Holy Bible

I have made thee a god to Pharaoh. Exodus 7:1, 2 The moral position in which some men stand to others J. S. Exell, M. A. God made Moses to be a god to Pharaoh, and Aaron to be a prophet. There are many good and noble men in the world to-day, who are gods, the instructors and rulers, of their fellow-creatures. I. THIS EXALTED MORAL POSITION IS THE RESULT OF DIVINE ALLOTMENT. "And the Lord said unto Moses, see, I have made thee a god to Pharaoh." II. THIS EXALTED MORAL POSITION INVOLVES ARDUOUS WORK AND TERRIBLE RESPONSIBILITY. 1. The true gods of society have something more to do than to amuse it. The bearing of their efforts has reference to souls, to man's life in its relation to the Infinite. A man whose highest aim is to excite the merriment of society, is too far removed from divinity to be mistaken for a god. 2. The true gods of society find their employment in communicating to men the messages of God. They come to teach us; to awaken us; to enable us to fulfil the will of God. Hence their work is arduous and responsible. III. THIS EXALTED MORAL POSITION IS MOST EFFICIENTLY EMPLOYED IN SEEKING THE FREEDOM OF MEN. But for the slavery of Israel Moses would not have been a god unto Pharaoh. The position is the outcome of a condition of things it ought to remove. It is not for self-aggrandizement. It is to give men the freedom of a Divine salvation. ( J. S. Exell, M. A. ) I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and multiply My signs and My wonders. Exodus 7:3, 4 The struggle between God's will and Pharaoh's E. L. Hull, B. A. The text brings before us the two great results which God forewarned Moses would rise from the struggle between His will and Pharaoh's. On the one hand, the tyranny was to be gradually overthrown by the sublime manifestations of the power of the Lord; on the other, the heart of Pharaoh himself was to be gradually hardened in the conflict with the Lord. I. WHY WAS THE OVERTHROW OF PHARAOH'S TYRANNY THROUGH THE MIRACLES OF MOSES SO GRADUAL? Why did not God, by one overwhelming miracle, crush for ever the power of the king? 1. It was not God's purpose to terrify Pharaoh into submission. He treats men as voluntary creatures, and endeavours, by appealing to all that is highest in their natures, to lead them into submission. 2. In his determination to keep Israel in slavery, Pharaoh had two supports — his confidence in his own power, and the flatteries of the magicians. Through both these sources the miracles appealed to the very heart of the man. 3. The miracles appealed to Pharaoh through the noblest thing he had left — his own sense of religion. When the sacred river became blood, and the light turned to darkness, and the lightning gleamed before him, he must have felt that the hidden God of nature was speaking to him. Not until he had been warned and appealed to in the most powerful manner did the final judgment come. II. WE ARE TOLD THAT THE HEART OF PHARAOH WAS HARDENED BY THE MIRACLES WHICH OVERTHREW HIS PURPOSE. What does this mean? One of the most terrible facts in the world is the battle between God's will and man's. In Pharaoh we see an iron will manifesting itself in tremendous resistance, the results of which were the hardening and the overthrow. There are three possible explanations of the hardening of Pharaoh's heart. 1. It may be attributed entirely to the Divine sovereignty. But this explanation is opposed to the letter of Scripture. We read that Pharaoh hardened his heart. 2. We may attribute it wholly to Pharaoh himself. But the Bible says distinctly, "The Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart." 3. We may combine the two statements, and thus we shall get at the truth. It is true that the Lord hardened Pharaoh, and true also that Pharaoh hardened himself. ( E. L. Hull, B. A. ) Hardening of conscience It is a very terrible thing to let conscience begin to grow hard, for it soon chills into northern iron and steel. It is like the freezing of a pond. The first film of ice is scarcely perceptible; keep the water stirring and you will prevent the frost from hardening it; but once let it film over and remain quiet, the glaze thickens over the surface, and it. thickens still, and at last it is so firm that a waggon might be drawn over the solid ice. So with conscience, it films over gradually, until at last it becomes hard and unfeeling, and is not crushed even with ponderous loads of iniquity. ( C. H. Spurgeon . ) Seven characteristics of Pharaoh I. IGNORANT ( Exodus 5:2 ). II. DISOBEDIENT ( Exodus 5:2 ). III. UNBELIEVING ( Exodus 5:9 ). IV. FOOLISH ( Exodus 8:10 ). V. HARDENED ( Exodus 8:15 ). VI. PRIVILEGED ( Exodus 9:1 ). VII. LOST ( Exodus 14:26-28 ). ( C. Inglis. ) Judicial hardness of heart inflicted by God I. I shall give some GENERAL OBSERVATIONS from the story; for in the story of Pharaoh we have the exact platform of a hard heart. 1. Between the hard heart and God there is an actual contest who shall have the better. The parties contesting are God and Pharaoh. 2. The sin that hardened Pharaoh, and put him upon this contest, was covetousness and interest of State. 3. This contest on Pharaoh's part is managed with slightings and contempt of God; on God's part, with mercy and condescension. 4. The first plague on Pharaoh's heart is delusion. Moses worketh miracles, turneth Aaron's rod into a serpent, rivers into blood, bringeth frogs, and the magicians still do the same; God permitteth these magical impostures, to leave Pharaoh in his wilful error. 5. God was not wanting to give Pharaoh sufficient means of conviction. The magicians turned their rods into serpents, but "Aaron's rod swallowed up their rods" (ver. 12); which showeth God's super-eminent power. 6. Observe, in one of the plagues Israel might have stolen away, whether Pharaoh would or no ( Exodus 10:22, 23 ): but God had more miracles to be done. When He hath to do with a hard heart, He will not steal out of the field, but go away with honour and triumph. This was to be a public instance, and for intimation to the world ( 1 Samuel 6:6 ). The Philistines took warning by it, and it will be our condemnation if we do not. 7. In all these plagues I observe that Pharaoh now and then had his devout pangs. In a hard heart there may be some relentings, but no true repentance. 8. In process of time his hardness turns into rage and downright malice ( Exodus 10:28 ). Men first slight the truth, and then are hardened against it, and then come to persecute it. A river, when it hath been long kept up, swelleth and beareth down the bank and rampire; so do wicked men rage when their consciences cannot withstand the light, and their hearts will not yield to it. 9. At length Pharaoh is willing to let them go. After much ado God may get something from a hard heart; but it is no sooner given but retracted; like fire struck out of a flint, it is hardly got, and quickly gone ( Hosea 6:4 ). 10. The last news that we hear of hardening Pharaoh's heart was a little before his destruction ( Exodus 14:8 ). Hardness of heart will not leave us till it hath wrought our full and final destruction. Never any were hardened but to their own ruin. II. HOW GOD HARDENS. 1. Negatively.(1) God infuseth no hardness and sin as he infuseth grace. All influences from heaven are sweet and good, not sour. Evil cannot come from the Father of lights. God enforceth no man to do evil.(2) God doth not excite the inward propension to sin; that is Satan's work. 2. Affirmatively.(1) By desertion, taking away the restraints of grace, whereby He lets them loose to their own hearts ( Psalm 81:12 ). Man, in regard to his inclinations to sin, is like a greyhound held by a slip or collar; when the hare is in sight, take away the slip, and the greyhound runneth violently after the hare, according to his inbred disposition. Men are held in by the restraints of grace, which, when removed, they are left to their own swing, and run into all excess of riot.(2) By tradition. He delivereth them up to the power of Satan, who worketh upon the corrupt nature of man, and hardeneth it; he stirreth him up as the executioner of God's curse; as the evil spirit had leave to seduce Ahab ( 1 Kings 22:21, 22 ).(3) There is an active providence which deposeth and propoundeth such objects as, meeting with a wicked heart, maketh it more hard. God maketh the best things the wicked enjoy to turn to the fall and destruction of those that have them. In what a sad case are wicked men left by God! Mercies corrupt them, and corrections enrage them; as unsavoury herbs, the more they are pounded, the more they stink. As all things work together for good to them that love God, so all things work for the worst to the wicked and impenitent. Providences and ordinances; we read of them that wrest the scriptures to their own destruction ( 2 Peter 3:16 ). Some are condemned to worldly happiness; by ease and abundance of prosperity they are entangled: "The prosperity of fools shall destroy them" ( Proverbs 1:32 ); as brute creatures, when in good plight, grow fierce and man-keen. If we will find the sin, God will find the occasion. ( T. Manton, D. D. . ) A hardened heart J. Cumming, D. D. God hardened Pharaoh's heart by submitting to him those truths, arguments, and evidences which he ought to have accepted, but the rejection of which recoiled upon himself, and hardened the heart they did not convince. Everybody knows, in the present day, that if you listen, Sunday after Sunday, to great truths, and, Sunday after Sunday, reject them, you grow in your capacity of repulsion and ability to reject them, and the more hardened you become; and thus, the preaching of the gospel that was meant to melt, will be the occasion of hardening your heart — not because God hates you, but because you reject the gospel. The sun itself melts some substances, whilst, from the nature of the substances, it hardens others. You must not think that God stands in the way of your salvation. There is nothing between the greatest sinner and instant salvation, but his own unwillingness to lean on the Saviour, and be saved. ( J. Cumming, D. D. ) The punishment of unbelief Otto Von Gerlach, D. D. The gospel is "the savour of life unto life, and of death unto death," as one and the same savour is to some creatures refreshing, to others poisonous. But that the gospel is unto death, is not a part of its original intention, but a consequence of perverse unbelief; but when this takes place, that it is unto death comes as a punishment from God. Thus the expression "hardening" presupposes an earlier condition, when the heart was susceptible, but which ceased in consequence of the misuse, of Divine revelations and gifts. As Pharaoh hardens himself, so God hardens him at the same time. ( Otto Von Gerlach, D. D. ) Heart-hardening J. H. Kurtz, D. D. 1. Both the expressions employed and the facts themselves lead to the conclusion, that hardening can only take place where there is a conflict between human freedom and Divine grace. 2. Again, it follows from the notion of hardening, that it can only result from a conscious and obstinate resistance to the will of God. It cannot take place where there is either ignorance or error. So long as a man has not been fully convinced that he is resisting the power and will of God, there remains a possibility that as soon as the conviction of this is brought home to his mind, his heart may be changed, and so long as there is still a possibility of his conversion, he cannot be said to be really hardened. The commencement of hardening is really hardening itself, for it contains the whole process of hardening potentially within itself. This furnishes us with two new criteria of hardening;(1) before it commences, there is already in existence a certain moral condition, which only needs to be called into activity to become positive hardness; and(2) as soon as it has actually entered upon the very first stage, the completion of the hardening may be regarded as certain. In what relation, then, does God stand to the hardening of the heart? Certainly His part is not limited to mere permission. Hengstenberg has proved that this is utterly inadmissible on doctrinal grounds; and an impartial examination of the Scriptural record will show that it is exegeti-cally inadmissible here. No. God desires the hardening, and, therefore, self-hardening is always at the same time hardening through God. The moral condition, which we have pointed out as the pre-requisite of hardening the soil from which it springs, is a man's own fault, the result of the free determination of his own will. But it is not without the co-operation of God that this moral condition becomes actual hardness. Up to a certain point the will of God operates on a man in the form of mercy drawing to himself, He desires his salvation; but henceforth the mercy is changed into judicial wrath, and desires his condemnation. The will of God (as the will of the Creator), when contrasted with the will of man (as the will of the creature), is from the outset irresistible and overpowering. But yet the wilt of man is able to resist the will of God, since God has created him for freedom, self-control, and responsibility; and thus when the human will has taken an ungodly direction and persists in it, the Divine will necessarily gives way. Hence, the human will is at the same time dependent on the Divine will, and independent of it. The solution of this contradiction is to be found in the fact, that the will of God is not an inflexibly rigid thing, but something living, and that it maintains a different bearing towards a man's obedience, from that which it assumes towards his stubborn resistance. In itself it never changes, whatever the circumstances may be; but in relation to a creature, endowed with freedom, the manifestation of this will differs according to the different attitudes assumed by the freedom of the creature. In itself it is exactly the same will which blesses the obedient and condemns the impenitent — there has been no change in its nature, but only in its operations — just as the heat of the sun which causes one tree to bloom is precisely the same as that by which another is withered. As there are two states of the human will — obedience and disobedience — so are there two corresponding states of the Divine will, mercy and wrath, and the twofold effects of these are a blessing and a curse. ( J. H. Kurtz, D. D. ) Lessons A. Edersheim, D. D. 1. First and foremost, we learn the insufficiency of even the most astounding miracles to subdue the rebellious will, to change the heart, or to subject a man unto God. Our blessed Lord Himself has said of a somewhat analogous case, that men would not believe even though one rose from the dead. And His statement has been only too amply verified in the history of the world since His own resurrection. Religion is matter of the heart, and no intellectual conviction, without the agency of the Holy Spirit, affects the inmost springs of our lives. 2. A more terrible exhibition of the daring of human pride, the confidence of worldly power, and the deceitfulness of sin, than that presented by the history of this Pharaoh can scarcely be conceived. And yet the lesson seems to have been overlooked by too many! Not only sacred history, but possibly our own experience, may furnish instances of similar tendencies; and in the depths of his own soul each believer must have felt his danger in this respect, for "the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked." 3. Lastly, resistance to God must assuredly end in fearful judgment. Each conviction suppressed, each admonition stifled, each loving offer rejected, tends towards increasing spiritual insensibility, and that in which it ends. It is wisdom and safety to watch for the blessed influences of God's Spirit, and to throw open our hearts to the sunlight of His grace. ( A. Edersheim, D. D. ) Providence penal S. S. Times. In accordance with a vow a Hindu once bandaged up his eyes so tightly that not a single ray of light could enter them. So he continued for years. At last, when his vow was completed, he threw off his bandage, but only to find that through disuse he had completely lost his sight. In one sense, he had deprived himself of sight; in another, God had deprived him of it. So it was with Pharaoh's spiritual sight. Then comes the warning of consequences. It is very pleasant to go floating down the river toward the rapids. The current is so gentle that one can easily regain the bank. But remain in that current, in spite of all warnings, just one moment too long, and you and your boat will go over the falls. ( S. S. Times. ) The Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord. Exodus 7:5 A knowledge of God J. S. Exell, M. A. I. THAT THE WORST OF MEN WILL ONE DAY HAVE TO RECOGNIZE THE REALITY OF THE DIVINE EXISTENCE. "And the Egyptians shall know," etc. 1. Men of bad moral character shall know this. 2. Men of sceptical dispositions shall know this. II. THAT THEY WILL BE BROUGHT TO A RECOGNITION OF THE DIVINE EXISTENCE BY SEVERE JUDGMENTS. 1. Some men will listen to the voice of reason. The Egyptians would not. 2. Such will learn the existence of God by judgment. III. THAT THE EXISTENCE OF GOD IS A GUARANTEE FOR THE SAFETY OF THE GOOD. "And bring out," etc., from moral and temporal bondage into Canaan, of peace and quiet. ( J. S. Exell, M. A. ) The plagues A. Nevin, D. D. 1. These plagues are arranged in regular order, and gradually advance from the external to the internal, and from the mediate to the immediate hand of God. They are in number ten, which is one of the numbers denoting perfection. They are divided first into nine and one, the last one standing clearly apart from all the others in the awful shriek of woe which it draws forth from every Egyptian home. The nine are arranged in threes. In the first of each three the warning is given to Pharaoh in the morning (ver. 15; Exodus 8:20 ; Exodus 9:13 ). In the first and second of each three the plague is announced beforehand ( Exodus 8:1 ; Exodus 9:1 ; Exodus 10:1 ); in the third not ( Exodus 8:16 ; Exodus 9:8 ; Exodus 10:21 ). At the third the magicians of Pharaoh acknowledge the finger of God ( Exodus 8:19 ), at the sixth they cannot stand before Moses ( Exodus 9:11 ), and at the ninth Pharaoh refuses to see the face of Moses any more ( Exodus 10:28 ). In the first three Aaron uses the rod, in the second three it is not mentioned, in the third three Moses uses it, though in the last of them only his hand is mentioned. All these marks of order lie on the face of the narrative, and point to a deeper order of nature and reason out of which they spring. 2. The plagues were characterized by increasing severity, a method of procedure to which we see an analogy in the warnings which the providential government of the world often puts before the sinner. 3. These plagues were of a miraculous character. As such the historian obviously intends us to regard them, and they are elsewhere spoken of as the "wonders" which God wrought in the land of Ham ( Psalm 105:27 ), as His miracles in Egypt ( Psalm 106:7 ), and as His signs and prodigies which He sent into the midst of Egypt ( Psalm 135:9 ). It is only under this aspect that we can accept the narrative as historical. 