indicating where they were when they died: “the frogs in the houses, the courtyards, and the fields died” (Good News Translation). Contemporary English Version has “frogs died everywhere—in houses, yards, and fields.” Probably the frogs normally living along the Nile River did not die.

Literally the Hebrew says “the frogs died from the houses, from the courtyards, and from the fields.” The preposition here rendered “from” usually means “out of” or “away from,” and so some traditional translations have suggested that the frogs actually left the houses before they died (King James Version, American Standard Version). One recent translation even emphasizes this idea: “the frogs died away from the houses, the courtyards, and the fields” (Childs). But the same preposition is repeated with the courtyards and with the fields. This would limit the places where the frogs could gather before dying, and verse 14 suggests that many of them actually died in the fields. It is better therefore to follow Good News Translation and leave unanswered the question where the frogs were when they died.

The courtyards were open spaces within a permanent settlement or village, usually with walls or buildings around them. Some of them were on private property, such as the open courtyard of the king’s palace. The fields were the larger areas outside the villages, the open countryside.

Quoted with permission from Osborn, Noel D. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Exodus. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1999. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .