Yahweh said to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants, that I may show these my signs among them; and that you may tell in the hearing of your son, and of your son’s son, what things I have done to Egypt, and my signs which I have done among them; that you may know that I am Yahweh.”
Moses and Aaron went in to Pharaoh, and said to him, “This is what Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews, says: ‘How long will you refuse to humble yourself before me? Let my people go, that they may serve me. Or else, if you refuse to let my people go, behold, tomorrow I will bring locusts into your country, and they shall cover the surface of the earth, so that one won’t be able to see the earth. They shall eat the residue of that which has escaped, which remains to you from the hail, and shall eat every tree which grows for you out of the field. Your houses shall be filled, and the houses of all your servants, and the houses of all the Egyptians, as neither your fathers nor your fathers’ fathers have seen, since the day that they were on the earth to this day.’ ” He turned, and went out from Pharaoh.
Pharaoh’s servants said to him, “How long will this man be a snare to us? Let the men go, that they may serve Yahweh, their God. Don’t you yet know that Egypt is destroyed?”
Moses and Aaron were brought again to Pharaoh, and he said to them, “Go, serve Yahweh your God; but who are those who will go?”
Moses said, “We will go with our young and with our old. We will go with our sons and with our daughters, with our flocks and with our herds; for we must hold a feast to Yahweh.”
He said to them, “Yahweh be with you if I let you go with your little ones! See, evil is clearly before your faces. Not so! Go now you who are men, and serve Yahweh; for that is what you desire!” Then they were driven out from Pharaoh’s presence.
Yahweh said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the land of Egypt for the locusts, that they may come up on the land of Egypt, and eat every herb of the land, even all that the hail has left.” Moses stretched out his rod over the land of Egypt, and Yahweh brought an east wind on the land all that day, and all night; and when it was morning, the east wind brought the locusts. The locusts went up over all the land of Egypt, and rested in all the borders of Egypt. They were very grievous. Before them there were no such locusts as they, nor will there ever be again. For they covered the surface of the whole earth, so that the land was darkened, and they ate every herb of the land, and all the fruit of the trees which the hail had left. There remained nothing green, either tree or herb of the field, through all the land of Egypt. Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron in haste, and he said, “I have sinned against Yahweh your God, and against you. Now therefore please forgive my sin again, and pray to Yahweh your God, that he may also take away from me this death.”
Moses went out from Pharaoh, and prayed to Yahweh. Yahweh sent an exceedingly strong west wind, which took up the locusts, and drove them into the Red Sea. There remained not one locust in all the borders of Egypt.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 10, 13, 14, 16, 19 Or, in his presence, or among them.
Or, in his presence, or among them.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–19 Exo 10:1 And the LORD said unto Moses, Go…
Exo 10:1 And the LORD said unto Moses, Go in unto Pharaoh: for I have hardened his heart, and the heart of his servants, that I might shew these my signs before him:
Ver. 1. For I have hardened his heart.] As he that brings in a light blinds an owl; or as he that pours on water kindles the lime whereupon it is poured: so the Lord by publishing his commands, and by doing his miracles, hardened the heart of Pharaoh; who, for his wilful rebellion, was justly forsaken of God, and delivered up to his own heart which is somewhat worse than to be delivered up to the devil.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19 The residue; the wheat and the rye, the staff…
The residue; the wheat and the rye, the staff of their lives. Every tree; the fruits and leaves of every tree.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv1, 12 Here, I. Moses is instructed. We may well suppose…
Here, I. Moses is instructed. We may well suppose that he, for his part, was much astonished both at Pharaoh's obstinacy and at God's severity, and could not but be compassionately concerned for the desolations of Egypt, and at a loss to conceive what this contest would come to at last. Now here God tells him what he designed, not only Israel's release, but the magnifying of his own name: That thou mayest tell in thy writings, which shall continue to the world's end, what I have wrought in Egypt, Exo 10:1, Exo 10:2. The ten plagues of Egypt must be inflicted, that they may be recorded for the generations to come as undeniable proofs, 1. Of God's overruling power in the kingdom of nature, his dominion over all the creatures, and his authority to use them either as servants to his justice or sufferers by it, according to the counsel of his will. 2. Of God's victorious power over the kingdom of Satan, to restrain the malice and chastise the insolence of his and his church's enemies. These plagues are standing monuments of the greatness of God, the happiness of the church, and the sinfulness of sin, and standing monitors to the children of men in all ages not to provoke the Lord to jealousy nor to strive with their Maker. The benefit of these instructions to the world sufficiently balances the expense.
II. Pharaoh is reproved (Exo 10:3): Thus saith the Lord God of the poor, despised, persecuted, Hebrews, How long wilt thou refuse to humble thyself before me? Note, It is justly expected from the greatest of men that they humble themselves before the great God, and it is at their peril if they refuse to do it. This has more than once been God's quarrel with princes. Belshazzar did not humble his heart, Dan 5:22. Zedekiah humbled not himself before Jeremiah, Ch2 36:12. Those that will not humble themselves God will humble. Pharaoh had sometimes pretended to humble himself, but no account was made of it, because he was neither sincere nor constant in it.
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III. The plague of locusts is threatened, Exo 10:4-6. The hail had broken down the fruits of the earth, but these locusts should come and devour them: and not only so, but they should fill their houses, whereas the former inroads of these insects had been confined to their lands. This should be much worse than all the calamities of that king which had ever been known. Moses, when he had delivered his message, not expecting any better answer than he had formerly, turned himself and went out from Pharaoh, Exo 10:6. Thus Christ appointed his disciples to depart from those who would not receive them, and to shake off the dust of their feet for a testimony against them; and ruin is not far off from those who are thus justly abandoned by the Lord's messengers, Sa1 15:27, etc.
IV. Pharaoh's attendants, his ministers of state, or privy-counsellors, interpose, to persuade him to come to some terms with Moses, Exo 10:7. They, as in duty bound, represent to him the deplorable condition of the kingdom (Egypt is destroyed), and advise him by all means to release his prisoners (Let the men go); for Moses, they found, would be a snare to them till it was done, and it were better to consent at first than to be compelled at last. The Israelites had become a burdensome stone to the Egyptians, and now, at length, the princes of Egypt were willing to be rid of them, Zac 12:3. Note, It is a thing to be regretted (and prevented, if possible) that a whole nation should be ruined for the pride and obstinacy of its princes, Salus populi suprema lex - To consult the welfare of the people is the first of laws.
V. A new treaty is, hereupon, set on foot between Pharaoh and Moses, in which Pharaoh consents for the Israelites to go into the wilderness to do sacrifice; but the matter in dispute was who should go, Exo 10:8. 1. Moses insists that they should take their whole families, and all their effects, along with them, Exo 10:9. note, Those that serve God must serve him with all they have. Moses pleads, "We must hold a feast, therefore we must have our families to feast with, and our flocks and herds to feast upon, to the honour of God." 2. Pharaoh will by no means grant this: he will allow the men to go, pretending that this was all they desired, though this matter was never yet mentioned in any of the former treaties; but, for the little ones, he resolves to keep them as hostages, to oblige them to return, Exo 10:10, Exo 10:11. In a great passion he curses them, and threatens that, if they offer to remove their little ones, they will do it at their peril. Note, Satan does all he can to hinder those that serve God themselves from bringing their children in to serve him. He is a sworn enemy to early piety, knowing how destructive it is to the interests of his kingdom; whatever would hinder us from engaging our children to the utmost in God's service, we have reason to suspect the hand of Satan in it. 3. The treaty, hereupon, breaks off abruptly; those that before went out from Pharaoh's presence (Exo 10:6) were now driven out. Those will quickly hear their doom that cannot bear to hear their duty. See Ch2 25:16. Quos Deus destruet eos dementat - Whom God intends to destroy he delivers up to infatuation. Never was man so infatuated to his own ruin as Pharaoh was.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–19 And the Lord said unto Moses, go in unto…
And the Lord said unto Moses, go in unto Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart,.... Or, as some render it, "though I have hardened his heart" (u); or otherwise it would seem rather to be a reason he should not go, than why he should; at least it would be discouraging, and he might object to what purpose should he go, it would be in vain, no end would be answered by it; though there was an end God had in view, and which was answered by hardening his heart:
and the heart of his servants; whose hearts also were hardened until now; until the plague of the locusts was threatened, and then they relent; which end was as follows:
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that I might shew these my signs before him; which had been shown already, and others that were to be done, see Exo 7:3 or in the midst of him (w), in the midst of his land, or in his heart, see Exo 9:14.
(u) "quamvis", Piscator; so Ainsworth. (w) "in medio ejus", Pagninus, Drusius; "in interioribus ejus", Montanus.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 10, 13, 15, 17, 19 The eighth and ninth plagues are recorded in this…
The eighth and ninth plagues are recorded in this chapter.
I. Concerning the plague of locusts, (1.) God instructs Moses in the meaning of these amazing dispensations of his providence, ver. 1, 2. (2.) He threatens the locusts, ver. 3-6. (3.) Pharaoh, at the persuasion of his servants, is willing to treat again with Moses, ver. 7, 8, 9. but they cannot agree, ver. 10, 11, (4.) The locusts come, ver. 12-15. (5.) Pharaoh cries for mercy, ver. 16, 17. whereupon Moses prays for the removal of the plague, and it is done, but Pharaoh's heart is still hardened, ver. 18-20.
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II. Concerning the plague of darkness, (1.) 'Tis inflicted, ver. 21-23. (2.) Pharaoh again treats with Moses, but the treaty breaks off, ver. 24-29.
These plagues are standing monuments of the greatness of God, the happiness of the church, and the sinfulness of sin; and standing monitors to the children of men in all ages, not to provoke the Lord to jealousy, nor to strive with their Maker. The benefit of these instructions to the world doth sufficiently balance the expence.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 13, 14, 15, 17, 19 Moses is again sent to Pharaoh, and expostulates with…
CHAPTER X
Moses is again sent to Pharaoh, and expostulates with him on
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his refusal to let the Hebrews go, 1-3.
The eighth plague, viz., of locusts, is threatened, 4.
The extent and oppressive nature of this plague, 5, 6.
Pharaoh's servants counsel him to dismiss the Hebrews, 7.
He calls for Moses and Aaron, and inquires who they are of
the Hebrews who wish to go, 8.
Moses having answered that the whole people, with their flocks
and herds must go and hold a feast to the Lord, 9,
Pharaoh is enraged, and having granted permission only to the
men, drives Moses and Aaron from his presence, 10, 11.
Moses is commanded to stretch out his hand and bring the
locusts, 12.
He does so, and an east wind is sent, which, blowing all that
day and night, brings the locusts the next morning, 13.
The devastation occasioned by these insects, 14, 15.
Pharaoh is humbled, acknowledges his sin, and begs Moses to
intercede with Jehovah for him, 16, 17.
Moses does so, and at his request a strong west wind is sent,
which carries all the locusts to the Red Sea, 18, 19.
Pharaoh's heart is again hardened, 20.
Moses is commanded to bring the ninth plague of extraordinary
darkness over all the land of Egypt, 21.
The nature, duration, and effects of this, 22, 23.
Pharaoh, again humbled, consents to let the people go, provided
they leave their cattle behind, 24.
Moses insists on having all their cattle, because of the
sacrifices which they must make to the Lord, 25, 26.
Pharaoh, again hardened, refuses, 27.
Orders Moses from his presence, and threatens him with death
should he ever return, 28.
Moses departs with the promise of returning no more, 29.
NOTES ON CHAP. X
Verse 1. Hardened his heart] God suffered his natural obstinacy to prevail, that he might have farther opportunities of showing forth his eternal power and Godhead.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 13, 15, 17, 19 Exo 10:1. Go unto Pharaoh: for I have hardened…
Exo 10:1. Go unto Pharaoh: for I have hardened his heart — That is, either, 1st, Go and make a new address unto him, for what I have yet done has but hardened his heart: or, 2d, כי, here translated for, must, as is often the case, be rendered although; go and speak to him again, although I have suffered his heart to be hardened, and to continue obdurate, that I might more fully display my power and providence, not only to Egypt and the adjacent countries, but to generations yet unborn, and especially to the posterity of my people Israel; that thou mayest tell (Exo 10:2) in the ears of thy son, and thy son’s son, what things I have wrought. These plagues are standing monuments of the greatness of God, the happiness of the church, and the sinfulness of sin; and standing monitors to the children of men in all ages, not to provoke the Lord to jealousy, nor to strive with their Maker. The benefit of these instructions to the world doth sufficiently balance the expense.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 13, 14, 17, 19 The locusts - The locust is less common in…
The locusts - The locust is less common in Egypt than in many eastern countries, yet it is well known, and dreaded as the most terrible of scourges. They come generally from the western deserts, but sometimes from the east and the southeast. No less than nine names are given to the locust in the Bible, of which the word used here is the most common (ארבה 'arbeh); it signifies “multitudinous,” and whenever it occurs reference is made to its terrible devastations.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1, 7, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 17, 18, 19 Servants. They took occasion, from God’s withdrawing his chastisements,…
Servants. They took occasion, from God’s withdrawing his chastisements, to become more obdurate. (St. Augustine, q. 30, and 36.)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 H.—The locusts
H.—The locusts
Exo_10:1-20
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1And Jehovah said unto Moses, Go in unto Pharaoh; for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants, that I might shew [may do] these my signs before him [in the midst of them]; 2And that thou mayest tell in the ears of thy son and of thy son’s son, what things I have wrought in Egypt [what I have done with the Egyptians]1, and my signs which I have done among them; that ye may know how [may know] that I am Jehovah. 3And Moses and Aaron came [went] in unto Pharaoh, and said unto him, Thus saith. Jehovah, God [the God] of the Hebrews, How long wilt thou refuse to humble thyself before me? let my people 4go, that they may serve me. Else [For] if thou refuse to let my people go, behold, to-morrow will I bring the [bring] locusts into thy coast [borders]: 5And they shall cover the face of the earth, that [so that] one cannot [shall not] be able to see the earth: and they shall eat the residue of that which is escaped, which remaineth [is left] unto you from the hail, and shall eat every tree which groweth for you out of the field; 6And they shall fill thy houses, and the houses of all thy servants, and the houses of all the Egyptians, which [as] neither thy fathers, nor thy fathers’ fathers have seen, since the day that they were upon the earth unto this day. And he turned himself [turned], and went out from Pharaoh. 7And Pharaoh’s servants said unto him; How long shall this man be a snare unto us? Let the men go, that they may serve Jehovah their God: knowest thou not yet that Egypt is destroyed? 8And Moses and Aaron were brought again [back] unto Pharaoh: and he said unto them, Go, serve Jehovah, your God: but who are they that shall go [are going]? 9And Moses said, We will go with our young and with our old; with our sons and with our daughters, with our flocks and with our herds will we go; for we must hold [wehave] a feast unto [of] Jehovah. 10And he said unto them, Let [May] Jehovah be so with you, as I will let you go and your little ones! Look to it [See]; for evil is before you. 11Not so: go now, ye that are men [ye men], and serve Jehovah; for that ye did desire [that is what ye are seeking]. And they were driven out from Pharaoh’s 12presence. And Jehovah said unto Moses, Stretch out thine [thy] hand over the land of Egypt for the locusts, that they may come up upon the land of Egypt, and eat every herb of the land, even all that the hail hath left. 13And Moses stretched forth his rod over the land of Egypt, and Jehovah brought [drove] an east wind upon the land all that day and all that [the] night: and when it was morning the east wind brought the locusts. 14And the locusts went [came] up over [upon] all the land of Egypt, and rested in all the coasts [borders] of Egypt; very grievous were they: before them there were no such locusts as they, neither after 15them shall be such. For [And] they covered the face of the whole earth [land], so that [and] the land was darkened; and they did eat every herb of the land, and all the fruit of the trees which the hail had left: and there remained not any green thing in the trees, or in the herbs of the field, through [in] all the land of Egypt. 16Then [And] Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron in haste; and he said, I have 17sinned against Jehovah your God, and against you. Now therefore [And now] forgive, I pray thee, my sin only this once, and entreat Jehovah your God that he may take away from me this death only. 18And he went out from Pharaoh, and 19entreated Jehovah. And Jehovah turned a mighty [very] strong west wind, which [and] took away the locusts, and cast [thrust] them into the Red Sea: there remained 20not one locust in all the coasts [borders] of Egypt. But Jehovah hardened Pharaoh’s heart, so that he would not [and he did not] let the children of Israel go.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
[Exo_10:2. That מִצְרַיִם here means “Egyptians,” and not “Egypt,” is evident from the plural pronoun which follows. And the whole phrase הִתְעַלַּלְתִּי בְּמִצְרַיִם is poorly reproduced in the A. V. This verb in the Hithpael is always followed by בְ with the name of a person. The meaning of it is, “to do one’s pleasure with.” Except here, and 1Sa_6:6, the phrase is used in a bad sense, e.g., 1Sa_31:4, “lost these uncircumcised come and thrust me through, and abuse me.” Comp. Jdg_19:25. Here, therefore, the meaning is, “how I did my pleasure with the Egyptians.”—Tr.].