4. That the immediate design of these inflictions was the delivering of the Israelites from their cruel bondage lies on the surface of the narrative, but with this other ends were contemplated. The manifestation of God's own glory was here, as in all His works, the highest object in view, and this required that the powers of Egyptian idolatry, with which the interest of Satan was at that time peculiarly identified, should be brought into the conflict and manifestly confounded. For this reason it was that nearly every miracle performed by Moses had relation to some object of idolatrous worship among the Egyptians (see Exodus 12:12 ). For this reason, also, it was that the first wonders wrought had such distinct reference to the exploits of the magicians, who were the wonder-workers connected with that gigantic system of idolatry, and the main instruments of its support and credit in the world. They were thus naturally drawn, as well as Pharaoh, into the contest, and became, along with him, the visible heads and representatives of the "spiritual wickedness" of Egypt. And since they refused to own the supremacy and accede to the demands of Jehovah, or witnessing that first, and as it may be called harmless, triumph of His power over theirs — since they resolved, as the adversaries of God's and the instruments of Satan's interest in the world, to prolong the contest, there remained no alternative but to visit the land with a series of judgments, such as might clearly prove the utter impotence of its fancied deities to protect their votaries from the might and vengeance of the living God. ( A. Nevin, D. D. ) The variety of the plagues C. Ness. The diversity and various sorts of those plagues — each sorer than other. The first and second were upon the water, the third and fourth were upon the earth, the five next were upon the air, and the tenth falls upon the firstborn of men, insomuch that their punishment was absolute, not only as to the number of the plagues, which was a number of perfection, but more especially in respect of their nature, matter, and manner, all various and exquisite. For — I. THEY WERE PLAGUED BY ALL KIND OF CREATURES. 1. By all the elements; as water, earth, air and fire. 2. By sundry animals; as frogs, lice, caterpillars, flies, and locusts. 3. By men; as Moses and Aaron were instruments in God's hand. 4. By the angels who ministered those plagues, both the evil angels ( Psalm 78:44 ), whom He sent among them, and the good that were employed in destroying their firstborn ( Exodus 12:3 , etc.), yea, by the very stars, who all combined against them — with the sun and moon — in suspending their light from that land — during the three days darkness — as all ashamed to look upon such sinful inhabitants thereof, etc. II. THEY WERE PLAGUED IN ALL THINGS WHEREIN THEY MOST DELIGHTED. 1. In all manner of their luscious and delicious fruit, by its being universally blasted or devoured, etc. 2. In their goodliest cattle — some of which they worshipped — all destroyed by murrain, etc. 3. In their River Nilus, which they adored, and for which end, it is supposed, Pharaoh was going down to pay his homage to that idol, when God bade Moses go meet him in the morning (ver. 15). This is intimated in Ezekiel 29:3, 9 , where they are twitted twice for idolizing it, but God made it loathsome to them (ver. 18). 4. In the fish, which was their daily and delicate diet ( Numbers 11:5 ), for the flesh of many beasts they, out of superstition, would not eat of, as abominable ( Exodus 8:26 ). All the fish died when their water was turned into blood (ver. 21). 5. In their bodies, wherein they greatly prided themselves, but the boils God smote them which spoiled all their beauties in their wellbuilt bodies. 6. In their children, when in every house there was a dead corpse, and that not of a slave or servant, but of their firstborn. All these were the idols of Egypt ( Exodus 12:12 ; Zephaniah 2:11 ). III. THEY WERE PLAGUED IN ALL THEIR SENSES. 1. In their seeing; for they lost all sight when the plague of darkness took away their light for three days, unless it were horrible sights mentioned in Apocrypha (Wisdom 17:6, 7). However, their comfort of seeing they lost. 2. In their hearing. Oh, what a consternation! Dread and terror seized upon them when God uttered His terrible voice in those frightful thunders in the plague of hail, when fire ran along upon the ground, yet did not melt the hailstones ( Exodus 9:23 ). This must be supernatural, and therefore the more dreadful, which might make them think that God was come to rain hell-fire out of heaven upon them as He had done, before this, upon wicked Sodom ( Genesis 19 .). How did this voice of the Lord break the cedars, etc. ( Psalm 29:5, 6 , etc.), yea, every tree of the field ( Exodus 9:25 ). 3. In their smelling, both by the stench of the frogs ( Exodus 8:14 ), which might mind them of their sin that made them stink before God, and likewise by the stinking rotten matter that ran out of those ulcers wherewith they were smitten ( Exodus 9:9-11 ). As they had oppressed God's people with furnace work in making brick, so the ashes of that furnace became burning boils that break forth into putrid running sores, etc. 4. In their tasting, both by the waters turned into blood, because in them they had shed the blood of the male Hebrew children. These bloody men had blood to drink, for they were worthy ( Revelation 16:6 ). Their River Nilus they used to boast of to the Grecians, saying, in mockery to them, "If God should forget to rain, they might chance to perish for it." The rain, they thought, was of God, but not their river ( Ezekiel 29:3, 9 ), therefore, to confute them in their confidence, as God threatens to dry it up ( Isaiah 19:5, 6 ), so here to bereave them of all the comfortable use of it; they now loathed to drink of it (vers. 18-20). God cursed their blessings ( Malachi 2:2 ), and also by their thirst thereby procured. Drinking such bloody water did rather torture their taste than please their palate, or quench their thirst. 5. In their touching or feeling, by their dolorous shooting pangs in their body, when the sin of their souls broke forth into sores of their bodies, which pained them so, that, as they could not now sleep in a whole skin, so they gnawed their own tongues for pain. This was superadded to the bitings of flies, wasps, flying-serpents, etc., whereby some might be stung to death ( Psalm 78:45 ), and the magicians themselves, who had so insolently imitated Moses, the devil being God's ape, were branded with those boils to detect their contumacy. Besides, also, the frogs ravaging upon their bodies so irresistibly, etc., must needs be very offensive to their sense of touching. IV. Lastly, as if all this had been too little to fill up the measure of their plagues and punishments, Pharaoh and all his forces, that hitherto had escaped, were all drawn blindfold into the noose, by fair way, weather, etc., and then were drowned in the Red Sea ( Exodus 14:8, 9, 21, 24, 28 ). ( C. Ness. ) So did they. Exodus 7:6 Obedience to God J. S. Exell, M. A. I. IT MUST BE RENDERED BY THE SERVANTS OF GOD. "Moses and Aaron." All men who are called to moral service by God must obey Him. 1. Because He gives them their commands. 2. Because He gives them the power to do so. 3. Because He rewards obedience. II. IT MUST BE CO-EXTENSIVE WITH THEIR MISSION. 1. It must be entire. 2. It must be cheerful. 3. It must be holy. III. IT WILL RENDER THEIR MISSION EFFECTIVE — 1. Because it will lead to the best mode of service. 2. Because God will delight to honour it. The Divine commands: (1) Rightfully given. (2) To be faithfully executed. (3) To be diligently obeyed. To be supremely regarded. ( J. S. Exell, M. A. ) Fourscore years old. Exodus 7:7 Age of Moses and Aaron J. S. Exell, M. A. Their ages would have an important bearing toward the work of these two men. I. THEIR AGES WOULD INDICATE THAT THEY WERE NOT LIKELY TO BE MISLED BY THE ENTHUSIASM OF YOUTH. The world is slow to take young men into its confidence. It soon smiles at their visions, and laughs at their enthusiastic hopes. II. THEIR AGES WOULD BE LIKELY TO COMMAND THE RESPECT OF THOSE WITH WHOM THEY HAD TO DO. The world wants men of tried energy and long experience to achieve its moral emancipation; men in whom hot passion has calmed into a settled force. III. THEIR AGES WOULD BE AN INCENTIVE TO FIDELITY, AS THEY HAD SPENT THE YOUNGER PART OF LIFE, AND WOULD BE FORCEFULLY REMINDED OF THE FUTURE. ( J. S. Exell, M. A. ) Delay in entering upon work of life W. H. Taylor, D. D. Let us learn not to be impatient for the discovery of our true lifework. Moses was eighty years old before he entered upon that noble career by which he became the emancipator and educator of his nation. Two-thirds of his days were gone before he really touched that which was his great, distinctive, and peculiar labour, and his enterprise was all the more gloriously accomplished by reason of the delay. Nor is this a solitary instance. The Lord Jesus Himself lived thirty years, during most of which He was in training for a public ministry, which lasted only two-and-forty months. John Knox never entered a pulpit until he was over forty years of age; and much of the fire and energy of his preaching was owing to the fact that the flame had been so long pent up within his breast. Havelock was a dreary while a mere lieutenant, held back by the iniquitous system of purchase, which was so long in vogue in the English army; but, as it happened, that was only a life-long apprenticeship, by which he was enabled all the more efficiently to become, at length, the saviour of the Indian Empire. So let no one chafe and fret over the delay which seems evermore to keep him from doing anything to purpose for the world and his Lord. The opportunity will come in its own season. It does come, sooner or later, to every man; and it is well if, when at length he hears the voice calling, "Moses! Moses!" he is ready with the answer, "Here am I." For while I would comfort you with the assurance that the hour will come, I do not mean that you should be idle until it strikes. No; for if you adopt such a plan, the certainty is that you will not hear its stroke, or that you will not be ready to begin at its call. The true principle is to do with your might that which is lying at your hand day by day, in the firm conviction that you are thereby training yourself into fitness for your future vocation. ( W. H. Taylor, D. D. ) They also did in like manner with their enchantments. Exodus 7:11, 12 Moses and the magicians D. C. Hughes, M. A. I. MOSES DIVINELY WARNED OF PHARAOH'S DEMAND FOR A SUPERNATURAL CREDENTIAL. When men profess to bring a message from God, they should be prepared to substantiate it by satisfactory evidence. II. MOSES DIVINELY SUSTAINED IN MEETING THE DEMAND. 1. God will never forsake those who go forth to implicitly work His will. 2. God often permits His enemies to temporarily triumph. III. MOSES COMMANDED TO APPEAL AGAIN TO PHARAOH (vers. 14-17). 1. God's knowledge of the human heart. 2. God's knowledge of the purposes and plans of men. 3. God's recognition of free agency, and its correlative responsibility. 4. God deals with men on the basis of their moral freedom, and according to their constitutional nature.Lessons: 1. Here we have a type of the conflict of ages. (1) In its spirit. (2) In its aims. (3) In its result. 2. The side to which we lean, and for which we fight, shows the party to which we really belong. ( D. C. Hughes, M. A. ) Lessons G. Hughes, B. D. 1. Miracles from God will not persuade wicked hearts to believe. 2. Unbelieving sinners are apt to call in all instruments of Satan to gainsay God. 3. Providence hath of old suffered wisdom to be abused to sorcery and pernicious acts (ver. 11). 4. God hath suffered creatures by Satan's help to do some like things to His miracles. 5. Under God's permission Satan may work strange changes in creatures, but no miracles. 6. God's true miracles devour all lying wonders of Satan (ver. 12). 7. Wicked hearts harden themselves by lying wonders against God, and therefore are hardened by Him. 8. The fruit of such hardening is rebellion against God's word and will. 9. God's word is made good in all the disobedience of the wicked foretold (ver. 13). ( G. Hughes, B. D. ) Man's effort to repudiate the message of God by an imitation of its miraculous credentials J. S. Exell, M. A. I. THAT MAN HAS A RIGHT TO EXPECT THAT ANY SPECIAL REVELATION FROM GOD SHOULD BE ACCOMPANIED BY INFALLIBLE AND UNIMPEACHABLE CREDENTIALS. (ver. 9). 1. We require these credentials to vindicate the authority of the speaker. The Bible contains the evidences of its Divine origin on its own pages, for on every page we see the miracle repeated, the rod is turned into a serpent. And the miracles which the book contains, and the miracle which it is in itself, are sufficient token to the honest mind that it comes from God. This evidence is equal to the case. It leaves disobedience without excuse. 2. We require these credentials to vindicate the credibility of the speaker. God would never give men power to work a miracle to authenticate a lie. The miracle not only demonstrated the authority of these men, but also the unimpeachable honesty and verity of their statements. And so men take the Bible to-day; they perhaps say that in general terms the hook has come from God, and has

Benson Commentary Exodus 7:1 And the LORD said unto Moses, See, I have made thee a god to Pharaoh: and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet. Exodus 7:1 . A god to Pharaoh — That is, my representative in this affair, as magistrates are called gods, because they are God’s vicegerents. He was authorized to speak and act in God’s name, and endued with a divine power, to do that which is above the ordinary course of nature. And Aaron shall be thy prophet — That is, he shall speak from thee to Pharaoh, as prophets do from God to the children of men. Thou shalt as a god inflict and remove the plagues, and Aaron as a prophet shall denounce them. Exodus 7:2 Thou shalt speak all that I command thee: and Aaron thy brother shall speak unto Pharaoh, that he send the children of Israel out of his land. Exodus 7:3 And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt. Exodus 7:4 But Pharaoh shall not hearken unto you, that I may lay my hand upon Egypt, and bring forth mine armies, and my people the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great judgments. Exodus 7:5 And the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD, when I stretch forth mine hand upon Egypt, and bring out the children of Israel from among them. Exodus 7:6 And Moses and Aaron did as the LORD commanded them, so did they. Exodus 7:7 And Moses was fourscore years old, and Aaron fourscore and three years old, when they spake unto Pharaoh. Exodus 7:7 . Moses was fourscore years old — Joseph, who was to be only a servant to Pharaoh, was preferred at thirty years old; but Moses, who was to be a god to Pharaoh, was not so dignified till he was eighty years old. It was fit he should long wait for such an honour, and be long in preparing for such a service. Exodus 7:8 And the LORD spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying, Exodus 7:9 When Pharaoh shall speak unto you, saying, Shew a miracle for you: then thou shalt say unto Aaron, Take thy rod, and cast it before Pharaoh, and it shall become a serpent. Exodus 7:9 . Say unto Aaron, Take thy rod — This Moses ordinarily held in his hand, and delivered to Aaron, upon occasion, for the execution of his commands. For this and some other miracles were to be done, not by Moses immediately, but by Aaron, partly, perhaps, to preclude or take off the suspicion that these miracles were wrought by some magic arts of Moses, and partly for the greater honour of Moses, that he might be what God had said, ( Exodus 7:1 ,) a god to Pharaoh, who not only could work miracles himself, but also give power to others to do so. Perhaps the conjecture of Grotius upon this place may be worth mentioning here, which is, that the custom of ambassadors bearing a caduceus, or rod, in their hands, had its origin in this event, being taken up first by the neighbouring nations, and from them communicated to the Greeks and Romans. And it is remarkable that the caduceus of Mercury, the messenger of the gods of Greece and Rome, was formed of two serpents twisted round a rod. Exodus 7:10 And Moses and Aaron went in unto Pharaoh, and they did so as the LORD had commanded: and Aaron cast down his rod before Pharaoh, and before his servants, and it became a serpent. Exodus 7:10 . It became a serpent — This was proper, not only to affect Pharaoh with wonder, but to strike a terror upon him. This first miracle, though it was not a plague, yet amounted to the threatening of a plague; if it made not Pharaoh feel, it made him fear; and this is God’s method of dealing with sinners; he comes upon them gradually. Exodus 7:11 Then Pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers: now the magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with their enchantments. Exodus 7:11 . Moses had been originally instructed in the learning of the Egyptians, and was suspected to have improved in magical arts in his long retirement. The magicians are therefore sent for to vie with him. The two chief of them were Jannes and Jambres. Their rods became serpents, probably by the power of evil angels, artfully substituting serpents in the room of the rods, God permitting the delusion to be wrought for wise and holy ends. But the serpent which Aaron’s rod was turned into, swallowed up the others: which was sufficient to have convinced Pharaoh on which side the right lay. Exodus 7:12 For they cast down every man his rod, and they became serpents: but Aaron's rod swallowed up their rods. Exodus 7:12 . They became serpents — The authors of the Universal History cast considerable light on this subject: “If it be asked,” say they, “why God suffered the magicians to act thus, by a power borrowed from the devil, in order to invalidate, if possible, those miracles which his servant wrought by his divine power, the following reasons may be given for it: First, It was necessary that those magicians should be suffered to exert the utmost of their power against Moses, in order to clear him from the imputation of magic or sorcery; for as the notion of such an extraordinary art was very rife, not only among the Egyptians, but all other nations, if they had not entered into this strenuous competition with him, and been at length overcome by him, both the Hebrews and Egyptians would have been more apt to attribute all his miracles to his skill in magic, than to the divine power. Secondly, It was necessary in order to confirm the faith of the wavering and desponding Israelites, by making them see the difference between Moses’s acting by the power of God, and the sorcerers by that of Satan. And, lastly, In order to preserve them afterward from being seduced by any false miracles, from the true worship of God.” Exodus 7:13 And he hardened Pharaoh's heart, that he hearkened not unto them; as the LORD had said. Exodus 7:13 . And he hardened Pharaoh’s heart — That is, permitted it to be hardened: or, as the very same Hebrew word is rendered in Exodus 7:22 , Pharaoh’s heart was hardened. Exodus 7:14 And the LORD said unto Moses, Pharaoh's heart is hardened, he refuseth to let the people go. Exodus 7:14 . Pharaoh’s heart is hardened — ??? ?? , is made heavy. Neither my word nor works make any impression upon him. He is obdurate and obstinate, and what was designed for his conviction and humiliation only aggravates his guilt, and prepares him for a more signal destruction. Exodus 7:15 Get thee unto Pharaoh in the morning; lo, he goeth out unto the water; and thou shalt stand by the river's brink against he come; and the rod which was turned to a serpent shalt thou take in thine hand. Exodus 7:15 . Lo, he goeth out unto the water — Of the river Nile: whither he went at that time, either for his recreation, or to pay his morning worship to that river, which, as Plutarch testifies, the Egyptians had in great veneration. Exodus 7:16 And thou shalt say unto him, The LORD God of the Hebrews hath sent me unto thee, saying, Let my people go, that they may serve me in the wilderness: and, behold, hitherto thou wouldest not hear. Exodus 7:17 Thus saith the LORD, In this thou shalt know that I am the LORD: behold, I will smite with the rod that is in mine hand upon the waters which are in the river, and they shall be turned to blood. Exodus 7:18 And the fish that is in the river shall die, and the river shall stink; and the Egyptians shall lothe to drink of the water of the river. Exodus 7:18 . The Egyptians shall loathe to drink of the water — “There are a few wells,” says Harmer, “in Egypt, but their waters are not drunk, being unpleasant and unwholesome. The water of the Nile is what they universally make use of in this country, which is looked upon to be extraordinarily wholesome, and at the same time extremely delicious.” And he refers to Maillett and another author, as affirming that the Egyptians have been wont to excite thirst artificially, that they might drink the more of it. He then quotes, the Abbot Mascrier (let. 1, pp. 15, 16) in the following words: “The water of Egypt is so delicious that one would not wish the heat should be less, nor to be delivered from the sensation of thirst. The Turks find it so exquisitely charming that they excite themselves to drink of it by eating salt. It is a common saying among them, that if Mohammed had drunk of it he would have begged of God not to have died, that he might always have done it.” On these facts Harmer remarks as follows: “A person that never before heard of this delicacy of the water of the Nile, and of the large quantities which on that account are drunk of it, will, I am sure, find an energy in those words of Moses to Pharaoh, which he never observed before, The Egyptians shall loathe to drink of the river. They shall loathe to drink of that water which they used to prefer to all the waters in the universe — that which they had been wont eagerly to long for; and will rather drink of well-water, which in their country is detestable.” — Harmer, vol. 2. p. 295. Exodus 7:19 And the LORD spake unto Moses, Say unto Aaron, Take thy rod, and stretch out thine hand upon the waters of Egypt, upon their streams, upon their rivers, and upon their ponds, and upon all their pools of water, that they may become blood; and that there may be blood throughout all the land of Egypt, both in vessels of wood, and in vessels of stone. Exodus 7:19 . Upon their streams, &c., — both in vessels of wood and vessels of stone — “To what purpose this minuteness?” says the last-mentioned author. “May not the meaning be that the water of the Nile should not only look red and nauseous, like blood, in the river, but in their vessels too, and that no method of purifying it should take place, but, whether drunk out of vessels of wood or out of vessels of stone, by means of which they were wont to purge the Nile water, it should be the same, and should appear like blood.” — Harmer, vol. 2. p. 292. Exodus 7:20 And Moses and Aaron did so, as the LORD commanded; and he lifted up the rod, and smote the waters that were in the river, in the sight of Pharaoh, and in the sight of his servants; and all the waters that were in the river were turned to blood. Exodus 7:20 . The waters in the river were turned into blood — This was a plague justly inflicted on the Egyptians; for the river of Egypt was their idol; they and their land had so much benefit by that creature, that they served and worshipped it more than their Creator. In ancient times they annually even sacrificed a girl to it, at the opening of the canals, Univ. Hist., vol. 1. p. 413. Also they had stained the river with the blood of the Hebrew children, and now God made that river all bloody; thus he gave them blood to drink, for they were worthy, Revelation 16:6 . See the power of God! Every creature is that to us which he makes it to be, water or blood. See the mutability of all things under the sun, and what changes we may meet with in them. That which is water to-day may be blood to- morrow; what is always vain may soon become vexatious. And see what mischievous work sin makes! It is sin that turns our waters into blood. All the waters — It seems the word all here, and in the foregoing verse, is either to be understood in a limited sense, as it frequently is in Scripture, meaning not all in the strictest sense, but only a very great part; or else that although Moses’s commission extended to all the waters in Egypt, yet it was only executed upon the river Nile: because we read that the magicians did the same thing; but if Moses had turned all the waters into blood, as some scoffers have, with great raillery and triumph, observed, how could the magicians do the same, there being, on this supposition, no water for them upon which to make the trial. Exodus 7:21 And the fish that was in the river died; and the river stank, and the Egyptians could not drink of the water of the river; and there was blood throughout all the land of Egypt. Exodus 7:22 And the magicians of Egypt did so with their enchantments: and Pharaoh's heart was hardened, neither did he hearken unto them; as the LORD had said. Exodus 7:22 . The magicians did so — By God’s permission; with their enchantments — It seems they performed real miracles, for the text says expressly they did the same as Moses, and probably to their own surprise, as well as that of others, not knowing that any such effect would follow upon their using enchantments. Certainly they were ignorant of the extent of their own power, or rather, what Satan would or could do by them, and by what means these things came to pass, otherwise they would not have disgraced themselves, by making an attempt to bring forth lice, which they could not perform. What they did do served Pharaoh for an excuse not to set his heart to this also. And a poor excuse it was. Could they have turned the river of blood into water again, and by a word have purified those waters which the almighty power of God had rendered corrupt, they would have proved their power and done Pharaoh a signal favour. But the superiority of the miracles of Moses, even in these instances in which they vied with him, was incontestible: and they were compelled to acknowledge that what he did was by the finger of God. “God, by permitting them to succeed thus far in their opposition, rendered their folly more conspicuous: for by suffering them to change the waters into blood, and putting it out of their power to restore them to their former purity; and by permitting them to produce frogs, which they were not able to remove, he only put it in their power to increase those plagues upon themselves and their countrymen at the same time that they demonstrated their own inability.”— Bishop Kidder. Exodus 7:23 And Pharaoh turned and went into his house, neither did he set his heart to this also. Exodus 7:24 And all the Egyptians digged round about the river for water to drink; for they could not drink of the water of the river. Exodus 7:24 . The Egyptians digged round about the river for water — Josephus says, they lost their labour, and found only blood there: but if they found water, or water less bloody, it is not material to us, as it does not lessen Moses’s miracle, it not being within the compass of his commission to prevent their getting water by digging. Exodus 7:25 And seven days were fulfilled, after that the LORD had smitten the river. Exodus 7:25 . Seven days were fulfilled — Before the plague was removed. Benson Commentary on the Old and New Testaments Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.

Expositor's Bible Commentary Exodus 7:1 And the LORD said unto Moses, See, I have made thee a god to Pharaoh: and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet. Exodus 7:3 And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt. CHAPTER VII. THE HARDENING OF PHARAOH'S HEART. Exodus 7:3-13 . When Moses received his commission, at the bush, words were spoken which are now repeated with more emphasis, and which have to be considered carefully. For probably no statement of Scripture has excited fiercer criticism, more exultation of enemies and perplexity of friends, than that the Lord said, "I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and he shall not let the people go," and that in consequence of this Divine act Pharaoh sinned and suffered. Just because the words are startling, it is unjust to quote them without careful examination of the context, both in the prediction and the fulfilment. When all is weighed, compared, and harmonised, it will at last be possible to draw a just conclusion. And although it may happen long before then, that the objector will charge us with special pleading, yet he will be the special pleader himself, if he seeks to hurry us, by prejudice or passion, to give a verdict which is based upon less than all the evidence, patiently weighed. Let us in the first place find out how soon this dreadful process began; when was it that God fulfilled His threat, and hardened, in any sense whatever, the heart of Pharaoh? Did He step in at the beginning, and render the unhappy king incapable of weighing the remonstrances which He then performed the cruel mockery of addressing to him? Were these as insincere and futile as if one bade the avalanche to pause which his own act had started down the icy slopes? Was Pharaoh as little responsible for his pursuit of Israel as his horses were--being, like them, the blind agents of a superior force? We do not find it so. In the fifth chapter, when a demand is made, without any sustaining miracle, simply appealing to the conscience of the ruler, there is no mention of any such process, despite the insults with which Pharaoh then assails both the messengers and Jehovah Himself, Whom he knows not. In the seventh chapter there is clear evidence that the process is yet unaccomplished; for, speaking of an act still future, it declares, "I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and multiply My signs and My wonders in the land of Egypt" ( Exodus 7:3 ). And this terrible act is not connected with the remonstrances and warnings of God, but entirely with the increasing pressure of the miracles. The exact period is marked when the hand of doom closed upon the tyrant. It is not where the Authorised Version places it. When the magicians imitated the earlier signs of Moses, "his heart was strong," but the original does not bear out the assertion that at this time the Lord made it so by any judicial act of His ( Exodus 7:13 ). That only comes with the sixth plague; and the course of events may be traced, fairly well, by the help of the margin of the Revised Version. After the plague of blood "Pharaoh's heart was strong" ("hardened"), and this is distinctly ascribed to his own action, because "he set his heart even to this" ( Exodus 7:22-23 ). After the second plague, it was still he himself who "made his heart heavy" ( Exodus 8:15 ). After the third plague the magicians warned him that the very finger of some god was upon him indeed: their rivalry, which hitherto might have been somewhat of a palliation for his obstinacy, was now ended; but yet "his heart was strong" ( Exodus 8:19 ). Again, after the fourth plague he "made his heart heavy"; and it "was heavy" after the fifth plague, ( Exodus 8:32 , Exodus 9:7 ). Only thenceforward comes the judicial infatuation upon him who has resolutely infatuated himself hitherto. But when five warnings and penalties have spent their force in vain, when personal agony is inflicted in the plague of boils, and the magicians in particular cannot stand before him through their pain, would it have been proof of virtuous contrition if he had yielded then? If he had needed evidence, it was given to him long before. Submission now would have meant prudence, not penitence; and it was against prudence, not penitence, that he was hardened. Because he had resisted evidence, experience, and even the testimony of his own magicians, he was therefore stiffened against the grudging and unworthy concessions which must otherwise have been wrested from him, as a wild beast will turn and fly from fire. He was henceforth himself to become an evidence and a portent; and so "The Lord made strong the heart of Pharaoh, and he hearkened not unto them" ( Exodus 9:12 ). It was an awful doom, but it is not open to the attacks so often made upon it. It only means that for him the last five plagues were not disciplinary, but wholly penal. Nay, it stops short of asserting even this: they might still have appealed to his reason; they were only not allowed to crush him by the agency of terror. Not once is it asserted that God hardened his heart against any nobler impulse than alarm, and desire to evade danger and death. We see clearly this meaning in the phrase, when it is applied to his army entering the Red Sea: "I will make strong the hearts of the Egyptians, and they shall go in" ( Exodus 14:17 ). It needed no greater moral turpitude to pursue the Hebrews over the sands than on the shore, but it certainly required more hardihood. But the unpursued departure which the good-will of Egypt refused, their common sense was not allowed to grant. Callousness was followed by infatuation, as even the pagans felt that whom God wills to ruin He first drives mad. This explanation implies that to harden Pharaoh's heart was to inspire him, not with wickedness, but with nerve. And as far as the original language helps us at all, it decidedly supports this view. Three different expressions have been unhappily rendered by the same English word, to harden; but they may be discriminated throughout the narrative in Exodus, by the margin of the Revised Version. One word, which commonly appears without any marginal explanation, is the same which is employed elsewhere about "the cause which is too hard for" minor judges ( Deuteronomy 1:17 , cf. Deuteronomy 15:18 , etc.). Now, this word is found ( Exodus 7:13 ) in the second threat that "I will harden Pharaoh's heart," and in the account which was to be given to posterity of how "Pharaoh hardened himself to let us go" ( Exodus 13:15 ). And it is said likewise of Sihon, king of Heshbon, that he "would not let us pass by him, for the Lord thy God hardened his spirit and made his heart strong" ( Deuteronomy 2:30 ). But since it does not occur anywhere in all the narrative of what God actually did with Pharaoh, it is only just to interpret this phrase in the prediction by what we read elsewhere of the manner of its fulfilment. The second word is explained in the margin as meaning to make strong . Already God had employed it when He said "I will make strong his heart" ( Exodus 4:21 ), and this is the term used of the first fulfilment of the menace, after the sixth plague ( Exodus 9:12 ). God is not said to interfere again after the seventh, which had few special terrors for Pharaoh himself; but from henceforth the expression "to make strong " alternates with the phrase "to make heavy ." "Go in unto Pharaoh, for I have made heavy his heart and the heart of his servants, that I might show these My signs in the midst of them" ( Exodus 10:1 ). It may be safely assumed that these two expressions cover between them all that is asserted of the judicial action of God in preventing a recoil of Pharaoh from his calamities. Now, the strengthening of a heart, however punitive and disastrous when a man's will is evil (just as the strengthening of his arm is disastrous then), has in itself no immorality inherent. It is a thing as often good as bad,--as when Israel and Joshua are exhorted to "Be strong and of a good courage" ( Deuteronomy 31:6-7 , Deuteronomy 31:23 ), and when the angel laid his hand upon Daniel and said, "Be strong, yea, be strong" ( Daniel 10:19 ). In these passages the phrase is identical with that which describes the process by which Pharaoh was prevented from cowering under the tremendous blows he had provoked. The other expression is to make heavy or dull. Thus "the eyes of Israel were heavy with age" ( Genesis 48:10 ), and as we speak of a weight of honour, equally with the heaviness of a dull man, so we are twice commanded, "Make heavy (honour) thy father and thy mother"; and the Lord declares, "I will make Myself heavy (get Me honour) upon Pharaoh" ( Deuteronomy 5:16 , Exodus 20:12 , Exodus 14:4 , Exodus 14:17-18 ). In these latter references it will be observed that the making "strong" the heart of Pharaoh, and the making "Myself heavy" are so connected as almost to show a design of indicating how far is either expression from conveying the notion of immorality, infused into a human heart by God. For one of the two phrases which have been thus interpreted is still applied to Pharaoh; but the other (and the more sinister, as we should think, when thus applied) is appropriated by God to Himself: He makes Himself heavy. It is also a curious and significant coincidence that the same word was used of the burdens that were made heavy when first they claimed their freedom, which is now used of the treatment of the heart of their oppressor ( Exodus 5:9 ). It appears, then, that the Lord is never said to debauch Pharaoh's heart, but only to strengthen it against prudence and to make it dull; that the words used do not express the infusion of evil passion, but the animation of a resolute courage, and the overclouding of a natural discernment; and, above all, that every one of the three words, to make hard, to make strong, and to make heavy, is employed to express Pharaoh's own treatment of himself, before it is applied to any work of God, as actually taking place already. Nevertheless, there is a solemn warning for all time, in the assertion that what he at first chose, the vengeance of God afterward chose for him. For indeed the same process, working more slowly but on identical lines, is constantly seen in the hardening effect of vicious habit. The gambler did not mean to stake all his fortune upon one chance, when first he timidly laid down a paltry stake; nor has he changed his mind since then as to the imprudence of such a hazard. The drunkard, the murderer himself, is a man who at first did evil as far as he dared, and afterwards dared to do evil which he would once have shuddered at. Let no man assume that prudence will always save him from ruinous excess, if respect for righteousness cannot withhold him from those first compliances which sap the will, destroy the restraint of self-respect, wear away the horror of great wickedness by familiarity with the same guilt in its lesser phases, and, above all, forfeit the enlightenment and calmness of judgment which come from the Holy Spirit of God, Who is the Spirit of wisdom and of counsel, and makes men to be of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord. Let no man think that the fear of damnation will bring him to the mercy-seat at last, if the burden and gloom of being "condemned already" cannot now bend his will. "Even as they refused to have God in their knowledge, God gave them up unto a reprobate mind" ( Romans 1:28 ). "I gave them My statutes and showed them My judgments, which if a man do, he shall even live in them.... I gave them statutes that were not good, and judgments wherein they should not live" ( Ezekiel 20:11 , Exodus 20:25 ). This is the inevitable law, the law of a confused and darkened judgment, a heart made heavy and ears shut, a conscience seared, an infatuated will kicking against the pricks, and heaping to itself wrath against the day of wrath. Wilful sin is always a challenge to God, and it is avenged by the obscuring of the lamp of God in the soul. Now, a part of His guiding light is prudence; and it is possible that men who will not be warned by the fear of injury to their conscience, such as they suppose that Pharaoh suffered, may be sobered by the danger of such derangement of their intellectual efficiency as really befel him. In this sense men are, at last, impelled blindly to their fate (and this is a judicial act of God, although it comes in the course of nature), but first they launch themselves upon the slope which grows steeper at every downward step, until arrest is impossible. On the other hand, every act of obedience helps to release the will from its entanglement, and