Yahweh said to Moses, “Behold, I have made you as God to Pharaoh; and Aaron your brother shall be your prophet. You shall speak all that I command you; and Aaron your brother shall speak to Pharaoh, that he let the children of Israel go out of his land. I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt. But Pharaoh will not listen to you, so I will lay my hand on Egypt, and bring out my armies, my people the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great judgments. The Egyptians shall know that I am Yahweh when I stretch out my hand on Egypt, and bring the children of Israel out from among them.”
Moses and Aaron did so. As Yahweh commanded them, so they did. Moses was eighty years old, and Aaron eighty-three years old, when they spoke to Pharaoh.
Yahweh spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, “When Pharaoh speaks to you, saying, ‘Perform a miracle!’ then you shall tell Aaron, ‘Take your rod, and cast it down before Pharaoh, and it will become a serpent.’ ”
Moses and Aaron went in to Pharaoh, and they did so, as Yahweh had commanded. Aaron cast down his rod before Pharaoh and before his servants, and it became a serpent. Then Pharaoh also called for the wise men and the sorcerers. They also, the magicians of Egypt, did the same thing with their enchantments. For they each cast down their rods, and they became serpents; but Aaron’s rod swallowed up their rods. Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he didn’t listen to them, as Yahweh had spoken.
Yahweh said to Moses, “Pharaoh’s heart is stubborn. He refuses to let the people go. Go to Pharaoh in the morning. Behold, he is going out to the water. You shall stand by the river’s bank to meet him. You shall take the rod which was turned to a serpent in your hand. You shall tell him, ‘Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews, has sent me to you, saying, “Let my people go, that they may serve me in the wilderness. Behold, until now you haven’t listened.” Yahweh says, “In this you shall know that I am Yahweh. Behold: I will strike with the rod that is in my hand on the waters which are in the river, and they shall be turned to blood. The fish that are in the river will die and the river will become foul. The Egyptians will loathe to drink water from the river.” ’ ” Yahweh said to Moses, “Tell Aaron, ‘Take your rod, and stretch out your hand over the waters of Egypt, over their rivers, over their streams, and over their pools, and over all their ponds of water, that they may become blood. There will be blood throughout all the land of Egypt, both in vessels of wood and in vessels of stone.’ ”
Moses and Aaron did so, as Yahweh commanded; and he lifted up the rod, and struck the waters that were in the river, in the sight of Pharaoh, and in the sight of his servants; and all the waters that were in the river were turned to blood. The fish that were in the river died. The river became foul. The Egyptians couldn’t drink water from the river. The blood was throughout all the land of Egypt. The magicians of Egypt did the same thing with their enchantments. So Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he didn’t listen to them, as Yahweh had spoken. Pharaoh turned and went into his house, and he didn’t even take this to heart. All the Egyptians dug around the river for water to drink; for they couldn’t drink the river water. Seven days were fulfilled, after Yahweh had struck the river.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 4, 7, 9, 11, 14, 15, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 25 Or, a God to Pharaoh.
Or, a God to Pharaoh.
I have given thee power and authority to speak in my name and to execute my judgments upon him.
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Or, shall speak for thee (before Pharaoh.)
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 Exo 7:1 And the LORD said unto Moses, See,…
Exo 7:1 And the LORD said unto Moses, See, I have made thee a god to Pharaoh: and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet.
Ver. 1. And the Lord said unto Moses.] In answer to his last exception, which yet he had answered before. {Exo 4:16} God bears with our infirmities.
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A god to Pharaoh.] Armed with mine authority; a vice-god.
Shall be thy prophet,] i.e., Thy spokesman, and interpreter. Aben-Ezra saith that Aaron, as he was Moses’s eldest brother, so he prophesied to the people before Moses showed himself; and hence he is sometimes set before Moses.
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 vv1, 2, 6, 7, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 22, 23, 24, 25 To represent my person, to act like God, by…
To represent my person, to act like God, by requiring his obedience to thy commands, and by punishing his disobedience with such punishments as none but God can inflict, to which end thou shalt have my omnipotent assistance. i.e. Thy interpreter, or spokesman, as Exo 4:16, to deliver thy commands to Pharaoh.
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, 8, 14 Here, I. God encourages Moses to go to Pharaoh,…
Here, I. God encourages Moses to go to Pharaoh, and at last silences all his discouragements. 1. He clothes him with great power and authority (Exo 7:1): I have made thee a god to Pharaoh; that is, my representative in this affair, as magistrates are called gods, because they are God's viceregents. He was authorized to speak and act in God's name and stead, and, under the divine direction, was endued with a divine power to do that which is above the ordinary power of nature, and invested with a divine authority to demand obedience from a sovereign prince and punish disobedience. Moses was a god, but he was only a made god, not essentially one by nature; he was no god but by commission. He was a god, but he was a god only to Pharaoh; the living and true God is a God to all the world. It is an instance of God's condescension, and an evidence that his thoughts towards us are thoughts of peace, that when he treats with men he treats by men, whose terror shall not make us afraid. 2. He again nominates him an assistant, his brother Aaron, who was not a man of uncircumcised lips, but a notable spokesman: "He shall be thy prophet," that is, "he shall speak from thee to Pharaoh, as prophets do from God to the children of men. Thou shalt, as a god, inflict and remove the plagues, and Aaron, as a prophet, shall denounce them, and threaten Pharaoh with them." 3. He tells him the worst of it, that Pharaoh would not hearken to him, and yet the work should be done at last, Israel should be delivered and God therein would be glorified, Exo 7:4, Exo 7:5. The Egyptians, who would not know the Lord, should be made to know him. Note, It is, and ought to be, satisfaction enough to God's messengers that, whatever contradiction and opposition may be given them, thus far they shall gain their point, that God will be glorified in the success of their embassy, and all his chosen Israel will be saved, and then they have no reason to say that they have laboured in vain. See here, (1.) How God glorifies himself; he makes people know that he is Jehovah. Israel is made to know it by the performance of his promises to them (Exo 6:3), and the Egyptians are made to know it by the pouring out of his wrath upon them. Thus God's name is exalted both in those that are saved and in those that perish. (2.) What method he takes to do this: he humbles the proud, and exalts the poor, Luk 1:51, Luk 1:52. If God stretch out his hand to sinners in vain, he will at last stretch out his hand upon them; and who can bear the weight of it?
II. Moses and Aaron apply themselves to their work without further objection: They did as the Lord commanded them, Exo 7:6. Their obedience, all things considered, was well worthy to be celebrated, as it is by the Psalmist (Psa 105:28), They rebelled not against his word, namely, Moses and Aaron, whom he mentions, v. 26. Thus Jonah, though at first he was very averse, at length went to Nineveh. Notice is taken of the age of Moses and Aaron when they undertook this glorious service. Aaron the elder (and yet the inferior in office) was eighty-three, Moses was eighty; both of them men of great gravity and experience, whose age was venerable, and whose years might teach wisdom, v. 7. Joseph, who was to be only a servant to Pharaoh, was preferred at thirty years old; but Moses, who was to be a god to Pharaoh, was not so dignified until he was eighty years old. It was fit that he should long wait for such an honour, and be long in preparing for such a service.
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 vv1–25 And the Lord said unto Moses,.... In answer to…
And the Lord said unto Moses,.... In answer to his objection, taken from his own meanness, and the majesty of Pharaoh, and from his want of readiness and freedom of expression:
see; take notice of, observe what I am about to say:
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I have made thee a god to Pharaoh; not a god by nature, but made so; he was so by commission and office, clothed with power and authority from God to act under him in all things he should direct; not for ever, as angels are gods, but for a time; not in an ordinary way, as magistrates are gods, but in an extraordinary manner; and not to any other but to Pharaoh, being an ambassador of God to him, and as in his room and stead to, rule over him, though so great a monarch; to command him what he should do, and control him when he did wrong, and punish him for his disobedience, and inflict such plagues upon him, and do such miracles before him, as no mere man of himself, and none but God can do; and even exercise the power of life and death, as in the slaying of the firstborn, that Pharaoh should stand in as much fear of him, as if he was a deity, and apply to him to remove the plagues upon him, as if he was one:
and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet; to declare the will of God revealed to him by Moses from the Lord; so that this seems to be more than to be the mouth and spokesman of Moses and interpreter and explainer of his words, or to be acting the part of an orator for him; for Moses in this affair being God's viceregent, and furnished with a knowledge of the mind and will of God respecting it, as well as with power to work miracles, and inflict plagues, was made a god to both Pharaoh and Aaron; see Exo 4:6 to Pharaoh in the sense before explained, and to Aaron, he being his prophet, to whom he communicated the secrets of God, and his will and pleasure, in order to make the same known to Pharaoh. Thus highly honoured was Moses to be a god to a sovereign prince, and to have Aaron to be his prophet.
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, 7, 9, 10, 11, 13, 20, 22, 25 In this chapter,
In this chapter,
I. Moses applies himself to the execution of his commission, ver. 1-7.
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II. The dispute between Moses and Pharaoh begins. Moses in God's name demands Israel's release, Pharaoh denies it; the contest is between the power of the great God and the power of a proud prince.
1. Moses confirms the demand he made to Pharaoh by a miracle, turning his rod into a serpent, but Pharaoh hardens his heart, ver. 8-13.
2. He chastiseth his disobedience by a plague, the first of ten, turning the waters into blood; but Pharaoh hardens his heart again, ver. 14-25.
I have made thee a God to Pharaoh - That is, my representative in this affair, as magistrates are called gods, because they are God's vicegerents. He was authorized to speak and act in God's name, and endued with a divine power, to do that which is above the ordinary course of nature. And Aaron shall be thy prophet - That is, he shall speak from thee to Pharaoh, as prophets do from God to the children of men. Thou shalt as a God inflict and remove the plagues, and Aaron as a prophet shall denounce them.
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, 3, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 25 The dignified mission of Moses and Aaron to Pharaoh-the…
CHAPTER VII
The dignified mission of Moses and Aaron to Pharaoh-the one to be
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as God, the other as a prophet of the Most High, 1, 2.
The prediction that Pharaoh's heart should be hardened, that God
might multiply his signs and wonders in Egypt, that the inhabitants
might know he alone was the true God, 3-4.
The age of Moses and Aaron, 7.
God gives them directions how they should act before Pharaoh, 5, 9.
Moses turns his rod into a serpent, 10.
The magicians imitate this miracle, and Pharaoh's heart is hardened,
11-13.
Moses is commanded to wait upon Pharaoh next morning when he should
come to the river, and threaten to turn the waters into blood if he
did not let the people go, 14-18.
The waters in all the land of Egypt are turned into blood, 19, 20.
The fish die, 21.
The magicians imitate this, and Pharaoh's heart is again hardened,
22, 23.
The Egyptians sorely distressed because of the bloody waters, 24.
This plague endures seven days, 25.
NOTES ON CHAP. VII
Verse 1. I have made thee a god] At thy word every plague shall come, and at thy command each shall be removed. Thus Moses must have appeared as a god to Pharaoh.
Shall be thy prophet.] Shall receive the word from thy mouth, and communicate it to the Egyptian king, Ex 7:2.
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, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 18, 19, 20, 22, 24, 25 Exo 7:1. A god to Pharaoh — That is,…
Exo 7:1. A god to Pharaoh — That is, my representative in this affair, as magistrates are called gods, because they are God’s vicegerents. He was authorized to speak and act in God’s name, and endued with a divine power, to do that which is above the ordinary course of nature. And Aaron shall be thy prophet — That is, he shall speak from thee to Pharaoh, as prophets do from God to the children of men. Thou shalt as a god inflict and remove the plagues, and Aaron as a prophet shall denounce them.