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Exo_10:1. I have hardened his heart.—According to shallow rationalistic views, this betrays a low state of intelligence; viewed from the ethical relations of life, it indicates a very high one. Pharaoh’s acts of self-hardening preceded this; but after the seventh one, his sentence was determined; the following plagues, therefore, must complete his obduracy. Moses must know this beforehand, in order that he may not be discouraged respecting his mission. But that, under divine revelation, he can foreknow it, is characteristic of the man who, being eminent in religious conscientiousness, has a wonderfully profound insight into the justice and judgments of God. The general prediction of Exo_7:3-5 is now for the first time completely fulfilled; hence it is here repeated.
Exo_10:2. That thou mayest tell.—“How Israel related these miraculous signs to children and children’s children, is shown in Psalms 78, 105 (Keil).
Exo_10:3. To humble thyself.—Jehovah speaks now in a severer tone. After so many apparent failures, this is a proof that Moses has his confidence and his word from God. Analogous is the heathen legend of the Sibyl who, for the prophetical books twice reduced in number, kept asking the same price.
Exo_10:4. The antithesis is sharp. Similar forms in Exo_9:17 and Exo_8:17 [21]. It is not merely the antithesis between a divine and a human action; the almighty personality of Jehovah confronts the defiant personality of Pharaoh. The assurance with which the locusts are predicted for the morrow marks the miracle, as also afterwards the sudden removal of them at Moses’ intercession.
Exo_10:5. The face [lit. eye] of the land.—“This phraseology, peculiar to the Pentateuch, and occurring elsewhere only Exo_10:15 and Num_22:5; Num_22:11, rests on the ancient and genuinely poetic conception, that the earth with its floral ornamentation looks upon man” (Keil).
Exo_10:6. Fill thy houses.—Vid. Joe_2:9. On locusts finding their way into houses, vid. the quotations in Keil.
Exo_10:7. Pharaoh’s servants.—The courtiers begin to tremble. But they are governed by no noble motive to intercede for Israel, but by the fear that by resistance Egypt may go to ruin.—A snare.—In whose fatal toils they are becoming entangled to their destruction.
Exo_10:8. For the first time Pharaoh enters upon negotiations before the plague; yet without consistency.—Who are they? (lit. who and who) מִי וָמִי. Immediately the timorous policy of the tyrant withdraws more than half of the concession.
Exo_10:9. To make a festival are needed not only the whole assembly, old and young, but also the cattle and possessions in general, on account of the offerings. Pharaoh suspects that freedom also is involved in the plan. According to Keil, the women, who are seemingly omitted, are designed to be included in the “we.” They are also included in the phrase “young and old.”
Exo_10:10. The thought, “Jehovah be with you on your journey,” is transformed by Pharaoh into mockery: As little as I will let you go with your children, so little shall ye go on your journey, so little shall Jehovah be with you. Inasmuch as he has been obliged to refer the preceding experiences to Jehovah, his audacity here passes over into blasphemy.
Exo_10:11. Go now, ye men.—הַגְּבָרִים. The expression forms an antithesis to the הָאֲנָשִׁים, in the use of which the servants proposed the release of the Israelites in general. But that he is not even willing to let only the men go is shown by the fact that the messengers of God were at once driven out. The expression “ye men,” “ye heroes,” may involve a scornful allusion to the power with which they have risen up against him. Also in the form לְכוּ נָא the irony (according to Keil) is continued.—They were driven out.—As we should say, they were turned out of doors. “The restriction of the right of departure to the men was pure caprice, inasmuch as according to Herodotus II. 60 the Egyptians also had religious festivals in which the women were accustomed to go out with the men” (Keil).
Exo_10:12. Stretch out thy hand.—According to Exo_10:13, with the rod in it. Was it in order that they might rise up like a hostile military force? More probably the idea is that they are to rise up in the distance like clouds carried by the wind. With the wind, brought by it, locusts are wont to come. Vid. the citations in Keil.
Exo_10:13. And Jehovah drove.—Jehovah Himself is the real performer of miracles. When He seems in His government to follow Moses’ suggestion, while, on the other hand, the action of Moses is only a symbolical one resting on prophetic foresight, this all signifies that God’s dominion in nature answers to God’s dominion in His kingdom, therefore, also, in the mind of Moses. It is a pre-established harmony, in which the outward things of nature are made serviceable to the inward necessities of the spiritual life. Vid. Mat_28:18.—An east wind,רוּחַ־קָדִים. “Not νότος (LXX.), south wind, as even Bochart (Hierozoicon III., p. 287) thought. For although the swarms of locusts come to Egypt generally from Ethiopia or Libya, yet they are sometimes brought by the east wind from Arabia, as has been observed, among others, by Denon, quoted by Hengstenberg, Egypt, etc., p. 125” (Keil).
Exo_10:13-15. Further miraculous features: (a) that the locusts come from so far (the wind blew twenty-four hours); (b) that they cover the whole land, whereas they generally attack only particular regions. Among the various forms of the preludes of the final judgment, (blood, fire, war, pestilence, darkness), the plagues of locusts are also especially prominent. According to Joel, the fundamental significance of them is the incessant destruction of the flesh on all sides.2
Exo_10:16-17. And Pharaoh called in haste.—This is his second confession of sin, more distinct than the first, Exo_9:27. For the third time he implores Moses’ intercession; Exo_8:24 (28), Exo_9:28, and here. His penitence, however, again exhibits the character of an insincere submission, attritio; he begs Moses’ forgiveness, but wishes him to intercede with God to avert this death, this deadly ruin, which he sees in the plague of locusts. He condemns himself, however, for what follows, inasmuch as he asks for exemption only this once.
Exo_10:18. Moses’ intercession has a twofold significance: It is, first, an expression of divine forbearance; secondly, the attestation of the miracle displayed in the plague of locusts.
Exo_10:19. The east wind is changed to a west wind, or, more probably, to a northwest wind. “That the locusts perish in the sea is variously attested. Gregatim sublatæ vento in maria aut stagna decidunt, says Pliny” (Keil). For Pharaoh the help may have been ominous, as he himself afterwards with his host was to perish, like the locusts, in the Red Sea.
Footnotes:
[1][Exo_10:2. That מִצְרַיִם here means “Egyptians,” and not “Egypt,” is evident from the plural pronoun which follows. And the whole phrase הִתְעַלַּלְתִּי בְּמִצְרַיִם is poorly reproduced in the A. V. This verb in the Hithpael is always followed by בְ with the name of a person. The meaning of it is, “to do one’s pleasure with.” Except here, and 1Sa_6:6, the phrase is used in a bad sense, e.g., 1Sa_31:4, “lost these uncircumcised come and thrust me through, and abuse me.” Comp. Jdg_19:25. Here, therefore, the meaning is, “how I did my pleasure with the Egyptians.”—Tr.].
[2][This is obscure. It is true that the invasion of the locusts is described by Joel as the precursor of “the day of Jehovah” (Exo_1:15; Exo_2:1); but where or in what sense he represents them as destroying the flesh, it is impossible to see. Certainly if the literal language of Joel is referred to, there is nothing of the sort. And no more is there any indication that Joel means to intimate that locusts symbolize the destruction of the flesh. Lange moreover leaves us in doubt whether he uses the word “flesh” in the literal or figurative sense.—Tr.].
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2, 4, 7, 11, 13 And that thou mayest tell . . . of…
And that thou mayest tell . . . of thy son, and of thy son's son, &c.--There was a further and higher reason for the infliction of those awful judgments, namely, that the knowledge of them there, and the permanent record of them still, might furnish a salutary and impressive lesson to the Church down to the latest ages. Worldly historians might have described them as extraordinary occurrences that marked this era of Moses in ancient Egypt. But we are taught to trace them to their cause: the judgments of divine wrath on a grossly idolatrous king and nation.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 7, 9, 10, 12, 13, 15, 16, 19 THE EIGHTH PLAGUE — LOCUSTS, Exo_10:1-20.
THE EIGHTH PLAGUE — LOCUSTS, Exo_10:1-20.
1. I have hardened his heart — See on Exo_9:12-13.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 1a. Go in unto Pharaoh] as before in J:…
1a. Go in unto Pharaoh] as before in J: Exo_8:1, Exo_9:1.
1b, 2. Explanation to Moses of the reason of the command. In previous cases the command to go in to the Pharaoh is followed at once by the words, and say unto him, and the demand for the release of the people (Exo_8:1; Exo_8:20, Exo_9:1; Exo_9:13); and it is possible that Di. and others are right in regarding vv. 1b, 2 as a didactic addition (similar to Exo_9:14-16) made by the compiler of JE, who at the same time substituted at the beginning of v. 3 ‘And Moses and Aaron went in unto Pharaoh, and said unto him’ for an original ‘and say unto him’ (the direct sequel to v. 1a ‘Go in unto Pharaoh’). It may be noticed that in v. 6 ‘And he (i.e. Moses) turned,’ at the end of the interview with Pharaoh, rather suggests that,—in accordance with the command in v. 1, but against v. 3 as it at present stands,—originally Moses alone ‘went in’ to Pharaoh.
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1b. for I (emph.) have hardened] Heb. made heavy, the term used by J (see on Exo_7:13).
shew] Heb. put: cf. the synonym, sâm, ‘set,’ in v. 2.
signs] cf. v. 2, Exo_7:3 (P), Exo_8:23 (J), Num_14:11; Num_14:22 (JE), and often in Dt. (Deu_4:34, Deu_6:22 al.); see p. 59. The thought, as Exo_9:16.
of them] Heb. of it, i.e. of the people of Egypt (Exo_3:20), which, however, has not been previously mentioned. ‘Them’ is right (so LXX. Pesh. Onk.); but it implies a change of text (בקרבם for בקרבו).
1–20. The eighth plague. The locusts. From J, with short passages from E.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19 (1) I have hardened . . . the heart…
(1) I have hardened . . . the heart of his servants.—They, too, had first hardened their own hearts (Exo_9:34), and so deserved a penal hardening. A certain amount of responsibility rested on them. Had they allowed the miracles to have their full natural effect upon their minds, they would have been convinced that resistance was useless, and would have impressed their views upon the Pharaoh. Even in the most absolute governments public opinion has weight, and the general sentiment of the Court almost always carries the sovereign with it.
That I might shew these my signs.—There is nothing derogatory to the Divine Nature in a penal hardening being, as it were, utilised to increase the glory of God, and affect for good future generations of His people. The accumulation of plague upon plague, which the obduracy of Pharaoh and his subjects brought about, was of vast importance in presenting to Israel, and even to the surrounding nations, a manifestation of the tremendous power of God, calculated to impress them as nothing else would have done.
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X.
THE EIGHTH PLAGUE.
(1-4) The eighth plague, like the third and fourth, was one where insect life was called in to serve God’s purposes, and chastise the presumption of His enemies. The nature of the visitation is uncontested and incontestable—it was a terrible invasion of locusts. Locusts are an occasional, though not a frequent, scourge in Egypt. They are not bred there, and necessarily arrive from some foreign country. When they descend, their ravages are as severe as elsewhere. “In the present day,” says Mr. Stuart Poole, “locusts suddenly appear in the cultivated land, coming from the desert in a column of great length. They fly across the country, darkening the air with their compact ranks, which are undisturbed by the constant attacks of kites, crows, and vultures, and making a strange whizzing sound, like that of fire, or many distant wheels. Where they alight they devour every green thing, even stripping the trees of their leaves. Rewards are offered for their destruction; but no labour can seriously reduce their numbers” (Dict. of the Bible, vol. ii., p. 887). C. Niebuhr witnessed two invasions—in 1761 and 1762; Denon witnessed another about the year 1800; and Tischendorf saw one recently. They always enter Egypt either from the south or from the east, and necessarily come with a wind, since they cannot possibly fly any considerable distance without one. It is probable that at different times different varieties of the locust visit the country; but all varieties are almost equally destructive. After the loss of their cattle by murrain and hail, and the ruin of the flax and barley crops by the latter agency, nothing was wanting to complete the desolation of the country and the impoverishment of its inhabitants but the ruin of the wheat and doora crops, which the locusts speedily effected.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. H. Mackintosh 1880 · Public Domain On v1 Exodus 7 - 11
Exodus 7 - 11
These five chapters form one distinct section, the contents of which may be distributed into the three following divisions, namely, the ten judgements from the hand of Jehovah; the resistance of "Jannes and Jambres;" and the four objections of Pharaoh.
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The whole land of Egypt was made to tremble beneath the successive strokes of the rod of God. All from the monarch on his throne to the menial at the mill, were made to feel the terrible weight of that rod. "He sent Moses his servant, and Aaron whom he had chosen. They showed his signs among them, and wonders in the land of Ham. He sent darkness and made it dark; and they rebelled not against his word. He turned their waters into blood, and slew their fish. !heir land brought forth frogs in abundance, in the chambers of their kings. He spake, and there came divers sorts of flies and lice in all their coasts. He gave them hail for rain, and flaming fire in their land. He smote their vines: also, and their fig-trees; and brake the trees of their coasts. He spake, and their locusts came, and the caterpillars, and that without number, and did eat up all the herbs in their land, and devoured the fruit of their ground. He smote also all the firstborn in their land, the chief of all their strength. (Ps. 105: 26-36)
Here the inspired Psalmist has given a condensed view of those appalling afflictions which the hardness of Pharaoh’s heart brought upon his land and upon his people. This haughty monarch had set himself to resist the sovereign will and course of the Most High God; and, as a just consequence, he was given over to judicial blindness and hardness of heart. "And the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he hearkened not unto them, as the Lord had spoken unto Moses. And the Lord said unto Moses, Rise up early in the morning, and stand before Pharaoh: and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord God of the Hebrews, Let my people go, that they may serve me. For I will at this time send all my plagues upon thine heart, and upon thy servants, and upon thy people; that thou mayest know that there is none like me in all the earth. For now I will stretch out my hand that I may smite thee and thy people with pestilence; and thou shalt be cut off from the earth. And in very deed for this cause have I raised thee up, for to show in thee my power; and that my name. may be declared throughout all the earth." (Ex. 9: 12-16)
In contemplating Pharaoh and his actings, the mind is carried forward to the stirring scenes of the Book of Revelation, in which we find the last proud oppressor of the people of God bringing down upon his kingdom and upon himself the seven vials of the wrath of the Almighty. It is God’s purpose that Israel shall be pre-eminent in the earth; and, therefore, every one who presumes to stand in the way of that pre-eminence must be set aside. Divine grace must find its object; and every one who would act as a barrier in the way of that grace must be taken out of the way. Whether it be Egypt, Babylon, or "the beast that was, is not, and shall be present," it matters not. Divine power will clear the channel for divine grace to flow, and eternal woe be to all who stand in the way. They shall taste, throughout the everlasting course of ages, the bitter fruit of having exalted themselves against "the Lord God of the Hebrews." He has said to His people, "no weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper," and His infallible faithfulness will assuredly make good what His infinite grace hath promised.
Thus, in Pharaoh’s case, when he persisted in holding, with an iron grasp, the Israel of God, the vials of divine wrath were poured forth upon him; and the land of Egypt was covered, throughout its entire length and breadth, with darkness, disease, and desolation. So will it be, by and by, when the last great oppressor shall emerge from the bottomless pit, armed with Satanic power, to crush beneath his "foot of pride" the favoured objects of Jehovah’s choice. His throne shall be overturned, his kingdom devastated by the seven last plagues, and, finally, he himself plunged, not in the Red Sea, but "in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone." (Comp. Rev. 17: 8; Rev. 20: 10)
Not one jot or one tittle of what God has promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, shall fail. He will accomplish all. Notwithstanding all that has been said and done to the contrary, God remembers His promises, and He will fulfil them. They are all "yea and amen in Christ Jesus." Dynasties have risen and acted on the stage of this world; thrones have been erected on the apparent ruins of Jerusalem’s ancient glory; empires have flourished for a time, and then fallen to decay; ambitious potentates have contended for the possession of "the land of promise" - all these things have taken place; but Jehovah has said concerning Palestine," the land shall not be sold for ever: for the land is mine." (Lev. 25: 23) No one, therefore, shall ever finally possess that land but Jehovah Himself, and He will inherit it through the seed of Abraham. One plain passage of scripture is quite sufficient to establish the mind in reference to this or any other subject. The land of Canaan is for the seed of Abraham, and the seed of Abraham for the land of Canaan; nor can any power of earth or hell ever reverse this divine order. The eternal God has pledged His word, and the blood of the everlasting covenant has flowed to ratify that word. Who, then, shall make it void? "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but that word shall never pass away." Truly, "there is none like unto the God of Jeshurun, who rideth upon the heaven in thy help, and in his excellency on the sky. The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms, and he shall thrust out the enemy from before thee; and shall say, Destroy them. Israel then shall dwell in safety alone: the fountain of Jacob shall be upon a land of corn and wine; also his heavens shall drop down dew. Happy art thou, O Israel: who is like unto thee, O people saved by the Lord, the shield of thy help, and who is the sword of thy excellency! and thine enemies shall be found liars unto thee; and thou shalt tread upon their high places." (Deut. 33: 46-29)
We shall now consider, in the second place, the opposition of "Jannes and Jambres," the magicians of Egypt. We should not have known the names of these ancient opposers of the truth of God, had they not been recorded by the Holy Ghost, in connection with "the perilous times" of which the Apostle Paul warns his son Timothy. It is important that the Christian reader should clearly understand the real nature of the opposition given to Moses by those magicians, and in order that he may have the subject fully before him, I shall quote the entire passage from St. Paul’s Epistle to Timothy. It is one of deep and awful solemnity.
"This know, also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. for men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce-breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high minded, lovers of pleasures rather than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts, ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith. But they shall proceed no further: for their folly shall be manifest unto all, as theirs also was." (2 Tim. 3: 1-9)
Now, it is peculiarly solemn to mark the nature of this resistance to the truth. The mode in which "Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses" was simply by imitating, so far as they were able, whatever he did. We do not find that they attributed his actings to a false or evil energy, but rather that they sought to neutralise their power upon the conscience, by doing the same things. What Moses did they could do, so that, after all there was no great difference. One was as good as the other. A miracle is a miracle. If Moses wrought miracles to get the people out of Egypt, they could work miracles to keep them in; so where was the difference?
From all this we learn the solemn truth that the most Satanic resistance to God’s testimony, in the world, is offered by those who, though they imitate the effects of the truth, have but "the form of godliness," and "deny the power thereof." Persons of this class can do the same things, adopt the same habits and forms, use the same phraseology, profess the same opinions as others. If the true Christian, constrained by the love of Christ, feeds the hungry, clothes the naked, visits the sick, circulates the scriptures, distributes tracts, supports the gospel, engages in prayer, sings praise, preaches the gospel, the formalist can do every one of these things; and this, be it observed, is the special character of the resistance offered to the truth " in the last days’’ - this is the spirit of " Jannes and Jambres." How needful to understand this! How important to remember that, "as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do" those self-loving, world-seeking, pleasure-hunting professors, "resist the truth!" They would not be without "a form of godliness;" but, while adopting "the form," because it is customary, they hate "the power," because it involves self-denial. "The power" of godliness involves the recognition of God’s claims, the implanting of His kingdom in the heart, and the consequent exhibition thereof in the whole life and character; but the formalist knows nothing of this. "The power" of godliness could never comport with any one of those hideous features set forth in the foregoing quotation; but" the form," while it covers them over, leaves them wholly unsubdued; and this the formalist likes. He does not want his lusts subdued, his pleasures interfered with, his passions curbed, his affections governed, his heart purified. He wants just as much religion as will enable him "to make the best of both worlds." He knows nothing of giving up the world that is, because of having; found "the world to come."
In marking the forms of Satan’s opposition to the truth of God, we find that his method has ever been, first, to oppose it by open violence; and then, if that did not succeed, to corrupt it by producing a counterfeit. Hence, he first sought to slay Moses, (Ex. 2: 15), and having failed to accomplish his purpose, he sought to imitate his works.
Thus, too, has it been in reference to the truth committed to the Church of God. Satan’s early efforts showed themselves in connection with the wrath of the chief priests and elders, the judgement-seat, the prison, and the sword. But, in the passage just quoted from 2 Timothy, we find no reference to any such agency. Often violence has made way for the far more wily and dangerous instrumentality of a powerless form, an empty profession, a human counterfeit. The enemy, instead of appearing with the sword of persecution in his hand, walks about with the cloak of profession on his shoulders. He professes and imitates that which he once opposed and persecuted; and, by so doing, gains most appalling advantages, for the time being. The fearful forms of moral evil which, from age to age, have stained the page of human history, instead of being found only where we might naturally look for them, amid the dens and caves of human darkness, are to be found carefully arranged beneath the drapery of a cold, powerless, uninfluential profession; and this is one of Satan’s grand masterpieces.
That man, as a fallen, corrupt creature, should love himself, be covetous, boastful, proud, and the like, is natural; but that he should be all these, beneath the fair covering of "a form of godliness," marks the special energy of Satan in his resistance to the truth in "the last days." That man should stand forth in the bold exhibition of those hideous vices, lusts, and passions, which are the necessary results of departure from the source of infinite holiness and purity, is only what might be expected, for man will be what he is to the end of the chapter. But on the other hand, when we find the holy name of the Lord Jesus Christ connected with man’s wickedness and deadly evil - when we find holy principles connected with unholy practices - when we find all the characteristics of Gentile corruption, referred to in the first chapter of Romans, associated with "a form of godliness," then, truly, we may say, these are the terrible features of "the last days" - this is the resistance of "Jannes and Jambres."
However, there were only three things in which the magicians of Egypt were able to imitate the servants of the true and living God, namely, in turning their rods into serpents, (Ex. 7: 12) turning the water into blood, (Ex. 7: 29) and bringing up the frogs; (Ex. 8: 7) but, in the fourth, which involved the exhibition of life, in connection with the display of nature’s humiliation, they were totally confounded, and obliged to own, " this is the finger of God." (Ex. 8: 16-19) Thus it is also with the latter-day resisters of the truth. All that they do is by the direct energy of Satan, and lies within the range of his power. Moreover, its specific object is to "resist the truth."
The three things which "Jannes and Jambres" were able to accomplish were characterised by Satanic energy, death, and uncleanness; that is to say, the serpents, the blood, and the frogs. Thus it was they "withstood Moses;" and "so do these also resist the truth," and hinder its moral weight and action upon the conscience. There is nothing which so tends to deaden the power of truth us the fact that persons who are not under its influence at all, do the self-same things as those who are. This is Satan’s agency just now. He seeks to have all regarded as Christians. He would fain make us believe ourselves surrounded by "a Christian world;" but it is counterfeit Christianity, which, so far from being a testimony to the truth, is designed by the enemy of the truth, to withstand its purifying and elevating influence.
In short, the servant of Christ and the witness for the truth is surrounded, on all sides, by the spirit of "Jannes and Jambres;" and it is well for him to remember this - to know thoroughly the evil with which he has to grapple - to bear in mind that it is Satan’s imitation of God’s reality, produced, not by the wand of an openly-wicked magician, but by the actings of false professors, who have "a form of godliness, hut deny the power thereof," who do things apparently right and good, but who have neither the life of Christ in their souls, the love of God in their hearts, nor the power of the word in their consciences.
"But," adds the inspired apostle, "they shall proceed no further, for their folly shall be manifested unto all, as theirs also was." Truly the "folly" of "Jannes and Jambres" was manifest unto all, when they not only failed to imitate the further actings of Moses and Aaron, but actually became involved in the judgements of God. This is a solemn point. The folly of all who are merely possessed of the form will, in like manner, be made manifest. They will not only be quite unable to imitate the full and proper effects of divine life and power, but they will themselves become the subjects of those judgements which will result from the rejection of that truth which they have resisted.
Will any one say that all this has no voice for a day of powerless profession? Assuredly, it has. It should speak to each conscience in living power; it should tell on each heart, in accents of impressive solemnity. It should lead each one to enquire seriously whether he is testifying for the truth, by walking in the power of godliness, or hindering it, and neutralising its action, by having only the form. The effect of the power of godliness will be seen by our" continuing in the things which we have learned." None will continue, save those who are taught of God; those, by the power of the Spirit of God, have drunk in divine principle, at the pure fountain of inspiration.
Blessed be God, there are many such throughout the various sections of the professing Church. There are many, here and there, whose consciences have been bathed in the atoning blood of "the Lamb of God," whose hearts beat high with genuine attachment to His Person, and whose spirits are cheered by "that blessed hope" of seeing Him as He is, and of being eternally conformed to His image. It is encouraging to think of such. It is an unspeakable mercy to have fellowship with those who can give a reason of the hope that is in them, and for the position which they occupy. May the Lord add to their number daily. May the power of godliness spread far and wide in these last days, so that a bright and well-sustained testimony may be raised to the name of Him who is worthy.
The third point in our section yet remains to be considered, namely, Pharaoh’s four subtle objections to the full deliverance and complete separation of God’s people from the land of Egypt. The first of these we have in Ex. 8: 25. "And Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron, and said, Go ye, sacrifice to your God in the land." It is needless to remark here, that whether the magicians withstood, or Pharaoh objected, it was in reality, Satan that stood behind the scenes; and his manifest object, in this proposal of Pharaoh, was to hinder the testimony to the Lord’s name - a testimony connected with the thorough separation of His people from Egypt. There could, evidently, be no such testimony had they remained in Egypt, even though they were to sacrifice to Him. They would have taken common ground with the uncircumcised Egyptians, and put Jehovah on a level with the gods of Egypt. In this case an Egyptian could have said to an Israelite, "I see no difference between us; you have your worship and we have ours; it is all alike."
As a matter of course, men think it quite right for every one to have a religion, let it be what it may. Provided we are sincere, and do not interfere with our neighbour’s creed, it does not matter what shape our religion may happen to wear. Such are the thoughts of men in reference to what they call religion; but it is very obvious that the glory of the name of Jesus finds no place in all this. The demand for separation is that which the enemy will ever oppose, and which the heart of man cannot understand. The heart may crave religiousness because conscience testifies that all is not right; but it craves the world as well. It would like to "sacrifice to God in the land;" and Satan’s object is gained when people accept of a worldly religion, and refuse to "come out and be separate." (2 Cor. 6) His unvarying purpose, from the beginning, has been to hinder the testimony to God’s name on the earth. Such was the dark tendency of the proposal, "Go ye, sacrifice to your God in the land." What a complete damper to the testimony, had this proposal been acceded to! God’s people in Egypt and God Himself linked with the idols of Egypt! Terrible blasphemy!
Reader, we should deeply ponder this. The effort to induce Israel to worship God in Egypt reveals a far deeper principle than we might, at first sight, imagine. The enemy would rejoice, at any time, by any means, or under any circumstances, to get even the semblance of divine sanction for the world’s religion. He has no objection to such religion. He gains his end as effectually by what is termed "the religious world" as by any other agency; and, hence, when he can succeed in getting a true Christian to accredit the religion of the day, he gains a grand point. As a matter of actual fact, one knows that nothing elicits such intense indignation as the divine principle of separation from this present evil world. You may hold the same opinions, preach the same doctrines, do the same work; but if you only attempt, in ever so feeble a manner, to act upon the divine commands, " from such turn away," (2 Tim. 3: 5) and "come out from among them," (2 Cor. 6: 17) you may reckon assuredly upon the most vigorous opposition. Now how is this to be accounted for? Mainly by the fact that Christians, in separation from this world’s hollow religiousness, bear a testimony for Christ which they never can bear while connected with it.
There is a very wide difference between human religion and Christ. A poor, benighted Hindu might talk to you of his religion, but he knows nothing of Christ. The apostle does not say, "if there be any consolation in religion;" though, doubtless, the votaries of each kind of religion find what they deem consolation therein. Paul, on the other hand, found his consolation in Christ, having fully proved the worthlessness of religion, and that too, in its fairest and most imposing form. (Comp. Gal. 1: 13, 14; Phil. 3: 4-11)
True, the Spirit of God speaks to us of "pure religion and undefiled;" but the unregenerate man cannot, by any means, participate therein; for how could he possibly take part in ought that is "pure and undefiled?" This religion is from heaven, the source of all that is pure and lovely; it is exclusively before the eye of "God and the Father:" it is for the exercise of the functions of that new name, with which all are endowed who believe on the name of the Son of God. (John 1: 12, 13; James 1: 18; 1 Peter 1: 23; 1 John 5: 1) Finally, it ranges itself under the two comprehensive heads of active benevolence and personal holiness; "To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world." (James 1: 27)
Now if you go through the entire catalogue of the genuine fruits of Christianity, you will find them all classed under these two heads; and it is deeply interesting to observe that, whether we turn to the eighth of Exodus or to the first of James, we find separation from the world put forward as an indispensable quality in the true service of God, Nothing could be acceptable before God - nothing could receive from His hand the stamp of "pure and undefiled," which was polluted by contact with an "evil world." "Come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty." (2 Cor. 6: 17, 18)
There was no meeting-place for Jehovah and His redeemed in Egypt; yes, with them, redemption and separation from Egypt were one and the same thing. God had said, "I am come down to deliver them," and nothing short of this could either satisfy or glorify Him. A salvation which would have left them still in Egypt, could not possibly be God’s salvation. Moreover, we must bear in mind that Jehovah’s purpose, in the salvation of Israel, as well as in the destruction of Pharaoh, was, that "His name might be declared throughout all the earth;" and what declaration could there be of that name or character, were His people to attempt to worship Him in Egypt? Either none whatever or an utterly false one. Wherefore, it was essentially necessary, in order to the full and faithful declaration of God’s character, that His people should be wholly delivered and completely separated from Egypt, and it is as essentially necessary now, in order to a clear and unequivocal testimony for the Son of God, that all who are really His should be separated from this present world. Such is the will of God; and for this end Christ gave Himself. "Grace unto you, and peace from God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father: to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen."(Gal. 1: 3-5)
The Galatians were beginning to accredit a carnal and worldly religion - a religion of ordinances - a religion of "days, and months, and times, and years;" and the apostle commences his epistle by telling them that the Lord Jesus Christ gave Himself for the purpose of delivering His people from that very thing. God’s people must be separate, not, by any means, on the ground of their superior personal sanctity, but because they are His people, and in order that they may rightly and intelligently answer His gracious end in taking them into connection with Himself, and attaching His name to them. A people, still amid the defilements and abominations of Egypt, could not have been a witness for the Holy One; nor can any one, now, while mixed up with the defilements of a corrupt worldly religion, possibly be a bright and steady witness for a crucified and risen Christ.
The answer given by Moses to Pharaoh’s first objection was a truly memorable one. "And Moses said, It is not meet so to do; for we shall sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians to the Lord our God; lo, shall we sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians before their eyes, and will they not stone us? We mill go three days’ journey into the wilderness, and sacrifice to the Lord our God, as he shall command us." (Ex. 8: 26, 27) Here is true separation from Egypt - "three days journey." Nothing less than this could satisfy faith. The Israel of God must be separated from the land of death and darkness, in the power of resurrection. The waters of the Red Sea must roll between God’s redeemed and Egypt, ere they can properly sacrifice to Jehovah. Had they remained in Egypt, they would have to sacrifice to the Lord the very objects of Egypt’s abominable worship.* This would never do. There could be no tabernacle, no temple, no altar, in Egypt. It had no site, throughout its entire limits, for ought of that kind. In point of fact, as we shall see further on, Israel never presented so much as a single note of praise, until the whole congregation stood, in the full power of an accomplished redemption, on Canaan’s side of the Red Sea. Exactly so is it now. The believer must know where the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ have, for ever, set him, ere he can be an intelligent worshipper, an acceptable servant, or an effectual witness.
{*The word "abominations" has reference to that which the Egyptians worshipped.}
It is not a question of being a child of God, and, as such, a saved person. Many of the children of God are very far from knowing the full results, as regards themselves, of the death and resurrection of Christ. They do not apprehend the precious truth, that the death of Christ has made an end of their sins for ever, and that they are the happy partakers of His resurrection life, with which sin can have nothing whatever to do. Christ became a curse for us, not, as some would teach us, by being born under the curse of a broken law, but by hanging on a tree. (Compare attentively Deut. 21: 23; Gal. 3: 13) We were under the curse, because we had not kept the law; but Christ, the perfect Man, having magnified the law and made it honourable, by the very fact of His obeying it perfectly, became a curse for us, by hanging on the tree. Thus, in His life He magnified God’s law; and in His death He bore our curse. There is, therefore, now, no guilt, no curse, no wrath, no condemnation for the believer; and, albeit, he must be manifested before the judgement-seat of Christ, he will find that judgement-seat every hit as friendly by and by, as the mercy-seat is now. It will make manifest the truth of his condition, namely, that there is nothing against him; what he is, it is God "that hath wrought him." He is God’s workmanship. He was taken up in a state of death and condemnation, and made just what God would have him to be. The Judge Himself has put away all his sins, and is his righteousness, so that the judgement-seat cannot but be friendly to him; yea, it will be the full, public, authoritative declaration to heaven, earth, and hell, that the one who is washed from his sins in the blood of the Lamb, is as clean as God can make him. (See John 5: 24; Rom. 8: 1; 2 Cor. 5: 5, 10, 11; Eph. 2: 10.) All that had to be done, God Himself has done it. He surely will not condemn His own work. The righteousness that was required, God Himself has provided it. He, surely, will not find any flaw therein. The light of the judgement seat will be bright enough to disperse every mist and cloud which might tend to obscure the matchless glories and eternal virtues which belong to the cross, and to show that the believer is "clean every whit." (John 13: 10; John 15: 3; Eph. 5: 27)
It is because these foundation-truths are not laid hold of in the simplicity of faith that many of the children of God complain of their lack of settled peace - the constant variation in their spiritual condition - the continual ups and downs in their experience. Every doubt in the heart of a Christian is a dishonour done to the word of God and the sacrifice of Christ. It is because he does not, even now, bask in the light which shall shine from the judgement-seat, that he is ever afflicted with a doubt or a fear. And yet those things which so many have to deplore - those fluctuation’s and waverings are but trifling consequences, comparatively, inasmuch as they merely affect their experience. The effect produced upon their worship, their service, and their testimony, is far more serious, inasmuch as the Lord’s honour is concerned. But, alas ! this latter is but little thought of, generally speaking, simply because personal salvation is the grand object - the aim and end, with the majority of professing Christians. We are prone to look upon everything that affects ourselves as essential; whereas, all that merely affects the glory of Christ in and by us is counted non-essential.
However, it is well to see with distinctness, that the same truth which gives the soul settled peace, puts it also into the position of intelligent worship, acceptable service, and effectual testimony. In the fifteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians, the apostle sets forth the death and resurrection of Christ as the grand foundation of everything. "Moreover brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures." (Ver. 1-4) Here is the gospel, in one brief and comprehensive statement. A dead and risen Christ is the ground-work of salvation. "He was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification." (Rom. 4: 25) To see Jesus, by the eye of faith, nailed to the cross, and seated on the throne, must give solid peace to the conscience and perfect liberty to the heart. We can look into the tomb and see it empty; we can look up to the throne, and see it occupied, and go on our way rejoicing. The Lord Jesus settled everything on the cross on behalf of His people; and the proof of this settlement is that He is now at the right hand of God. A risen Christ is the eternal proof of an accomplished redemption; and if redemption is an accomplished fact, the believer’s peace is a settled reality. We did not make peace and never could make it; indeed, any effort on our part to make peace could only tend more fully to manifest us as peace breakers. But Christ, having made peace by the blood of His cross, has taken His scat on high, triumphant over every enemy. By Him God preaches peace. The Lord of the gospel conveys this peace; and the soul that believes the gospel has peace - settled peace before God, for Christ is his peace. (See Acts 10: 36; Rom. 5: 1; Eph. 2: 14; Col. 1: 20.) In this way, God has not only satisfied His own claims, but, in so doing, He has found out a divinely-righteous vent through which His boundless affections may flow down to the guiltiest of Adam’s guilty progeny.
Then, as to the practical result of all this. The cross of Christ has not only put away the believer’s sins, but also dissolved for ever His connection with the world; and, on the ground of this, he is privileged to regard the world as a crucified thing, and to be regarded by it as a crucified one. Thus it stands with the believer and the world. It is crucified to him and he to it. This is the real, dignified position of every true Christian. The world’s judgement about Christ was expressed in the position in which it deliberately placed Him. It got its choice as to whether it would have a murderer or Christ. It allowed the murderer to go free, but nailed Christ to the cross, between two thieves. Now, if the believer walks in the footprints of Christ - if he drinks into, and manifests, His spirit, he will occupy the very same place in the world’s estimation; and, in this way, he will not merely know that, as to standing before God, he is crucified with Christ, but be led to realise it in his walk and experience every day.
But while the cross has thus effectually cut the connection between the believer and the world, the resurrection has brought him into the power of new ties and associations. If, in the cross, we see the world’s judgement about Christ, in resurrection we see God’s judgement. The world crucified Him; but "God hath highly exalted him." Man gave Him the very lowest, God the very highest, place; and, inasmuch as the believer is called into full fellowship with God, in his thoughts about Christ, he is enabled to turn the tables upon the world, and look upon it as a crucified thing. If, therefore, the believer is on one cross and the world on another, the moral distance between the two is vast indeed. And if it is vast in principle, so should it be in practice. The world and the Christian should have absolutely nothing in common; nor will they, except so far as he denies his Lord and Master. The believer proves himself false to Christ, to the very same degree that he has fellowship with the world.
All this is plain enough; but, my beloved Christian reader, where does it put us as regards this world? Truly, it puts us outside and that completely. We are dead to the world and alive with Christ. We are at once partakers of His rejection by earth and His acceptance in heaven; and the joy of the latter makes us count as nothing the trial connected with the former. To be cast out of earth, without knowing that I have a place and a portion on high, would be intolerable; but when the glories of heaven fill the soul’s vision, a little of earth goes a great way.
But some may feel led to ask, "What is the world?" It would be difficult to find a term more inaccurately defined than "world," or "worldliness;" for we are generally disposed to make worldliness begin a point or two above where we are ourselves. The Word of God, however, has, with perfect precision, defined what" the world" is, when it marks it as that which is "not of the Father." Hence, the deeper my fellowship with the Father, the keener will be my sense of what is worldly. This is the divine way of teaching. The more you delight in the Father’s love, the more you reject the world. But who reveals the Father The Son. How? By the power of the Holy Ghost. Wherefore, the more I am enabled, in the power of an ungrieved Spirit, to drink in the Son’s revelation of the Father, the more accurate does my judgement become as to what is of the world. It is as the limits of God’s kingdom expand in the heart, that the judgement as to worldliness becomes refined. You can hardly attempt to define worldliness. It is, as some one has said, "shaded off gradually from white to jet black." This is most true. You cannot place a bound and say, "here is where worldliness begins;" but the keen and exquisite sensibilities of the divine nature recoil from it; and all we need is, to walk in the power of that nature, in order to keep aloof from every form of worldliness. "Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh." Walk with God, and ye shall not walk with the world. Cold distinctions and rigid rules will avail nothing. The power of the divine life is what we want. We want to understand the meaning and spiritual application of the "three days’ journey into the wilderness" whereby we are separated for ever, not only from Egypt’s brick-kilns and taskmasters, but also from its temples and altars.
Pharaoh’s second objection partook very much of the character and tendency of the first. "And Pharaoh said, I will let you go, that ye may sacrifice to the Lord your God in the wilderness; only ye shall not go very far away." (Ex. 8: 28) If he could not keep them in Egypt, he would at least seek to keep them near it, so that he might act upon them by its varied influences. In this way, they might be brought back again. and the testimony more effectually quashed than if they had never left Egypt at all. There is always much more serious damage done to the cause of Christ by persons seeming to give up the world and returning to it again, than if they had remained entirely of it; for they virtually confess that, having tried heavenly things, they have discovered that earthly things are better and more satisfying.
Nor is this all. The moral effect of truth upon the conscience of unconverted people is sadly interfered with, by the example of professors going back again into those things which they seemed to have left. Not that such cases afford the slightest warrant to any one for the rejection of God’s truth, inasmuch as each one is personally responsible and will have to give account of himself to God. Still, however, the effect in this, as well as in everything else, is bad. " For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world, through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning. For it would have been better for them not to hare known the way of righteousness than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.(2 Peter 2: 20, 21.)
Wherefore, if people do not "go very far away," they had better not go at all. The enemy knew this well; and hence his second objection. The maintenance of a border position suits his purpose amazingly. Those who occupy this ground are neither one thing nor the other; and, in point of fact, whatever influence they possess, tells entirely in the wrong direction.
It is deeply important to see that Satan’s design, in all these objections, was to hinder that testimony to the name of the God of Israel, which could only be rendered by a "three days’ journey into the wilderness." This was, in good truth, going "very far away." It was much farther than Pharaoh could form any idea of, or than he could follow them. And oh! how happy it would be if all who profess to set out from Egypt would really, in the spirit of their minds and in the tone of their character, go thus far away from it I if they would intelligently recognise the cross and grave of Christ as forming the boundary between them and the world! No man, in the mere energy of nature, can take this ground. The Psalmist could say," Enter not into judgement with thy servant, for in thy sight shall no man living be justified." (Ps. 143: 2) So also is it with regard to true and effectual separation from the world. "No man living" can enter into it. It is only as "dead with Christ,’’ and "risen again with him, through faith of the operation of God," that any one can either be "justified" before God, or separated from the world This is what we may all going " very far away. May all who profess and call themselves Christians go thus far! Then will their lamp yield a steady light. Then would their trumpet give a certain sound. Their path would be elevated; their experience deep and rich. Their peace would flow as a river; their affections would be heavenly and their garments unspotted. And, far above all, the name of the Lord Jesus Christ would be magnified in them, by the power of the Holy Ghost, according to the will of God their Father.
The third objection demands our most special attention. "And Moses and Aaron were brought again unto Pharaoh: and he said unto them, go, serve the Lord your God; but who are they that shall go? And Moses said, We will go with our young and with our old, with our sons and with our daughters, with our flocks and with our herds, will we go: for we must hold a feast unto the Lord. And he said unto them, Let the Lord be so with you, as I will let you go and your little ones: look to it; for evil is before you. Not so; go now ye that are men, and serve the Lord; for that ye did desire. And they were driven out from Pharaoh’s presence." (Ex. 10: 8-11) Here again we have the enemy aiming a deadly blow at the testimony to the name of the God of Israel. Parents in the wilderness and their children in Egypt! Terrible anomaly! This would only have been a half deliverance, at once useless to Israel and dishonouring to Israel’s God. This could not be. If the children remained in Egypt, the parents could not possibly be said to have left it, inasmuch as their children were part of themselves. The most that could be said in such a case was, that in part they were serving Jehovah, and in part Pharaoh. But Jehovah could have no part with Pharaoh. He should either have all or nothing. This is a weighty principle for Christian parents. May we lay it deeply to heart! It is our happy privilege to count on God for our children, and to "bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." (Eph. 6) We should not be satisfied with any other portion for" Our little ones" than that which we ourselves enjoy.
Pharaoh’s fourth and last objection had reference to the flocks and herds. "And Pharaoh called unto Moses, and said, Go ye, serve the Lord; only let your flocks and herds be stayed: let your little ones also go with you." (Ex. 10: 24.) With what perseverance did Satan dispute every inch of Israel’s way out of the land of Egypt! He first sought to keep them in the land, then to keep them near the land, next to keep part of themselves in the land, and, finally, when he could not succeed in any of these three, he sought to send them forth without any ability to serve the Lord. If he could not keep the servants, he would seek to keep their ability to serve, which would answer much the same end. If he could not induce them to sacrifice in the land, he would send them out of the land without sacrifices.
In Moses’ reply to this last objection, we are furnished with a fine statement of the Lord’s paramount claim upon His people and all pertaining to them. "And Moses said, Thou must give us also sacrifices and burnt offerings, that we may sacrifice unto the Lord our God. Our cattle also shall go with us; there shall not an hoof be left behind: for thereof must we take to serve the Lord our God; and we know not with what we must serve the Lord until we come. thither." (Ver. 25, 26) It is only when the people of God take their stand, in simple Childlike faith, upon that elevated ground, on which death and resurrection set them, that they can have anything like an adequate sense of His claims upon them. "We know not with what we must serve the Lord until we come thither." That is, they had no knowledge of the divine claim or their responsibility, until they had gone "three days’ journey." These things could not be known amid the dense and polluted atmosphere of Egypt. Redemption must be known as an accomplished fact, ere: there can be any just or full perception of responsibility. All this is perfect and beautiful. "If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine." I must be up out of Egypt, in the power of death and resurrection, and then, but not until then, shall I know what the Lord’s service really is. It is when we take our stand, by faith, in that "large room," that wealthy place into which the precious blood of Christ introduces us; when we look around us and survey the rich, rare, and manifold results of redeeming love; when we gaze upon the Person of Him who has brought us into this place, and endowed us with these riches, then we are constrained to say, in the language of one of our own poets,
"Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were an offering far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my heart, my life, my all."
"There shall not an hoof be left behind." Noble words! Egypt is not the place for ought that pertains to God’s redeemed. He is worthy of all, "body, soul, and spirit;" all we are and all we have belongs to Him. "We are not our own, we are bought with a price;" and it is our happy privilege to consecrate ourselves and all that we possess to Him whose we are, and whom we are called to serve. There is nought of a legal spirit in this. The words, "until we come thither," furnish a divine guard against this horrible evil. We have travelled the "three days’ journey," ere a word concerning sacrifice can be heard or understood. We are put in full and undisputed possession of resurrection life and eternal righteousness. We have left that land of death and darkness; we have been brought to God Himself, so that we may enjoy Him, in the energy of that life with which we are endowed, and in the sphere of righteousness in which we are placed: thus it is our joy to serve. There is not an affection in the heart of which He is not worthy; there is not a sacrifice in all the flock too costly for His altar. The more closely we walk with Him, the more we shall esteem it to be our meat and drink to do His blessed will. The believer counts it his highest privilege to serve the Lord. He delights in every exercise and every manifestation of the divine nature. He does not move up and down with a grievous yoke upon his neck, or an intolerable weight upon his shoulder. The yoke is broken "because of the anointing," the burden has been for ever removed, by the blood of the cross, while he himself walks abroad, "redeemed, regenerated, and disenthralled," in pursuance of those soul-stirring words, "LET MY PEOPLE GO."
NOTE. - We shall consider the contents of Ex. 11 in connection with the security of Israel, under the shelter of the blood of the paschal lamb.
C. H. Mackintosh, Notes on the Pentateuch — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1–19 Vers. 1-20. THE EIGHTH PLAGUE. Notwithstanding his self-condemnation and…
Vers. 1-20. THE EIGHTH PLAGUE. Notwithstanding his self-condemnation and acknowledgment of the righteousness of God in all the judgments that had been sent upon him, (Exo_9:27) Pharaoh no sooner found that the seventh plague had ceased than he reverted to his old obstinacy. He both wilfully hardened his own heart; (Exo_9:34) and God, by the unfailing operation of his moral laws, further blunted or hardened it. (Exo_10:1) Accordingly, it became necessary that his stubbornness should be punished by one other severe infliction. Locusts, God"s "great army," as they are elsewhere called, (Joe_2:25) were the instrument chosen, so that once more the judgment should seem to come from heaven, and that it should be exactly fitted to complete the destruction which the hail had left unaccomplished (ver. 5). Locusts, when they come in full force, are among the most terrible of all the judgments that can befall a country. "A fire devoureth before them; and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness". (Joe_2:3) They destroy every atom offoliage crops, vegetables, shrubs, trees even the bark of the fruit-trees suffers the stems are injured, the smaller branches completely peeled and "made white". (Joe_1:7) When Moses threatened this infliction, his words produced at once a great effect. The officers of the court servants," as they are called for the first time endeavoured to exert an influence over the king the men go," they said; "knowest thou not yet that Egypt is destroyed?" (ver. 7). And the king so far yielded that also for the first time he let himself be influenced by the mere threat of a judgment. tie would have let the Israelites depart, before the locusts came, if only they would have left their "little ones" behind them (vers. 8-11). Moses, however, could not consent to this limitation; and so the plague came in fall severity the locusts covered the whole face of the earth, so that the land was darkened with them (ver. 15); and all that the hail had left, including the whole of the wheat and doora harvests, was destroyed. Then Pharaoh made fresh acknowledgment of his sin, and fresh appeals for intercession with the old result that the plague was removed, and that he remained as obdurate as ever (vers. 16-20).
Go in unto Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart. The word "I" is expressed in the original and is emphatic. It is not merely that Pharaoh has hardened himself; (Exo_9:34) but I have "dulled" or "hardened" him. Therefore condescend to see him once more, and to bear my message to him. The heart of his servants. Compare Exo_9:34. As Pharaoh"s determination began to waver the influence of the court officers increased. Hence the frequent mention of them in this part of the narrative. That I might shew them my signs. The "fierceness of man" was being "turned to God"s praise." It resulted from the obstinacy of Pharaoh that more and greater miracles were wrought, more wonderful signs shown, and that by these means both the Israelites themselves, and the heathen nations in contact with them, were the more deeply impressed.
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Vers. 1, 2. God"s mercies and wondrous works to be kept in perpetual remembrance.
Man"s forgetfulness of God"s benefits is one of the saddest features of his existing condition and character. He needs continual urging and exhortation to the duty of remembering them.
I HE FORGETS ESPECIALLY THOSE BENEFITS WHICH ARE CONSTANT AND CONTINUOUS.
(a) Temporal benefits. Life, strength, health, intellect, the power to act, the capacity to enjoy, the ability to think, speak, write, are God"s gifts, bestowed lavishly on the human race, and in civilised countries possessed in some measure by almost every member of the community. And, for the most part, they are possessed continuously. At any moment any one of them might be withdrawn; but, as it pleases God to make them constant, they are scarcely viewed as gifts at all. The Church would have men thank God, at least twice a day, for their "creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life." But how few perform this duty! Creation, preservation, daily sustenance, even health, are taken as matters of course, which come to us naturally; not considered to be, as they are, precious gifts bestowed upon us by God.
(b) Spiritual benefits. Atonement, redemption, reconciliation, effected for us once for all by our Lord"s death upon the Cross; and pardon, assisting grace, spiritual strength, given us continually, are equally ignored and forgotten. At any rate, the lively sense of them is wanting. Few say, with David, Constantly, "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits; who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with loving-kindness and tender mercies; who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle"s". (Psa_103:1-5)
II HE FORGETS EVEN EXTRAORDINARY MERCIES. A man escapes with life from an accident that might have been fatal; recovers from an illness in which his life was despaired of; is awakened suddenly to a sense of religion when he had long gone on in Coldness and utter deadness; and he thinks at first that nothing can ever take the thought of the blessing which he has received out of his remembrance. He is ready to exclaim, ten times a day, "Come and hear, all ye that fear God, and I will tell you what he hath done for my soul!" But soon all fades away and grows dim; the vivid remembrance passes from him; he thinks less and less of what seems now a distant time; he neglects to speak of it, even to his children. Instead of "telling in the ears of his son, and of his son"s son, what things God wrought for him in the old timer he does not so much as think of them. Very offensive to God must be this forgetfulness. He works his works of mercy and of power for the very purpose "that men may tell of them and have them in remembrance," may "teach them to their sons and their sons" sons," may keep them "as tokens upon their hands, and as frontlets between their eyes," may "tell them to the following generation.
III PERPETUAL REMEMBRANCE OF EXTRAORDINARY MERCIES IS BEST SECURED BY THE OBSERVANCE OF ANNIVERSARIES. God instituted the Passover, and other Jewish feasts, that the memory of his great mercies to his people in Egypt and the wilderness should not pass away. (Exo_12:24 Exo_12:27) So the Christian Church has observed Christmas Day, Good Friday, Ascension Day. Such occasions are properly called "commemorations." And individuals may well follow the Church, by commemorating important events in their own lives, so they do it
(1) Gratefully;
(2) Prayerfully; and
(3) Unostentatiously.
HOMILIES BY J. ORR Vers. 1-7. A new Message.
Even yet God had not done with the King of Egypt. He sends Moses again to ply him with reproof and threatening. The final stroke is put off as long as possible. If "by all means". (1Co_9:22) Pharaoh can be saved, he will not be lost for want of the opportunity. God tells Moses his design in dealing with the monarch as he did, and gives him a new message to carry to the royal presence.
I GOD"S DESIGN (vers. 1, 2). He had hardened Pharaoh"s heart and the heart of his servants, that he might show these his signs before him, and that he might secure their being had in remembrance through all succeeding generations in Israel. This bespeaks, on God"s part
1. Definite purpose in the shaping of the events which culminated in the Exodus. As Jehovah, the all-ruling one, it lay with him to determine what shape these events would assume, so as best to accomplish the end he had in view in the deliverance. It was of his ordering that a ruler of Pharaoh"s stamp occupied the throne of Egypt at that particular time; that the king was able to hold out as he did against his often reiterated, and powerfully enforced, command; that the monarch"s life was spared, when he might have been smitten and destroyed; (Exo_9:15, Exo_9:16) that the Exodus was of so glorious and memorable a character.
2. It indicates the nature of the design. "That ye may know how that I am the Lord" (ver. 2). We have already seen (ch. 6.) that the central motive in this whole series of events was the manifestation of God in his character of Jehovah the absolute, all-ruling, omnipotent Lord, who works in history, in mercy, and judgment, for the accomplishment of gracious ends. The design was
(1) To demonstrate the fact that such a Being as is denoted by the name Jehovah, existed; that there is an absolute, all-ruling, omnipotent, gracious God;
(2) to raise the mind to a proper conception of his greatness, by giving an exhibition, on a scale of impressive magnitude, of his actual working in mercy and judgment for the salvation of his people; and
(3) to make thereby a revelation of himself which would lay the foundation of future covenant relations with Israel, and ultimately of an universal religion reposing on the truths of his unity, spirituality, sanctity, omnipotence, and love. Subordinate objects were the making known of his power and greatness to Pharaoh himself, (Exo_7:17 Exo_8:22 Exo_9:13, Exo_9:29) and to the surrounding nations. (Exo_9:16) The design thus indicated required that the facts should be of a kind which admitted of no dispute; that they should palpably and conclusively demonstrate the character of God to be as asserted; and that they should be of so striking and awful a description, as to print themselves indelibly upon the memory of the nation. These conditions were fulfilled in the events of the Exodus.
(3) It shows how God intended his mighty works to be kept in remembrance. "That thou mayest tell in the ears of thy son, and of thy son"s son," etc. (ver. 2). God provided for the handing down of a knowledge of these wonders
(1) By giving them a character which secured that they should not be forgotten. The memory of these "wonders in the land of Ham" (Psa_105:27) rings down in Israel to the latest generations; (see Ps 78 Ps 105 Ps 106 Ps 135 Ps 126., etc.)
(2) by embodying them in a written record;
(3) by enjoining on parents the duty of faithfully narrating them to their children. (Exo_13:14; Deu_4:9 Deu_5:7, 20-23 11:19; Psa_78:3-7) Bible history will soon get to be forgotten if the story is not taken up and diligently taught by loving parental lips.
II GOD"S REQUIREMENT humility. "How long wilt thou refuse to humble thyself before me?" (ver. 3.) This lays the finger on the root principle of Pharaoh"s opposition, pride. Pride, the undue exaltation of the ego, is a hateful quality of character, even as between man and man. How much more, as between man and God! It is described as "the condemnation of the devil". (1Ti_4:6) Pride puffs the soul up in undue conceit of itself, and leads it to spurn at God"s dictation and control. It aims at a false independence. It would wish to be as God. In the worldly spirit it manifests itself as "the pride of life". (1Jn_2:16) In the self-righteous spirit it manifests itself as spiritual pride. It excludes every quality which ought to exist in a soul rightly exercised towards its Creator. Faith, love, humility, the feeling of dependence, gratitude for benefits, regard for the Creator"s glory it shuts out all. It is incompatible with the sense of sin, with the spirit of contrition, with humble acceptance of salvation through another. It is the great barrier to the submission of the heart to God and Christ, inciting instead to naked and impious rebellion. The degree and persistency of the opposition to God which pride is able to inspire may be well studied in the case of Pharaoh.
III GOD"S THREAT (vers. 4 7). He would bring upon the land a plague of locusts. The magnitude of the visitation would place it beyond comparison with anything that had ever been known. See below.
IV MOSES GOING OUT FROM PHARAOH. "And he turned himself, and went out from Pharaoh" (ver. 6). He delivered his message, and did not wait for an answer. This should have told Pharaoh that the bow was now stretched to its utmost, and that to strain it further by continued resistance would be to break it. His courtiers seem to have perceived this (ver. 7). Moses" going out was a prelude to the final breaking off of negotiations (ver. 29). View it also as a studied intimation
1. Of his indignation at the past conduct of the king (cf. Exo_11:8)
2. Of his conviction of the hopelessness of producing any good impressionon his hardened nature.
3. Of the certainty of God"s purpose being fulfilled, whether Pharaohwilled it or no. It was for Pharaoh"s interest to attend to the warning which had now again been given him, but his refusal to attend to it would only injure himself and his people; it would not prevent God"s will from being accomplished. J.O.
HOMILIES BY D. YOUNG Vers. 1-19. The Eighth Plague: the locusts.
I CONSIDER THE EMPHATIC STATEMENT WITH RESPECT TO THE HARDENING OF THE HEART. in Exo_9:34 we are told that when the hail and the thunder ceased, Pharaoh hardened his heart, he and his servants. Note here two things:
1. How Pharaoh"s heart was hardened just after he had made a confessionof sin; from which we see how little he understood by the word "sin," and how little he meant by the confession.
2. The combination of his servants with him in this hardening; from whichwe may judge that just as some among his servants had been taken further away from him by their prudent and believing action when the hail was threatened, (Exo_9:20) so others had been drawn still nearer to their master, and made larger sharers in his obstinacy and pride. The unbelieving, who left their servants and their cattle in the fields, not only lost their property when the hail descended, but afterwards they became worse men. And now in Exo_10:1, not only is there a statement that the hearts of Pharaoh and his servants were hardened, but God in his own person says, "I have hardened his heart," etc. Then after this statement, so emphatic in the expression of it, however difficult to understand in the meaning of it, God goes on to explain why he has thus hardened the heart of Pharaoh and his servants. In the first place, it gives an opportunity for showing God"s signs before Pharaohall my plagues". (Exo_9:14) Thus God would turn our attention here to the thing of chief importance, namely, what he was doing himself. Important it certainly is to notice what Pharaoh is doing, but far more important to notice what Jehovah is doing. We may easily give too much time to thinking of Pharaoh, and too little to thinking of Jehovah. Thus God would ever direct us into the steps of practical wisdom. We are constantly tempted to ask questions which cannot be answered, while we as constantly neglect to ask questions which both can be answered and ought to be answered. The conduct of Pharaoh is indeed a fascinating problem for those who love to consider the play of motives in the human heart. In considering him there is ample room for the imagination to work out the conception of a very impressive character. Thus, we might come to many conclusions with respect to Pharaoh, some of them right, but in all likelihood most of them wrong, perhaps egregiously wrong. These are matters in which God has not given opportunity for knowledge; the depths of Pharaoh"s personality are concealed from us. There is true and important knowledge to be gained, but it is in another direction. The marvellous, exhaustless power of God is to be more prominent in our thoughts than the erratic and violent plunging of Pharaoh from one extreme to another. Amid all that is dark, densely dark, one thing is clear and clear because God meant it to be clear, and took care to make it so namely, that all this conduct of Pharaoh was the occasion for unmistakable and multiplied signs of the power of God. One is here reminded of the question of the disciples to Jesus, (Joh_9:2) "Who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?" To this question more answers than one were possible; but Jesus gave the answer that was appropriate to the occasion. The man was born blind, that the works of God should be made manifest in him. So not only was Pharaoh"s heart hardened, but God himself hardened that heart, in order that these signs might be shown before him. Then, in the second place, these signs being wrought before Pharaoh, became also matters for consideration, recollection, and tradition to the Israelites themselves. Moses, taken as the representative of Israel, is to tell to his son, and to his son"s son, what things God had done in Egypt. Here is ample occasion given for the observant and devout in Israel to note the doings of Jehovah and communicate them with all earnestness and reverence from age to age. Surely it was worth a little waiting, a little temporal suffering, to have such chapters written as these which record Israel"s experiences in Egypt! What are the sufferings, merely in body and in circumstances, of one generation, compared with the ennobling thoughts of God, and the consequent inspiration and comfort which may through these very sufferings be transmitted to many generations following! Why it is even a great privilege for one generation to be poor, that through its poverty many generations may become rich.
III CONSIDER HOW THE TERRIBLE MAGNITUDE OF THE LOCUST-PLAGUE IS SHOWN BY THE EFFECTS FOLLOWING ON THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF IT.
1. There are the expostulations of Pharaoh"s servants with him (ver. 7). They, at all events, are not disposed to wait for the coming of the locusts. That the locust-plague was a very dreadful one, we may partly gather from other intimations in the Scriptures with respect to these voracious insects, advancing in their innumerable hosts. (Deu_28:38, Deu_28:42; 1Ki_8:37; 2Ch_7:13; Joe_1:4; Nah_3:15) The experiences of modern travellers in the East are also such as to assure us that the expectation of a visit from the locust is enough to excite the most alarming thoughts (see in particular Dr. Thomson"s observations on the locust in The Land and the Book). But in truth we hardly need to go beyond the conduct of Pharaoh"s servants themselves. The very name locust was enough to startle them into precautionary activity; they did not wait for the reality. Some of them, indeed, had anticipated the destructive effect of the hail, and taken suitable precautions; but others felt there was room for question whether, after all, the hail would be so pernicious. In their presumption they guessed that a hailstorm could inflict only a slight and reparable damage. But what could escape the locusts? Every green thing was well known to perish before their voracity. Even what might be called an ordinary visitation from them would be no trifle; how much more such a visitation as Pharaoh"s servants had now every reason to believe would come upon them! For the time was long past when they doubted concerning the power of Moses to bring what he threatened. It is no longer a question of the power of Moses, but of the endurance of Egypt. In all likelihood the thought now prevailing in the minds of Pharaoh"s servants possibly in Pharaoh"s own mind was that this run of calamity wouldpresently come to an end, if only it was patiently endured. For in ancient Egypt there was doubtless some such proverb as might be Englished into our common saying, "It is a long lane that has no turning." Egypt has known the long lane of seven plagues; surely it cannot be much longer. And yet it may easily be long enough to destroy them before they get out of it. Locusts to come, when Moses speaks about them, may be reckoned as good as come, if something be not done promptly to avert their approach; and once come, then how long will the food of Egypt remain, either for man or beast! No wonder, then, that Pharaoh"s servants turned upon him with such warm one may almost say threatening expostulations. The prospect of an immediate and almost instantaneous stoppage of supplies was enough to bring them hastening, as with one consent, to beg a timely submission from their master.
2. There is the extraordinary yielding of Pharaoh to these expostulations. Nothing less than extraordinary can it be called. His yieldings hitherto have been under actual chastise-meat. He has waited for the blow to be struck before he begged for mercy. But now, upon the mere threatening of the blow, he is moved to make overtures of submission. We shall have to notice of what a partial and worthless sort this submission was; at present, the main thing to mark is that there was a submission at all. He could not afford to trifle with the warnings of his servants. Hitherto, in all probability, they had been largely flatterers, men who fooled Pharaoh to the top of his bent with compliments as to his absolute power; but now they are turned into speakers of plain and bitter truth; and though Pharaoh may not like it, the very fact that he is thus addressed is enough to show him that he must arrange terms of surrender before another battle has even begun. Thus, by merely studying the conduct of Pharaoh and his servants before the locusts came, we see very clearly what a terrible plague they were. The plague of the locusts was a great deal more than a variation from the plagues of the frogs, the gnats and the flies.
III Consider how, in spite of all the dread inspired by the thought of these locusts, PHARAOH"S PRIDE STILL HINDERS COMPLETE SUBMISSION. It was in an emergency of his government, and under pressure from his panic-stricken servants, that he consented to treat with Moses. Moses comes, and Pharaoh makes him an offer, which Moses of course cannot accept, seeing that he really has no power to treat; he has but the one unchangeable demand; it is a righteous demand, and therefore the righteous Jehovah cannot permit it to be diminished. But the rejection of Pharaoh"s offer gives him a convenient loophole of escape into his former stubbornness. He can turn to his servants and say, "See what an unreasonable man this is. He comes expecting that in the terms of peace I am to yield all, and he is to yield nothing. Better to risk the locusts, and if need be, perish in the midst of our desolated fields, than live dishonoured by yielding up all Israel at his inexorable request." Speaking in some such spirit as this, we may well believe that Pharaoh stirred up his servants, and won them to support him in continuing his dogged resistance. It is a noble principle to die with honour rather than live with shame; it is the very principle that in its holiest illustration has crowded the ranks of Christian martyrdom. But when a principle of this sort gets into the mouth of a Pharaoh, he may so pervert it as to bring about the worst results. There is no manlier way of closing life than to die for truth and Christ; but it is a poor thing to become, as Pharaoh evidently would have his servants become, the victims of a degraded patriotism. It was all very well to talk loud and drive Moses and Aaron from his presence; but what was the good? the locusts were coming none the less. The fact is, that all suggestions of prudent and timely surrender were cast to the winds. The pride of the tyrant is touched, and it makes him blind to everything else. He rushes ahead, reckless of what may come on the morrow, if only he can gain the passionate satisfaction of driving Moses out of his presence today. There is no reasoning With a man in a passion; all arguments are alike to him.
IV CONSIDER PHARAOH"S ULTIMATE SUBMISSION AND THE CONSEQUENCE OF IT. He drove Moses and Aaron out of his presence, but nevertheless he had to yield, and that in a peculiarly humiliating way. When he saw the locusts actually at work, then he came face to face with reality; and reality sobers a man. He had to send in haste for the men whom he had driven away, for the locusts were in haste. Every minute he delayed brought Egypt nearer and nearer to starvation. Oh, foolish Pharaoh! just for the pleasure, the sweet, momentary pleasure of driving Moses out of your presence, to risk the horrors of this ravaging host. Notice further, for it is a remarkable thing, that while Pharaoh begs most humbly for mercy, he makes fie formal promise of liberation. The promise, we feel, was really there, all the more emphatic and more evidently unconditional, just because unspoken. Any way, the time had come when formal promises from Pharaoh mattered little, seeing they were never kept. The great thing was that he should be made to feel the pressure of God"s hand upon him, so that he could not but cry to escape from it. Every time he thus cried and begged, as he here so piteously does all his stubbornness for the time melted away into invisibility he showed in the clearest manner the power of Jehovah. Jehovah"s end, in this particular plague of the locusts, was gained when Pharaoh begged that they might be driven away Y.
HOMILIES BY J. URQUHART Vers. 1-11. God"s Judgments on sin and their results for the righteous and the wicked.
I THE FRUITS FOR GOD"S PEOPLE OF HIS JUDGMENTS UPON HIS ENEMIES.
1. The plagues of Egypt were to be an example to all the generations ofIsrael (ver. 2).
(1) It drew them nearer God. They were his: he gave Egypt for them.
(2) It deepened their trust and fear.
1. It was the prophecy of how God will sanctify his people in the latterdays.
2. How God sanctifies his people now. Their prolonged waiting andsuffering is storing up power for the future. The night of trial makes the day of deliverance brighter and more fruitful.
II THE WAY OF THE UNREPENTANT IS ONE OF DEEPENING LOSS. Pharaoh will not retain what God"s mercy has left him. The locusts eat what the hail has spared. The path darkens evermore till the night falls to which no day succeeds.
III GOD"S JUDGMENTS AWAKEN FEAR IN THE HEARTS OF THE UNRIGHTEOUS, BUT NO REPENTANCE. The advice of Pharaoh"s counsellors.
1. Its selfishness. It was inspired not by love of righteousness, but by selfinterest. If it does not answer to enslave and persecute God"s people; the world will desist; and if there is wealth and honour to be got by it, they will even favour them and desire to be numbered with them.
2. Its insufficiency. "Let the men go" They will not yield the whole of whatGod demands. They will not give up sin or resign the heart. The service of the selfish is as deficient in full obedience, as it is hateful in motive.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 7, 8, 10, 12, 16 Show these My signs.
Exo_10:1-2
Show these My signs.
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How God hardened Pharaohs heart
I. By a manifestation of rich mercy, which ought to have melted the heart of the king.
II. By a manifestation of great power, which ought to have subdued the heart of the king.
III. By a manifestation of severe justice, which might have rebuked the heart of the king.
IV. By sending His servants to influence the heart of the king to the right. God did not harden Pharaohs heart by a sovereign decree, so that he could not obey His command; but by ministries appropriate to salvation, calculated to induce obedience--the constant neglect of which was the efficient cause of this sad moral result.
Lessons:
1. That man has the ability to resist the saving ministries of heaven.
2. That when man resists the saving ministries of heaven he becomes hard in heart.
3. That hardness of heart is itself a natural judgment from God.
4. That hardness of heart will finally work its own ruin. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
God sends His minister to hardened souls
1. Often.
2. Mercifully.
3. Uselessly.
4. Significantly.
5. Disastrously. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
Hardened sinners
1. In companies.
2. Patterns of judgments.
3. Tokens of indignation.
4. The cause of plagues.
5. The curse of the world.
6. Still followed by the minister of God. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
The signs of God to the generations of the future
I. That God is supreme over the kingdom of nature. Science places the natural universe under the command of man. This is the Divine ordination. But mans power over nature is derived; Gods is underived and independent. Hence--
1. He can inflict pain on the wicked.
2. He can protect the good from harm.
3. He can send famine or plenty.
II. That God is supreme over the cunning and power of the devil. The magicians of Egypt were agents of the devil. They were inspired by him in their opposition to Moses and Aaron. They were aided by his cunning. Their defeat was his defeat also.
1. God can deliver men from the power of the devil.
2. God can destroy the works of the devil.
3. God can frustrate the designs of the devil.
Teach this blessed truth and glorious fact to the youthful: that the good agencies of the universe are more potent than the bad. This will lead youthhood to confide in God.
III. That goodness is happiness, and that conflict with God is the misery of man. Lessons:
1. That in the lives of individuals we have signs of God.
2. That all the signs of God in human life are to be carefully noted and taught to the young.
3. That all the signs of life are evidence of the Divine supremacy. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
The ministry of sin
God makes Pharaoh to stand for the benefit of Israel, and in them for the benefit of humanity. It was for Pharaoh in the first instance to resist Divine light and grace, and oppress Israel; it was then for God to economise the tyrant and his wrath. The conduct of the Egyptian king served--
I. To reveal God. That ye may know how that I am the Lord. Pharaohs perverseness revealed all the more fully--
1. The Divine love.
2. The Divine righteousness.
3. The Divine power.
II. To further the interests of Israel. God overrules sin to high and happy issues. (W. L. Watkinson.)
Transmitting the knowledge of the true God
I. Jehovah made himself known to the Israelites in Egypt as the only true God by signs. His wondrous acts revealed His supremacy. Christ is the fullest revelation of the true God.
II. That this knowledge is to be transmitted from generation to generation. Parental influence the most potent in telling of Gods acts. No lips teach like the lips of loving authority. Some parents neglect this solemn duty. Ever ready to speak about worldly enterprises, the acts of great men, their own; but they are silent about Gods. Such neglect is ruinous to their children and dishonouring to God.
III. In the transmission of the knowledge, of the true God is the hope of the world. Wherever the knowledge of the true God prevails, righteousness and peace are found. Idolatry has ever been the bane of mankind. A false conception of God debases. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
By signs
1. Showing the woe of sin.
2. The folly of human malice.
3. The justice of God.
4. The safety of the Church. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
The signs
1. Their nature.
2. Their locality.
3. Their design. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
The Divine supremacy
1. Rejected by the proud.
2. Received by the good.
3. Revealed by the works of God.
4. To be acknowledged by all. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
The plagues
So, allowing all that may be called romantic, supernatural, to fall off from this story of the plagues, there remains all that God wanted to remain--three things:--First, the assertion of the Divine right in life. God cannot be turned out of His own creation; He must assert His claim, and urge it, and redeem it. The second thing that remains is the incontestable fact of human opposition to Divine voices. Divine voices call to right, to purity, to nobleness, to love, to brotherhood; and every day we resist these voices, and assert rebellious claims. The third thing that remains is the inevitable issue. We cannot fight God and win. It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. Why smite with feeble fist the infinite granite of the infinite strength? Who will lose? The certain result will be the overthrow of the sinner: the drowning of every Pharaoh who hardens himself against the Divine will and voice. Now that I come to think of it, have not all these plagues followed my own obstinacy and hardness of heart in relation to things Divine? We speak of the plagues of Egypt as though they began and ended in that distant land, and we regard them now as part of an exciting historical romance. I will think otherwise of them. The local incident and the local colour maybe dispensed with, but the supreme fact in my own consciousness is that God always follows my obstinacy with plagues. Dangers are rightly used when they move us to bolder prayer; losses are turned into gains when they lift our lives in an upward direction; disease is the beginning of health when it leads the sufferer to the Fathers house. Pharaoh had his plagues, many and awful; and every life has its penal or chastening visitations, which for the present are full of agony and bitterness, but which may be so used as to become the beginning of new liberties and brighter joys. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Gods judgements
Lay a book open before a child, or one that cannot read; he may stare and gaze upon it, but he can make no use of it at all, because he understandeth nothing in it; yet bring it to one that can read, and understandeth the language that is written in it, he will read you many stories and instructions out of it; it is dumb and silent to the one, but speaketh to, and talketh with, the other. In like manner it is with Gods judgments, as St. Augustine well applies it; all sorts of men see them, but few are able aright to read them or to understand them what they say; every judgment of God is a real sermon of reformation and repentance. (J. Spencer.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v1
CHAPTER X.
THE EIGHTH PLAGUE.
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Exo_10:1-20.
The Lord would not command His servant again to enter the dangerous presence of the sullen prince, without a reason which would sustain his faith: "For I have made heavy his heart." The pronoun is emphatic: it means to say, 'His foolhardiness is My doing and cannot go beyond My will: thou art safe.' And the same encouragement belongs to all who do the sacred will: not a hair of their head shall truly perish, since life and death are the servants of their God. Thus, in the storm of human passion, as of the winds, He says, "It is I, be not afraid"; making the wrath of man to praise Him, stilling alike the tumult of the waves and the madness of the people.
It is possible that even the merciful mitigations of the last plague were used by infatuated hearts to justify their wilfulness: the most valuable crops of all had escaped; so that these judgments, however dire, were not quite beyond endurance. Just such a course of reasoning deludes all who forget that the goodness of God leadeth to repentance.
Besides the reasons already given for lengthening out the train of judgments, it is added that Israel should teach the story to posterity, and both fathers and children should "know that I am Jehovah."
Accordingly it became a favourite title--"The Lord which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt." Even the apostates under Sinai would not reject so illustrious a memory: their feast was nominally to Jehovah; and their idol was an image of "the gods which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt" (Exo_32:4-5).
Has our land no deliverances for which to be thankful? Instead of boastful self-assertion, should we not say, "We have heard with our ears, O God, and our fathers have declared unto us, the noble works that Thou didst in their days and in the old time before them?" Have we forgotten that national mercies call aloud for national thanksgiving? And in the family, and in the secret life of each, are there no rescues, no emancipations, no enemies overcome by a hand not our own, which call for reverent acknowledgment? "These things were our examples, and are written for our admonition."
The reproof now spoken to Pharaoh is sterner than any previous one. There is no reasoning in it. The demand is peremptory: "How long wilt thou refuse to humble thyself?" With it is a sharp and short command: "Let My people go, that they may serve Me." And with this is a detailed and tremendous threat. It is strange, in the face of the knowledge accumulated since the objection called for it, to remember that once this narrative was challenged, because locusts, it was said, are unknown in Egypt. They are mentioned in the inscriptions. Great misery was caused by them in 1463, and just three hundred years later Niebuhr was himself at Cairo during a plague of them. Equally arbitrary is the objection that Joel predicted locusts "such as there hath not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after them, even to the years of many generations" (Exo_2:2), whereas we read of these that "before them there were no such locusts as they, neither after them shall be such" (Exo_10:14). The objection is whimsical in its absurdity, when we remember that Joel spoke distinctly of Zion and the holy mountain (Exo_2:1), and Exodus of "the borders of Egypt" (Exo_10:14).
