Matthew Poole and continuators on 1 Samuel 4:8

8 Wo unto us: who shall deliver us out of the hand of these mighty Gods ? these are the Gods that smote the Egyptians with all the plagues in the wilderness .

They secretly confess the Lord to be higher and greater than their gods, and yet against their knowledge presume to oppose him.

They mention the Wilderness, not as if all the Plagues of the Egyptians came upon them in the Wilderness, but because the last and forest of all, which is therefore put for all; to wit, the Destruction of Pharaoh and all his Host, happened in the Wilderness, namely, in the Red-Sea, which having the Wilderness on both sides of it, Exod. 13. 18, 20. and 14. 3, 11. and 15. 22, &c. may well be said to be in the Wilderness. Although it is not strange if these Heathens did mistake [illegible: 1+ letters]nd misreport some Circumstances, in a Relation of the Israelitish Affairs, especially some hundreds of Years after they were done, such mistakes being frequent in divers Heathen Authors, treating of those matters, as Iustin, and Tacitus, and others.