to clear the judgment which has grown dull, anointing the eyes with eye-salve that they may see. Not in vain is the assertion of the bondage of the sinner and the glorious liberty of the children of God. A second time, then, Moses presented himself before Pharaoh with his demands; and, as he had been forewarned, he was now challenged to give a sign in proof of his commission from a god. And the demand was treated as reasonable; a sign was given, and a menacing one. The peaceable rod of the shepherd, a fit symbol of the meek man who bore it, became a serpent[10] before the king, as Moses was to become destructive to his realm. But when the wise men of Egypt and the enchanters were called, they did likewise; and although a marvel was added which incontestably declared the superior power of the Deity Whom Aaron represented, yet their rivalry sufficed to make strong the heart of Pharaoh, and he would not let the people go. The issue was now knit: the result would be more signal than if the quarrel were decided at one blow, and upon all the gods of Egypt the Lord would exercise vengeance. What are we to think of the authentification of a religion by a sign? Beyond doubt, Jesus recognised this aspect of His own miracles, when He said, "If I had not done among them the works that none other man did, they had not had sin" ( John 15:24 ). And yet there is reason in the objection that no amount of marvel ought to deflect by one hair's breadth our judgment of right and wrong, and the true appeal of a religion must be to our moral sense. No miracle can prove that immoral teaching is sacred. But it can prove that it is supernatural. And this is precisely what Scripture always proclaims. In the New Testament, we are bidden to take heed, because a day will come, when false prophets shall work great signs and wonders, to deceive, if possible, even the elect ( Mark 13:22 ). In the Old Testament, a prophet may seduce the people to worship other gods, by giving them a sign or a wonder which shall come to pass, but they must surely stone him: they must believe that his sign is only a temptation; and above whatever power enabled him to work it, they must recognise Jehovah proving them, and know that the supernatural has come to them in judgment, not in revelation ( Deuteronomy 13:1-5 ). Now, this is the true function of the miraculous. At the most, it cannot coerce the conscience, but only challenge it to consider and to judge. A teacher of the purest morality may be only a human teacher still; nor is the Christian bound to follow into the desert every clamorous innovator, or to seek in the secret chamber every one who whispers a private doctrine to a few. We are entitled to expect that one who is commissioned directly from above will bear special credentials with him; but when these are exhibited, we must still judge whether the document they attest is forged. And this may explain to us why the magicians were allowed for awhile to perplex the judgment of Pharaoh whether by fraud, as we may well suppose, or by infernal help. It was enough that Moses should set his claims upon a level with those which Pharaoh reverenced: the king was then bound to weigh their relative merits in other and wholly different scales. FOOTNOTES: [10] It is true that the word means any large reptile, as when "God created great whales "; but doubtless our English version is correct. It was certainly a serpent which he had recently fled from, and then taken by the tail (iv. 4). And unless we suppose the magicians to have wrought a genuine miracle, no other creature can be suggested, equally convenient for their sleight of hand. Exodus 7:14 And the LORD said unto Moses, Pharaoh's heart is hardened, he refuseth to let the people go. THE PLAGUES. Exodus 7:14 . There are many aspects in which the plagues of Egypt may be contemplated. We may think of them as ranging through all nature, and asserting the mastery of the Lord alike over the river on which depended the prosperity of the realm, over the minute pests which can make life more wretched than larger and more conspicuous ills (the frogs of the water, the reptiles that disgrace humanity, and the insects that infest the air), over the bodies of animals stricken with murrain, and those of man tortured with boils, over hail in the cloud and blight in the crop, over the breeze that bears the locust and the sun that grows dark at noon, and at last over the secret springs of human life itself. No pantheistic creed (and the Egyptian religion struck its roots deep into pantheistic speculation) could thus completely exalt God above nature, as a superior and controlling Power, not one with the mighty wheels of the universe, of which the height is terrible, but, as Ezekiel saw Him, enthroned above them in the likeness of fire, and yet in the likeness of humanity. No idolatrous creed, however powerful be its conception of one god of the hills and another of the valleys, could thus represent a single deity as wielding all the arrows of adverse fortune, able to assail us from earth and sky and water, formidable alike in the least things and in the greatest. And presently the demonstration is completed, when at His bidding the tempest heaps up the sea, and at His frown the waters return to their strength again. And no philosophic theory condescends to bring the Ideal, the Absolute, and the Unconditioned, into such close and intimate connection with the frog-spawn of the ditch and the blain upon the tortured skin. We may, with ample warrant from Scripture, make the controversial application still more simple and direct, and think of the plagues as wreaking vengeance, for the worship they had usurped and the cruelties they had sanctioned, upon all the gods of Egypt, which are conceived of for the moment as realities, and as humbled, if not in fact, yet in the sympathies of priest and worshipper ( Exodus 12:12 ). Then we shall see the domain of each impostor invaded, and every vaunted power to inflict evil or to remove it triumphantly wielded by Him Who proves His equal mastery over all, and thus we shall find here the justification of that still bolder personification which says, "Worship Him, all ye gods" ( Psalm 97:7 ). The Nile had a sacred name, and was adored as "Hapee, or Hapee Mu, the Abyss, or the Abyss of Waters, or the Hidden," and the king was frequently portrayed standing between two images of this god, his throne wreathed with water-lilies. The second plague struck at the goddess HEKT, whose head was that of a frog. The uncleanness of the third plague deranged the whole system of Egyptian worship, with its punctilious and elaborate purifications. In every one there is either a presiding divinity attacked, or a blow dealt upon the priesthood or the sacrifice, or a sphere invaded which some deity should have protected, until the sun himself is darkened, the great god RA, to whom their sacred city was dedicated, and whose name is incorporated in the title of his earthly representative, the Pharaoh or PH-RA. Then at last, after all these premonitions, the deadly blow struck home. Or we may think of the plagues as retributive, and then we shall discover a wonderful suitability in them all. It was a direful omen that the first should afflict the nation through the river, into which, eighty years before, the Hebrew babes had been cast to die, which now rolled bloody, and seemed to disclose its dead. It was fit that the luxurious homes of the oppressors should become squalid as the huts of the slaves they trampled; that their flesh should suffer torture worse than that of the whips they used so unmercifully; that the loss of crops and cattle should bring home to them the hardships of the poor who toiled for their magnificence; that physical darkness should appal them with vague terrors and undefined apprehensions, such as ever haunt the bosom of the oppressed, whose life is the sport of a caprice; and at last that the aged should learn by the deathbed of the prop and pride of their declining feebleness, and the younger feel beside the cradle of the first blossom and fruit of love, all the agony of such bereavement as they had wantonly inflicted on the innocent. And since the fear of disadvantage in war had prompted the murder of the Hebrew children, it was right that the retributive blow should destroy first their children and then their men of war. When we come to examine the plagues in detail, we discover that it is no arbitrary fancy which divides them into three triplets, leading up to the appalling tenth. Thus the first, fourth, and seventh, each of which begins a triplet, are introduced by a command to Moses to warn Pharaoh "in the morning" ( Exodus 7:15 ), or "early in the morning" ( Exodus 8:20 , Exodus 9:13 ). The third, sixth and ninth, on the contrary, are inflicted without any warning whatever. The story of the third plague closes with the defeat of the magicians, the sixth with their inability to stand before the king, and the ninth with the final rupture, when Moses declares, "Thou shalt see my face no more" ( Exodus 8:19 , Exodus 9:11 , Exodus 10:29 ). The first three are plagues of loathsomeness--blood-stained waters, frogs and lice; the next three bring actual pain and loss with them--stinging flies, murrain which afflicts the beasts, and boils upon all the Egyptians; and the third triplet are "nature-plagues"--hail, locusts and darkness. It is only after the first three plagues that the immunity of Israel is mentioned; and after the next three, when the hail is threatened, instructions are first given by which those Egyptians who fear Jehovah may also obtain protection. Thus, in orderly and solemn procession, marched the avengers of God upon the guilty land. It has been observed, concerning the miracles of Jesus, that not one of them was creative, and that, whenever it was possible, He wrought by the use of material naturally provided. The waterpots should be filled; the five barley-loaves should be sought out; the nets should be let down for a draught; and the blind man should have his eyes anointed, and go wash in the Pool of Siloam. And it is easily seen that such miracles were a more natural expression of His errand, which was to repair and purify the existing system of things, and to remove our moral disease and dearth, than any exercise of creative power would have been, however it might have dazzled the spectators. Now, the same remark applies to the miracles of Moses, to the coming of God in judgment, as to His revelation of Himself in grace; and therefore we need not be surprised to hear that natural phenomena are not unknown which offer a sort of dim hint or foreshadowing of the terrible ten plagues. Either cryptogamic vegetation or the earth borne down from upper Africa is still seen to redden the river, usually dark, but not so as to destroy the fish. Frogs and vermin and stinging insects are the pest of modern travellers. Cattle plagues make ravage there, and hideous diseases of the skin are still as common as when the Lord promised to reward the obedience of Israel to sanitary law by putting upon them none of "the evil diseases of Egypt" which they knew ( Deuteronomy 7:15 ).