But it is true that locusts are comparatively rare in Egypt; so that while the meaning of the threat would be appreciated, familiarity would not have steeled them against it. The ravages of the locust are terrible indeed, and coming just in time to ruin the crops which had escaped the hail, would complete the misery of the land.
One speaks of the sudden change of colour by the disappearance of verdure where they alight as being like the rolling up of a carpet; and here we read "they shall cover the eye of the earth,"--a phrase peculiar to the Pentateuch (Exo_10:15; Num_22:5, Num_22:11); "and they shall eat the residue of that which has escaped, ... and they shall fill thy houses, and the ... houses of all the Egyptians, which neither thy fathers nor thy fathers' fathers have seen."
After uttering the appointed warning, Moses abruptly left, awaiting no negociations, plainly regarding them as vain.
But now, for the first time, the servants of Pharaoh interfered, declared the country to be ruined, and pressed him to surrender. And yet it was now first that we read (Exo_10:1) that their hearts were hardened as well as his. For that is a hard heart that does not remonstrate against wrong, however plainly God reveals His displeasure, until new troubles are at hand, and which even then has no regard for the wrongs of Israel, but only for the woes of Egypt. It is a hard heart, therefore, which intends to repent upon its deathbed; for its motives are identical with these.
Pharaoh's behaviour is that of a spoiled child, who is indeed the tyrant most familiar to us. He feels that he must yield, or else why should the brothers be recalled? And yet, when it comes to the point, he tries to play the master still, by dictating the terms for his own surrender; and breaks off the negociation rather than do frankly what he must feel that it is necessary to do. Moses laid his finger accurately upon the disease when he reproached him for refusing to humble himself. And if his behaviour seem unnatural, it is worth observation that Napoleon, the greatest modern example of proud, intellectual, godless infatuation, allowed himself to be crushed at Leipsic through just the same reluctance to do thoroughly and without self-deception what he found it necessary to consent to do. "Napoleon," says his apologist, Thiers, "at length determined to retreat--a resolution humbling to his pride. Unfortunately, instead of a retreat frankly admitted ... he determined on one which from its imposing character should not be a real retreat at all, and should be accomplished in open day." And this perversity, which ruined him, is traced back to "the illusions of pride."
Well, it was quite as hard for the Pharaoh to surrender at discretion, as for the Corsican to stoop to a nocturnal retreat. Accordingly, he asks, "Who are ye that shall go?" and when Moses very explicitly and resolutely declares that they will all go, with all their property, his passion overcomes him, he feels that to consent is to lose them for ever, and he exclaims, "So be Jehovah with you as I will let you go and your little ones: look to it, for evil is before you"--that is to say, Your intentions are bad. "Go ye that are men, and serve the Lord, for that is what ye desire,"--no more than that is implied in your demand, unless it is a mere pretence, under which more lurks than it avows.
But he and they have long been in a state of war: menaces, submissions, and treacheries have followed each other fast, and he has no reason to complain if their demands are raised. Moreover, his own nation celebrated religious festivals in company with their wives and children, so that his rejoinder is an empty outburst of rage. And of a Jewish feast it was said, a little later, "Thou shalt rejoice before the Lord thy God, thou and thy son and thy daughter, and thy manservant and thy maidservant ... and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow" (Deu_16:11). There was no insincerity in the demand; and although the suspicions of the king were naturally excited by the exultant and ever-rising hopes of the Hebrews, and the defiant attitude of Moses, yet even now there is as little reason to suspect bad faith as to suppose that Israel, once released, could ever have resumed the same abject attitude toward Egypt as before. They would have come back victorious, and therefore ready to formulate new demands; already half emancipated, and therefore prepared for the perfecting of the work.
And now, at a second command as explicit as that which bade him utter the warning, Moses, anxiously watched by many, stretched out his hand over the devoted realm. At the gesture, the spectators felt that a fiat had gone forth. But the result was strangely different from that which followed his invocation, both of the previous and the following plague, when we may believe that as he raised his hand, the hail-storm burst in thunder, and the curtain fell upon the sky. Now there only arose a gentle east wind (unlike the "exceeding strong west wind" that followed), but it blew steadily all that day and all the following night. The forebodings of Egypt would understand it well: the prolonged period during which the curse was being steadily wafted toward them was an awful measure of the wide regions over which the power of Jehovah reached; and when it was morning, the east wind brought the locusts, that dreadful curse which Joel has compared to a disciplined and devastating invader, "the army of the Lord," and the first woe that heralds the Day of the Lord in the Apocalypse (Joe_2:1-11; Rev_9:1-11).
The completeness of the ruin brought a swift surrender, but it has been well said that folly is the wisdom which is only wise too late, and, let us add, too fitfully. If Pharaoh had only submitted before the plague instead of after it![18] If he had only respected himself enough to be faithful, instead of being too vain really to yield!
It is an interesting coincidence that, since he had this time defied the remonstrances of his advisers, his confession of sin is entirely personal: it is no longer, "I and my people are sinners," but "I have sinned against the Lord your God, and against you." This last clause was bitter to his lips, but the need for their intercession was urgent: life and death were at stake upon the removal of this dense cloud of creatures which penetrated everywhere, leaving everywhere an evil odour, and of which a later sufferer complains, "We could not eat, but we bit a locust; nor open our mouths, but locusts filled them."
Therefore he went on to entreat volubly, "Forgive, I pray thee, my sin only this once, and intreat Jehovah your God that He may take away from me this death only."
And at the prayer of Moses, the Lord caused the breeze to veer and rise into a hurricane: "The Lord turned an exceeding strong west wind." Now, the locust can float very well upon an easy breeze, and so it had been wafted over the Red Sea; but it is at once beaten down by a storm, and when it touches the water it is destroyed. Thus simply was the plague removed.
"But the Lord made strong Pharaoh's heart," and so, his fears being conquered, his own rebellious will went on upon its evil way. He would not let Israel go.
This narrative throws light upon a thousand vows made upon sick beds, but broken when the sufferer recovers; and a thousand prayers for amendment, breathed in all the sincerity of panic, and forgotten with all the levity of security. It shows also, in the hesitating and abortive half-submission of the tyrant, the greater folly of many professing Christians, who will, for Christ's sake, surrender all their sins except one or two, and make any confession except that which really brings low their pride.
Thoroughness, decision, depth, and self-surrender, needed by Pharaoh, are needed by every soul of man.
THE NINTH PLAGUE.
Exo_10:21-29.
We have taken it as settled that the Pharaoh of the Exodus was Menephtah, the Beloved of the God Ptah. If so, his devotion to the gods throws a curious light upon his first scorn of Jehovah, and his long continued resistance; and also upon the threat of vengeance to be executed upon the gods of Egypt, as if they were a resisting power. But there is a special significance in the ninth plague, when we connect it with Menephtah.
In the Tombs of the Kings at Thebes there is to be seen, fresh and lifelike, the admirably sculptured effigy of this king--a weak and cruel face, with the receding forehead of his race, but also their nose like a beak, and their sharp chin. Over his head is the inscription--
"Lord of the Two Lands, Beloved of the God Amen; Lord of Diadems, Beloved of the God Ptah: Crowned by Amen with dominion of the world: Cherished by the Sun in the great abode."
This formidable personage is delineated by the court sculptor with his hand stretched out in worship, and under it is written "He adores the Sun: he worships Hor of the solar horizons."
The worship, thus chosen as the most characteristic of this king, either by himself or by some consummate artist, was to be tested now.
Could the sun help him? or was it, like so many minor forces of earth and air, at the mercy of the God of Israel?
There is a terrible abruptness about the coming of the ninth plague. Like the third and sixth, it is inflicted unannounced; and the parleying, the driving of a bargain and then breaking it, by which the eighth was attended, is quite enough to account for this. Moreover, the experience of every man teaches him that each method has its own impressiveness: the announcement of punishment awes, and a surprise alarms, and when they are alternated, every possible door of access to the conscience is approached. If the heart of Pharaoh was now beyond hope, it does not follow that all his people were equally hardened. What an effect was produced upon those courtiers who so earnestly supported the recent demand of Moses, when this new plague fell upon them unawares!
But not only is there no announcement: the narrative is so concentrated and brief as to give a graphic rendering of the surprise and terror of the time. Not a word is wasted:--
"The Lord said unto Moses, Stretch out thine hand toward heaven, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, even darkness that may be felt. And Moses stretched forth his hand toward heaven; and there was a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt three days: they saw not one another, neither rose any from his place three days; but all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings" (Exo_10:21-23). We are not told anything of the emotions of the king, as the prophet strides into his presence, and before the cowering court, silently raises his hand and quenches the day. We may infer his temper, if we please, from the frantic outbreak of menace and rage in which he presently warns the man whose coming is the same thing as calamity to see his face no more. Nothing is said, again, about the evil angels by which, according to later narratives, that long night was haunted.[19] And after all it is more impressive to think of the blank, utter paralysis of dread in which a nation held its breath, benumbed and motionless, until vitality was almost exhausted, and even Pharaoh chose rather to surrender than to die.
As the people lay cowering in their fear, there was plenty to occupy their minds. They would remember the first dreadful threat, not yet accomplished, to slay their firstborn; and the later assertion that if pestilence had not destroyed them, it was because God would plague them with all His plagues. They would reflect upon all their defeated duties, and how the sun himself was now withdrawn at the waving of the prophet's hand. And then a ghastly foreboding would complete their dread. What was it that darkness typified, in every Oriental nation--nay, in all the world? Death! Job speaks of
"The land of darkness and of the shadow of death; A land of thick darkness, as darkness itself; A land of the shadow of death without any order, And where the light is as darkness" (Job_10:21-22).
With us, a mortal sentence is given in a black cap; in the East, far more expressively, the head of the culprit was covered, and the darkness which thus came upon him expressed his doom. Thus "they covered Haman's face" (Est_7:8). Thus to destroy "the face of the covering that is cast over all peoples and the veil that is spread over all nations," is the same thing as to "swallow up death," being the visible destruction of the embodied death-sentence (Isa_25:7-8). And now this veil was spread over all the radiant land of Egypt. Chill, and hungry, and afraid to move, the worst horror of all that prolonged midnight was the mental agony of dire anticipation.
In other respects there had been far worse calamities, but through its effect upon the imagination this dreadful plague was a fit prelude to the tenth, which it hinted and premonished.
In the Apocryphal Book of Wisdom there is a remarkable study of this plague, regarded as retribution in kind. It avenges the oppression of Israel. "For when unrighteous men thought to oppress the holy nation, they being shut up in their houses, the prisoners of darkness, and fettered with the bonds of a long night, lay exiled from the eternal Providence" (xvii. 2). It expresses in the physical realm their spiritual misery: "For while they supposed to lie hid in their secret sins, they were scattered under a thick veil of forgetfulness" (ver. 3). It retorted on them the illusions of their sorcerers: "as for the illusions of art magick, they were put down.... For they, that promised to drive away terrors and troubles from a sick soul, were sick themselves of fear, worthy to be laughed at" (vers. 7, 8). In another place the Egyptians are declared to be worse than the men of Sodom, because they brought into bondage friends and not strangers, and grievously afflicted those whom they had received with feasting; "therefore even with blindness were these stricken, as those were at the doors of the righteous man." (xix. 14-17). And we may well believe that the long night was haunted with special terrors, if we add this wise explanation: "For wickedness, condemned by her own witness, is very timorous, and being pressed by conscience, always forecasteth grievous things. For"--and this is a sentence of transcendent merit--"fear is nothing else than a betrayal of the succours that reason offereth" (xvii. 11, 12). Therefore it is concluded that their own hearts were their worst tormentors, alarmed by whistling winds, or melodious song of birds, or pleasing fall of waters, "for the whole world shined with clear light, and none were hindered in their labour: over them only was spread a heavy night, an image of that darkness which should afterward receive them: yet were they unto themselves more grievous than the darkness" (vers. 20, 21).
Isaiah, too, who is full of allusions to the early history of his people, finds in this plague of darkness an image of all mental distress and spiritual gloom. "We look for light, but behold darkness; for brightness, but we walk in obscurity: we grope for the wall like the blind, yea, we grope as those that have no eyes: we stumble at noonday as in the twilight" (Isa_59:10). Here the sinful nation is reduced to the misery of Egypt. But if she were obedient she would enjoy all the immunities of her forefathers amid Egyptian gloom: "Then shall thy light rise in darkness and thy obscurity as the noonday" (Isa_58:10); "Darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people, but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and His glory shall be seen upon thee" (Isa_60:2).
And, indeed, in the spiritual light which is sown for the righteous, and the obscuration of the judgment of the impure, this miracle is ever reproduced.
The history of Menephtah is that of a mean and cowardly prince. Dreams forbade him to share the perils of his army; a prophecy induced him to submit to exile, until his firstborn was of age to recover his dominions for him; and all we know of him is admirably suited to the character represented in this narrative. He will now submit once more, and this time every one shall go; yet he cannot make a frank concession: the flocks and herds (most valuable after the ravages of the murrain and the hail) must remain as a hostage for their return. But Moses is inflexible: not a hoof shall be left behind; and then the frenzy of a baffled autocrat breaks out into wild menaces; "Get thee from me; take heed to thyself; see my face no more; for in the day thou seest my face thou shalt die." The assent of Moses was grim: the rupture was complete. And when they once more met, it was the king that had changed his purpose, and on his face, not that of Moses, was the pallor of impending death.
In the conduct of the prophet, all through these stormy scenes, we see the difference between a meek spirit and a craven one. He was always ready to intercede; he never "reviles the ruler," nor transgresses the limits of courtesy toward his superior in rank; and yet he never falters, nor compromises, nor fails to represent worthily the awful Power he represents.
In the series of sharp contrasts, all the true dignity is with the servant of God, all the meanness and the shame with the proud king, who begins by insulting him, goes on to impose on him, and ends by the most ignominious of surrenders, crowned with the most abortive of treacheries and the most abject of defeats.
FOOTNOTES:
[18] Oddly enough, the same historian already quoted, relating the story of the same day at Leipsic, says of Napoleon's dialogue with M. de Merfeld, that he "used an expression which, if uttered at the Congress of Prague, would have changed his lot and ours. Unfortunately, it was now too late."
[19] Such is probably not the meaning in Psa_78:49 (see R.V.), though from it the tradition may have sprung.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 12, 16 MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Exo_10:1
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Exo_10:1
THE HARDENING OF PHARAOH’S HEART
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Moses and Aaron are once more commanded to visit Pharaoh, even though they are told that he will not yield to their entreaty. This is the method of Heaven to render rebellious sinners unexcusable. The ministers of God are not readily to abandon a wicked soul. It is here said that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. How?
I. By a manifestation of rich mercy that ought to have melted the heart of the King. God had indeed manifested great mercy and forbearance towards Pharaoh; He had spared his life. through a long series of plagues, and through continued sin. The King had no claim to such mercy. Yet it was given in abundant measure. And when mercy is abused by the sinner it has a hardening effect upon his moral nature. No man can reject the love of the great Father, the cross of Jesus Christ, and the warnings of the pulpit, without becoming more and more obdurate in heart. This is a natural law of man’s spiritual life. The soul of man is so constituted that the rejected mercies of truth leave it less sensitive to them. This is the experience of men. How many who have sinned through a long life, and who have resisted many gospel appeals, now feel they are less sensitive to Divine influences than ever they were. This is the ordination of God, and hence when He is said to harden the heart of man, it is by mercy that ought to have produced repentance, and not by any arbitrary decree.