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 vv1, 3, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 18, 19, 21, 25 With this chapter begins the series of miracles performed…
With this chapter begins the series of miracles performed in Egypt. They are progressive. The first miracle is performed to accredit the mission of the brothers; it is simply credential, and unaccompanied by any infliction. Then come signs which show that the powers of nature are subject to the will of Yahweh, each plague being attended with grave consequences to the Egyptians, yet not inflicting severe loss or suffering; then in rapid succession come ruinous and devastating plagues, murrain, boils, hail and lightning, locusts, darkness, and lastly, the death of the firstborn. Each of the inflictions has a demonstrable connection with Egyptian customs and phenomena; each is directly aimed at some Egyptian superstition; all are marvelous, not, for the most part, as reversing, but as developing forces inherent in nature, and directing them to a special end. The effects correspond with these characteristics; the first miracles are neglected; the following plagues first alarm, and then for a season, subdue, the king, who does not give way until his firstborn is struck. Even that blow leaves him capable of a last effort, which completes his ruin, and the deliverance of the Israelites.
I have made thee a god - Or “appointed thee.” See the margin reference. Moses will stand in this special relation to Pharaoh, that God will address him by a prophet, i. e. by one appointed to speak in His name. The passage is an important one as illustrating the primary and essential characteristic of a prophet, he is the declarer of God’s will and purpose.
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, 3, 10, 11, 12, 17, 18, 21, 22 The God of Pharao, viz., to be his Judge;…
The God of Pharao, viz., to be his Judge; and to exercise a divine power, as God’s instrument, over him and people. (Challoner) --- Artapanus says, Moses was afterwards adored by the Egyptians. --- Prophet, or interpreter. Thou shalt reveal my orders to him. (Calmet) --- Moses participated in the divine nature, as judge, priest, prophet, &c. (Worthington)
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 v8 The miracles of Moses, or the result of the…
SECOND SECTION
The miracles of Moses, or the result of the nine Egyptian Plagues, preliminary to the last. Pharaoh’s alternate repentance and obduracy
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Exo_7:8 to Exo_10:29
A.—Moses’ miraculous rod and the Egyptian magicians. The first plague inflicted with the rod: change of the water into blood
Exo_7:8-25
8And Jehovah spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying, 9When Pharaoh shall speak unto you, saying, Shew a miracle for you [yourselves]: then thou shalt say unto Aaron, Take thy rod, and cast it before Pharaoh, and it shall become [let it become] a serpent. 10And Moses and Aaron went in unto Pharaoh, and they did so as Jehovah had commanded: and Aaron cast down his rod before Pharaoh, and 11before his servants, and it became a serpent. Then [And] Pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers: now [and] the magicians of Egypt, they also did in 12like manner with their enchantments [secret arts]. For [And] they cast down every man his rod, and they became serpents; but Aaron’s rod swallowed up their rods. 13And he hardened Pharaoh’s heart [Pharaoh’s heart was hardened]1, that 14[and] he hearkened not unto them, as Jehovah had said. And Jehovah said unto Moses, Pharaoh’s heart is hardened [hard]2, he refuseth to let the people go. 15Get thee unto Pharaoh in the morning; lo, he goeth out unto the water; and thou shalt stand by the river’s brink against he come [to meet him]; and the rod which was turned to a serpent shalt thou take in thine [thy] hand. 16And thou shalt say unto him, Jehovah, God [the God] of the Hebrews hath sent me unto thee, saying, Let my people go, that they may serve me in the wilderness: and, behold, hitherto 17thou wouldest not hear [hast not heard, i.e., obeyed]. Thus saith Jehovah, In this thou shalt know that I am Jehovah: behold, I will smite with the rod that is in mine [my] hand upon the waters which are in the river, and they shall be turned to blood. 18And the fish that is in the river shall die, and the river shall stink; and 19the Egyptians shall loathe to drink of [drink] the water of [from] the river. And Jehovah spake [said] unto Moses, Say unto Aaron, Take thy rod, and stretch out thine [thy] hand upon the waters of Egypt, upon their streams, upon their rivers [canals],3 upon their ponds, and upon all their pools of water, that they may become blood; and that there may [and there shall] be blood throughout all the land of Egypt, both in vessels of wood, and in vessels of stone. 20And Moses and Aaron did so, as Jehovah commanded; and he lifted up the rod, and smote the waters that were in the river, in the sight of Pharaoh, and in the sight of his servants; and all the waters that were in the river were turned to blood. 21And the fish that was in the river died; and the river stank; and the Egyptians could not drink of [drink] the water of [from] the river; and there was blood throughout all the land of Egypt. 22And the magicians of Egypt did so with their enchantments [secret arts]: and Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, neither did he [and he did not] hearken unto them; as Jehovah had said. 23And Pharaoh turned and went into his house, neither did he [and he did not] set his heart to this also [even to this].4 24And all the Egyptians digged round about the river for water to drink; for they could not drink of the water of the riExo Exo_7:25 And seven days were fulfilled, after that Jehovah had smitten the river.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
[Exo_7:13. The same form here, יֶחֱזַק, as in Exo_7:22, where the A. V. correctly renders it intransitively. Literally, “was firm, or strong,” i.e., unyielding, unimpressible.—Tr.].