[11] The locust is still dreaded. But some of the other visitations were more direful because not only their intensity but even their existence was almost unprecedented: hail in Egypt was only not quite unknown; and such veiling of the sun as occurs for a few minutes during the storms of sand in the desert ought scarcely to be quoted as even a suggestion of the prolonged horror of the ninth plague. Now, this accords exactly with the moral effect which was to be produced. The rescued people were not to think of God as one who strikes down into nature from outside, with strange and unwonted powers, superseding utterly its familiar forces. They were to think of Him as the Author of all; and of the common troubles of mortality as being indeed the effects of sin, yet ever controlled and governed by Him, let loose at His will, and capable of mounting to unimagined heights if His restraints be removed from them. By the east wind He brought the locusts, and removed them by the south-west wind. By a storm He divided the sea. The common things of life are in His hands, often for tremendous results. And this is one of the chief lessons of the narrative for us. Let the mind range over the list of the nine which stop short of absolute destruction, and reflect upon the vital importance of immunities for which we are scarcely grateful. The purity of water is now felt to be among the foremost necessities of life. It is one which asks nothing from us except to refrain from polluting what comes from heaven so limpid. And yet we are half satisfied to go on habitually inflicting on ourselves a plague more foul and noxious than any occasional turning of our rivers into blood. The two plagues which dealt with minute forms of life may well remind us of the vast part which we are now aware that the smallest organisms play in the economy of life, as the agents of the Creator. Who gives thanks aright for the cheap blessing of the unstained light of heaven? But we are insensible to the every-day teaching of this narrative: we turn our rivers into fluid poison; we spread all around us deleterious influences, which breed by minute forms of parasitical life the germs of cruel disease; we load the atmosphere with fumes which slay our cattle with periodical distempers, and are deadlier to vegetation than the hail-storm or the locust; we charge it with carbon so dense that multitudes have forgotten that the sky is blue, and on our Metropolis comes down at frequent intervals the darkness of the ninth plague, and all the time we fail to see that God, Who enacts and enforces every law of nature, does really plague us whenever these outraged laws avenge themselves. The miraculous use of nature in special emergencies is such as to show the Hand which regularly wields its powers. At the same time there is no more excuse for the rationalism which would reduce the calamities of Egypt to a coincidence, than for explaining away the manna which fed a nation during its wanderings by the drug which is gathered, in scanty morsels, upon the acacia tree. The awful severity of the judgments, the series which they formed, their advent and removal at the menace and the prayer of Moses, are considerations which make such a theory absurd. The older scepticism, which supposed Moses to have taken advantage of some epidemic, to have learned in the wilderness the fords of the Red Sea,[12] to have discovered water, when the caravan was perishing of thirst, by his knowledge of the habits of wild beasts, and finally to have dazzled the nation at Horeb with some kind of fireworks, is itself almost a miracle in its violation of the laws of mind. The concurrence of countless favourable accidents and strange resources of leadership is like the chance arrangement of a printer's type to make a poem. There is a common notion that the ten plagues followed each other with breathless speed, and were completed within a few weeks. But nothing in the narrative asserts or even hints this, and what we do know is in the opposite direction. The seventh plague was wrought in February, for the barley was in the ear and the flax in blossom ( Exodus 9:31 ); and the feast of passover was kept on the fourteenth day of the month Abib, so that the destruction of the firstborn was in the middle of April, and there was an interval of about two months between the last four plagues. Now, the same interval throughout would bring back the first plague to September or October. But the natural discoloration of the river, mentioned above, is in the middle of the year, when the river begins to rise; and this, it may possibly be inferred, is the natural period at which to fix the first plague. They would then range over a period of about nine months. During the interval between them, the promises and treacheries of the king excited alternate hope and rage in Israel; the scribes of their own race (once the vassals of their tyrants, but already estranged by their own oppression) began to take rank as officers among the Jews, and to exhibit the rudimentary promise of national order and government; and the growing fears of their enemies fostered that triumphant sense of mastery, out of which national hope and pride are born. When the time came for their departure, it was possible to transmit orders throughout all their tribes, and they came out of Egypt by their armies, which would have been utterly impossible a few months before. It was with them, as it is with every man that breathes: the delay of God's grace was itself a grace; and the slowly ripening fruit grew mellower than if it had been forced into a speedier maturity. FOOTNOTES: [11] To this day, amid squalid surroundings for which nominal Christians are responsible, the immunity of the Jewish race from such suffering is conspicuous, and at least a remarkable coincidence. [12] But indeed this notion is not yet dead. "A high wind left the shallow sea so low that it became possible to ford it. Moses eagerly accepted the suggestion, and made the venture with success," etc.-- Wellhausen , "Israel," in Encyc. Brit. THE FIRST PLAGUE. Exodus 7:14-25 . It was perhaps when the Nile was rising, and Pharaoh was coming to the bank, in pomp of state, to make official observation of its progress, on which the welfare of the kingdom depended, and to do homage before its divinity, that the messenger of another Deity confronted him, with a formal declaration of war. It was a strange contrast. The wicked was in great prosperity, neither was he plagued like another man. Upon his head, if this were Menephtah, was the golden symbol of his own divinity. Around him was an obsequious court. And yet there was moving in his heart some unconfessed sense of awe, when confronted once more by the aged shepherd and his brother, who had claimed a commission from above, and had certainly met his challenge, and made a short end of the rival snakes of his own seers. Once he had asked "Who is Jehovah?" and had sent His ambassadors to their tasks again with insult. But now he needs to harden his heart, in order not to yield to their strange and persistent demands. He remembers how they had spoken to him already, "Thus saith the Lord, Israel is My son, My firstborn, and I have said unto thee, Let My son go that he may serve Me; and thou hast refused to let him go: behold, I will slay thy son, thy firstborn" ( Exodus 4:22 , R.V.). Did this awful warning come back to him, when the worn, solemn and inflexible face of Moses again met him? Did he divine the connection between this ultimate penalty and what is now announced--the turning of the pride and refreshment of Egypt into blood? Or was it partly because each plague, however dire, seemed to fall short of the tremendous threat, that he hoped to find the power of Moses more limited than his warnings? "Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil." And might he, at the last, be hardened to pursue the people because, by their own showing, the keenest arrow in their quiver was now sped? Whatever his feelings were, it is certain that the brothers come and go, and inflict their plagues unrestrained; that no insult or violence is attempted, and we can see the truth of the words "I have made thee as a god unto Pharaoh." It is in clear allusion to his vaunt, "I know not Jehovah," that Moses and Aaron now repeat the demand for release, and say, "Hitherto thou hast not hearkened: behold, in this thou shalt know that I am Jehovah." What follows, when attentively read, makes it plain that the blow falls upon "the waters that are in the river," and those that have been drawn from it into canals for artificial irrigation, into reservoirs like the lakes Moeris and Mareotis, and even into vessels for immediate use. But we are expressly told that it was possible to obta