II. By a manifestation of great power that ought to have subdued the heart of the King. The Divine Being not merely brought His mercy to bear upon the heart of Pharaoh, but also His power. Some men are more sensitive to power than they are to the appeals of mercy. They are not likely to be touched into tears by compassion; but they are awed by the exhibition of power. They are men of inferior moral temperament. They are influenced by the lower motives. They are wrought upon by fear. Pharaoh was evidently a man of this kind. A plague was more likely to subdue him than a word of tender pity, than a message of love. Hence, God tried this method, but it was only productive of a temporary repentance. Frequently is the soul of man brought to feel the power of God, in affliction and in pain. But the power of God ever recognises the free agency of man, and when it does not conquer, it hardens the sinner.
III. By a manifestation of severe justice that ought to have rebuked the heart of the king. God had shown Pharaoh that Heaven was just in its demands, and that it would come to the relief of the oppressed. This ought to have awakened a feeling of equity within his own heart, which should have ended in the freedom of Israel. All the plagues exhibited the justice of the Divine rulership, and rebuked the cruelty of the proud king. They were calculated to humble him. God does sometimes give sinners terrible visions of His justice, which are designed to lead them to rectitude of life. When men resist the manifestations of Divine justice, they are correspondingly hardened in soul to the rightful claims of heaven.
IV. By sending his servants to influence the heart of the king to the right. God sent Moses and Aaron to Pharaoh to influence him to the freedom of Israel. They were sent continuously. Moses was a good worker. Aaron was a good speaker. They wrought miracles. But wicked men will not yield their unbelief, their sin, to the best Christian talent, to the most faithful Christian service; but by rejecting the servants of God they become hard in heart. Hence, God did not harden the heart of Pharaoh by a sovereign decree, by omnipotence, so that the king could not obey His command, but by ministries appropriate to salvation, which were calculated to induce obedience, and the constant neglect of which was the efficient cause of this sad moral result. There was no alternative but the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart. God could not withdraw his demand for the freedom of Israel. It was not consistent with the ordinary methods of the Divine government to remove the king by death; nor would this have answered the purpose, for probably his successor would have been equally rebellious. Hence there was none other course open than the hardening of Pharaoh, which was the outcome of his own rebellion, and which would prove to be his eternal ruin. LESSONS:
1. That man has the ability to resist the saving ministries of heaven.
2. That when man resists the saving ministries of heaven he becomes hard in heart.
3. That hardness of heart is itself a natural judgment from God.
4. That hardness of heart will finally work its own ruin.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Exo_10:1. God sends His minister to hardened souls:—
1. Often.
2. Mercifully.
3. Uselessly.
4. Significantly.
5. Disastrously.
The means which God sends to save wicked men aggravates their sin, and hardens their spirits.
Hardened sinners:
1. In companies.
2. Patterns of judgment.
3. Tokens of indignation.
4. The cause of plagues.
5. The curse of the world.
6. Still followed by the minister of God.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 The words "I have sinned" occur nine times in…
Exo 10:16
The words "I have sinned" occur nine times in the Bible, and of the nine we may except two. In the seventh chapter of Micah they are the language not of an individual, but of a Church. And the prodigal’s use of them is, of course, not matter of fact or history, but only part of a parable. Of the seven that are left, four are utterly hollow and worthless; in God’s scale, wanting, unreal, and unprofitable. One of these was Pharaoh’s.
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I. At what time God’s hardening of Pharaoh’s heart began, it is impossible exactly to determine. But, from the first, it was judicial. It is a common story. A sin is indulged till the man is given over to his sin, then the sin is made its own punishment. It was no doubt in consequence of this hardness that Pharaoh’s repentance was never anything more than one after a worldly sort. If we allow ourselves to go through hardening processes we shall ultimately put repentance out of our power.
II. Pharaoh’s "I have sinned" was—(1) A mere hasty impulse. There was no thought in it; no careful dealing with his own soul; no depth. (2) The moving principle was fear. He was agitated: only agitated. Fear is a sign of penitence, but it is doubtful whether there was ever a real repentance that was promoted by fear only. (3) Pharaoh’s thoughts were directed too much to man. He never went straight to God, and hence his confession was not thorough.
III. God accepts even the germs of repentance. Even Pharaoh’s miserable acknowledgment had its reward. Twice, upon his confession, God stayed His hand. The loving Father welcomed even the approximation to a grace.
J. Vaughan, Sermons, 7th series, p. 71.
Exo 10:20
I. The simplest and most patient study of that portion of the Book of Exodus which refers to the Egyptian plagues will lead us to this conclusion, that Moses is the witness for a Divine eternal law, and the witness against every kind of king-craft or priest-craft which breaks this law, or substitutes any devices of man’s power or wit in place of it. Moses protested against the deceits and impostures of the magicians, precisely because he protested for the living and eternal Lord. It is a special token of honesty and veracity that Moses records the success of the magicians in several of their experiments. We might fairly have discredited the story as partial and unlikely, if there had been no such admission. Even the most flagrant chicanery is not always disappointed, and in nine cases out of ten, fact and fraud are curiously dovetailed into one another. If you will not do homage to the one, you will not detect the other.
II. Do not the words "God hardened Pharaoh’s heart" distinctly describe God as the Author of something in man which is pronounced to be utterly wrong? Is He not said to have foreseen Pharaoh’s sin, and not only to have foreseen, but to have produced it?
The will of God was an altogether good will, and therefore Pharaoh’s will—which was a bad will, a proud self-will—strove against it, and was lashed into fury by meeting with that which was contrary to itself. These words of Scripture are most necessary to us, for the purpose of making us understand the awful contradiction which there may be between the will of a man and the will of his Creator; how that contradiction may be aggravated by what seemed to be means for its cure, and how it may be cured. However hard our hearts may be, the Divine Spirit of grace and discipline can subdue even all things to Himself.
F. D. Maurice, The Patriarchs and Lawgivers of the Old Testament, p. 172.
References: Exo 10:22, Exo 10:23.—J. Burns, Sketches of Sermons on Special Occasions, p. 109. Exo 10:26.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. vi., No. 309, also vol. xxxi., No. 1830; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. v., p. 476. Exo 10:27.—R. D. B. Rawnsley, Sermons in Country Churches, 2nd series, p. 316. Exo 11:1.—Parker, vol. ii., pp. 57, 313. Exo 11:7.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. vi., No. 305; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. x., p. 147.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 The Eighth and Ninth Plagues
The Eighth and Ninth Plagues
1-20. The Eighth Plague:—Locusts.
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2. See on Exo_7:4-5;
3. This question shows that Pharaoh was responsible for the hardening of his heart: see on Exo_4:21.
4-6. Travellers are unanimous in bearing witness to the terrible ravages caused by a visitation of locusts. They fly in dense swarms, sometimes miles in length, so that the air is darkened with them. Wherever they alight they devour every green thing, not sparing the bark of trees. For a description of a locust plague see Joe_1:1-7; Joe_2:1-11, where the locusts are compared to an army of horsemen.
10. Let the Lord be so with you..] This is spoken in scorn, and is equivalent to a refusal to let them go. Evil is before you] i.e. your intentions are evil: cp. Psa_101:3;
11. Ye that are men] Pharaoh means to keep the women and children as a pledge that the others will return: cp. Exo_10:24.
13. An east wind] Locusts are known frequently to have come from the East, being bred in Syria and Arabia. In this instance they were removed by a west wind which carried them into the Red Sea (Exo_10:19).
17. This death] A graphic description of the desolation caused by the plague.
19. Red Sea] The Gk. name, given perhaps on account of the red coral which lines its floors and sides. The Heb. name is Yam Suph, which means 'Sea of Reeds.'
21-29. The Ninth Plague:—Darkness.
21. This plague, like the third and sixth, was sent without warning. It is not said how the darkness was produced, but in all probability it had a natural basis, like the other plagues. It resembles the darkness caused by the khamsin, a S. or SW. wind, excessively hot and charged with fine dust, which blows about the time of the vernal equinox. The darkness is often local, covering a belt or strip of the country. The unusually dense gloom would excite the superstitious fears of the Egyptians, who worshipped the sun-god Ra. For a vivid description of the terrors of this plague, see book of Wisdom, Exodus 17.
24. Cp. the former concession of Pharaoh in Exo_10:11. He is now willing to let the people go, but wishes to retain their flocks, in order to ensure their return.
26. We know not with what we must serve the Lord] a reason for taking all their flocks with them. The feast was new, and they did not know what they might require.
29. The present interview does not terminate with these words, but is continued in the next chapter Moses leaves the presence of Pharaoh at Exo_11:8. Exo_11:1-3 may be regarded as a parenthesis.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v11 ye that are
ye that are
The third compromise proposed by Pharaoh is, perhaps, as applied to believers, the sublest and most successful of them all. The most godly parents desire worldly prosperity and position for their children. Mat 20:20; Mat 20:21.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 CHAPTER 10 The Eighth and Ninth Plagues
CHAPTER 10 The Eighth and Ninth Plagues
1. The eighth plague: locusts (Exo 10:1-15)
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2. Pharaoh’s renewed confession and refusal (Exo 10:16-20)
3. The ninth plague: darkness (Exo 10:21-26)
4. Pharaoh’s anger (Exo 10:27-29)
The eighth plague is introduced by another warning; the ninth came without it. As a result of the eighth plague, Pharaoh confessed his sin against God and against Moses and Aaron; but after the ninth plague drove Moses from his presence and threatened the divine messenger with death.
Locusts covered the face of the whole earth and every green thing was destroyed. On the ravages of the locusts we find a vivid description in the book of Joel. Locusts are typical of God’s punitive judgments. The locusts plague was aimed to show the impotence of the Egyptian god Serapis, in whom the Egyptians trusted as the protector against the locusts. Locusts are likewise mentioned in a symbolical way in Rev 9:1-12.
In the ninth plague, darkness covered Egypt for three days. Beautiful must have been the vision of the land of Goshen . Out of the dense darkness the light shone brightly in the miserable abodes of the children of Israel . “All the children of Israel had light in their dwellings.” Note again the book of Revelation, chapter 16:10-11 (Rev 16:10-11).
The sun as the source of light was worshipped in Egypt . If Menephtah was the Pharaoh of the exodus, as some hold, this plague has a special significance. A sculptural image of this Pharaoh is preserved. His hand is out-stretched in worship, and underneath stand in hieroglyphics these words: “He adores the sun; he worships Hor of the solar horizons.” Suddenly darkness, which could be felt, came upon Egypt . Pharaoh and all Egypt learned now that their idols were helpless. Darkness is the withdrawal of light. It stands for the solemn truth of the forsaking of God. (We may well think here of the darkness which enshrouded the cross and the unfathomable cry of our Lord, “my God, My God, why hast thou forsaken Me?”) God was about to abandon Egypt , the darkness was the herald of it. All Egypt was to be plunged into the severest of all judgments, the death of the firstborn. This darkness was God’s final appeal to repentance. For three days they were shut in and all business was suspended. Rich and poor, king and beggar, the learned and the ignorant, all classes were shrouded in that awful darkness. The suspense must have been frightful. What was to come next? God waited, and in that silence and darkness appealed to their conscience. How slow God is to judge; it is His strange work. In infinite patience He waited before He dealt the final blow to Egypt . Thus He waits now and warns till at last His patience ends and His threatened judgments sweep the earth. The last objection and compromise by Pharaoh is found in Exo 10:24, but Moses answered “not an hoof shall be left behind.” Jehovah’s demands and purposes concerning the completest separation from Egypt stand and must be literally executed.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv1, 12 The Locusts Threatened
The Locusts Threatened
v. 1. And the Lord said unto Moses, Go in unto Pharaoh; for I have hardened his heart, and the heart of his servants, that I might show these My signs before him,
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v. 2. and that thou mayest tell in the ears of thy son and of thy son’s son what things I have wrought in Egypt, and My signs which I have done among them; that ye may know how that I am the Lord. Since Pharaoh had hardened his heart in the first place, the Lord now gave him up to the doom which he had chosen for himself, and the last plagues had the purpose of completing his obduracy. of this fact Moses was informed, lest he become discouraged. At the same time the Lord had His own glorification in view; for the children of Israel, throughout their generations, should preserve the memory of the Egyptian plagues, in order to keep the fear of the Lord before them all the time.
v. 3. And Moses and Aaron came in unto Pharaoh and said unto him, Thus saith the Lord God of the Hebrews; How long wilt thou refuse to humble thyself before Me? Let My people go that they may serve Me. It is the same formula, but preceded by a threatening question, spoken in a much severer tone than heretofore. Would Pharaoh never learn to humble himself before the almighty power of the true God?
v. 4. Else, if thou refuse to let My people go, behold, tomorrow will I bring the locusts into thy coast. It is again a definite prediction, which marks the plague as a miracle.
v. 5. And they shall cover the face of the earth, literally, the eye of the earth, which is pictured as looking upon man in the ornament of its rich vegetation, that one cannot be able to see the earth; and they shall eat the residue of that which is escaped, which remaineth unto you from the hail, all the plants whose foliage had been stripped, but which had recovered from the plague of the hail, and shall eat every tree which groweth for you out of the field, the foliage and the fruit of the trees, down to the very bark.
v. 6. And they shall fill thy houses, and the houses of all thy servants, and the houses of all the Egyptians; which neither thy fathers, nor thy fathers’ fathers have seen since the day that they were upon the earth unto this day. Besides working utter devastation in the land, the locusts would, in addition, fill all the dwellings with their nauseating presence, thus proving themselves a pest upon men as well as upon vegetation. And he (Moses) turned himself and went out from Pharaoh. He added no appeal to his announcement, the simple statement of the fact coming with crushing force.
v. 7. And Pharaoh’s servants said unto him, How long shall this man be a snare unto us? They compared Moses to a trap, or snare, for catching animals and birds, and themselves to his victims. Let the men go that they may serve the Lord, their God. Knowest thou not yet that Egypt is destroyed? The blind obstinacy of Pharaoh was plunging the entire nation into destruction. Their advice was evidently that the king should grant the request and dismiss the Israelites.
v. 8. And Moses and Aaron were brought again unto Pharaoh; and he said unto them, Go, serve the Lord, your God. He acted as though he were ready to accede to their desire. But who are they that shall go? literally, "Who and who else are those going?" He wanted exact information on that point.
v. 9. And Moses said, We will go with our young and with our old, with our sons and with our daughters, with our flocks and with our herds will we go; for we must hold a feast unto the Lord, literally, "A feast of Jehovah is to us. " It was again a simple statement of fact, for Moses was no longer the humble supplicant.
v. 10. And he said unto them, Let the Lord be so with you, as I will let you go and your little ones. That was bitter blasphemy, that Jehovah should be their assistance in the same degree as Pharaoh was dismissing them; for he had no such intention, and he defied the Lord. Look to it; for evil is before you. He meant to say that he saw through their design of withdrawing the people from their labors.
v. 11. Not so; go now, ye that are men, and serve the Lord; for that ye did desire. He intimated that he had understood them as asking only for leave of absence for the men. And they were driven out from Pharaoh’s presence. The tyrant acted in a purely arbitrary manner and against better knowledge; for such is the way of unbelievers in waging war against the Lord’s people.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 12, 14, 16, 19 for I have hardened his heart and the hearts…
for I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his servants
Yahweh speaks of making Pharaoh and his servants stubborn as if he were making their hearts hard. See how you translated "Yahweh hardened Pharaoh's heart" in Exodus 9:12. (See: Metaphor)
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various signs
"many different signs"
translationWords
Yahweh
Moses
Pharaoh
heart
servant
sign
children
Egypt
know
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 2, 4, 7, 13, 17 10:1-20 The eighth plague was the plague of locusts…
10:1-20 The eighth plague was the plague of locusts (10:4). Evidently enough time had elapsed between this plague and the previous one that the wheat and emmer wheat had sprouted (see 9:32). The Egyptian god Osiris was especially revered as the god who descended into the underworld and brought plant life back in the spring. This second, climactic attack on the plant life demonstrated that even Osiris was helpless before the Lord. There is no eternal life in sprouting plants.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.