[Exo_7:14. The Hebrew has here a different word, כָּבֵד. Literally, ‘heavy’—the same word which Moses used respecting his tongue, Exo_4:10.—Tr.].
[Exo_7:19. יְאֹרֵיהֶם, plural of the word which is used almost exclusively of the Nile. Here probably it signifies the artificial canals leading from the Nile—Tr.].
[Exo_7:23. Or, according to the English idiom: “nor did he lay even this to heart.”—Tr.].
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
On the whole series of Egyptian plagues, see the Introduction. But we reckon not nine plagues (with Keil), but ten, as a complete number symbolizing the history of the visitation. Moses’ miraculous rod forms the prologue to it; the destruction of Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea, the epilogue.
1. Moses’ miraculous rod in contest with the divining rods of the Egyptian wise men, Exo_7:8-13.
Exo_7:8-9. Shew a miracle for yourselves.—It is a general assumption, shared also by the Egyptians, that an ambassador of God must attest his mission by signs, miraculous signs. Take thy rod.—Aaron’s rod is Moses’ rod, which, however, passes over into his hand, as Moses’ word into his mouth.—A serpent. The Hebrew is תַּנִּין. LXX. δράκων. According to Keil the expression is selected with reference to the Egyptian snake-charmers. He says, “Comp. Bochart, Hieroz. III., p. 162 sqq., ed. Rosenmüler; and Hengstenberg, Egypt and the Books, etc., p. 100 sqq. Probably the Israelites in Egypt designated by תַּנִּין, which occurs in Deu_32:33; Psa_91:13, in parallelism with פֶּתֶן, the snake with which the Egyptian serpent-charmers chiefly carry on their business, the Hayeh of the Arabs.” Of the so-called Psylli it is only known that they are able to put serpents into a rigid state, and in this sense to transform them into sticks. This then is the natural fact in relation and opposition to which the sign, by which Moses attested his mission, stands. The relation between the mysterious miracle of Moses and the symbolical development of it is rather difficult to define.
Exo_7:11. “These sorcerers (מְכַשְּׁפִים), whom the Apostle Paul, according to the Jewish legend, names Jannes and Jambres (2Ti_3:8), were not common jugglers, but חֲכָמִים, wise men,… and חַרְטֻמִּיםἱερογραμματεῖς, belonging to the caste of priests, Gen_41:8” (Keil).
Exo_7:12-13. Exo_7:13 does not stand in direct relation to the close of Exo_7:12. The hardening of Pharaoh cannot well relate to the fact that Aaron’s rod swallowed up the rods of the sorcerers, although this is probably to be understood metaphorically, but to the fact that the Egyptian sorcerers do the same thing as Aaron does. The essential difference between the acts of God and the demoniacal false miracles is not obvious to the world and the worldly tyrants.
2. The transformation of the water of the Nile into blood, Exo_7:14-25.
Exo_7:15. Lo, he goeth out unto the water. To worship the Nile.
Exo_7:17. “The transformation of the water into blood is, according to Joe_3:4 [2:31], according to which the moon is changed into blood, to be conceived as a blood-red coloring by which it acquired the appearance of blood (2Ki_3:22), not as a chemical transformation into real blood. According to the reports of many travellers, the Nile water, when lowest, changes its color, becomes greenish and almost undrinkable, whereas, when rising, it becomes red, of an ochre hue, and then begins to be more wholesome. The causes of this change have not yet been properly investigated” (Keil). Two causes are alleged: the red earth in Sennaar, or, according to Ehrenberg, microscopic infusoria. Even the Rhine furnishes a feeble analogue. The heightening of the natural event into a miraculous one lies in the prediction of its sudden occurrence and in its magnitude, so that the red Nile water instead of becoming more wholesome assumes deadly or injurious properties.
Exo_7:19. That blood should come into all the ramifications of the water, even to the stone and woodeu vessels, is evidently the result of the previous reddening of the Nile. Kurtz exaggerates the miracle by inverting the order of the reddening of the water. His notion is refuted by Keil, p. 479.5
Exo_7:22. How could the Egyptian sorcerers do the like, when the water had already been all changed to blood? Kurtz says, they took well-water. But see Keil in reply.6 According to the scriptural representation of such miracles of darkness, they knew how, by means of lying tricks, to produce the appearance of having made the water. In this case it was not difficult, if they also used incantations, and the reddening of the water subsequently increased.
Exo_7:25. Seven days were fulfilled. The duration of the plague. The beginning of the plague is by many placed in June or July, “according to which view all the plagues up to the killing of the first-born, which occurred in the night of the 14th of Abib, i.e., about the middle of April, must have occurred in the course of about nine months. Yet this assumption is very insecure, and only so much is tolerably certain, that the seventh plague (of the hail) took place in February (see on Exo_9:31 sq.)” (Keil). Clearly, however, the natural basis of the miraculous plagues is a chain of causes and effects.
Footnotes:
[1][Exo_7:13. The same form here, יֶחֱזַק, as in Exo_7:22, where the A. V. correctly renders it intransitively. Literally, “was firm, or strong,” i.e., unyielding, unimpressible.—Tr.].
[2][Exo_7:14. The Hebrew has here a different word, כָּבֵד. Literally, ‘heavy’—the same word which Moses used respecting his tongue, Exo_4:10.—Tr.].
[3][Exo_7:19. יְאֹרֵיהֶם, plural of the word which is used almost exclusively of the Nile. Here probably it signifies the artificial canals leading from the Nile—Tr.].
[4][Exo_7:23. Or, according to the English idiom: “nor did he lay even this to heart.”—Tr.].
[5][The point made by Keil is that, according to Kurtz’s theory, the vessels of wood and of stone ought to have been mentioned immediately after the “pools of water.”—Tr.].
[6][The reply made by Keil (and a very pertinent one) is that if the Egyptians already had well water there would have been no need of their digging wells (Exo_7:24) in order to obtain drinkable water. Keil understands that the phrases in Exo_7:19 are not to be interpreted so strictly as to imply that absolutely all water, even what had already been taken from the Nile before the miracle, was turned into blood. Murphy and Kalisch prefer to assume that the magicians dug wells, and practiced their arts on the water drawn from them.—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 vv3, 4, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 17, 22 I will harden Pharaoh's heart--This would be the result.…
I will harden Pharaoh's heart--This would be the result. But the divine message would be the occasion, not the cause of the king's impenitent obduracy.
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, 3, 4, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 19, 20, 22, 25 1. I have made thee a god to Pharaoh…
1. I have made thee a god to Pharaoh — No more was he to come to Pharaoh as a suppliant, but now he was invested with divine authority. To Aaron, Moses was a revealer of God’s will, (Exo_4:16,) but to Pharaoh he was now to appear clothed with God’s power. Hitherto he had been an advocate, a mediator, and in that position had painfully felt the embarrassment of his slowness of speech; but now his deeds were to speak, and, armed with Jehovah’s thunders, he was to smite down the gods of Egypt. Thus, then, the Lord replies to Moses’s despairing plea — “See, I have made thee a god!” Pharaoh had refused to glorify God by obedience to Moses as a messenger of his mercy; now shall he glorify him by submitting to Moses as a messenger of his wrath. The results of these threatened judgments are now predicted.
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, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23 1. a god] Cf. the parallel in J, Exo_4:16.…
1. a god] Cf. the parallel in J, Exo_4:16. Moses is to be as it were a god unto Aaron; and Aaron, like a prophet (Deu_18:18, Jer_1:9), to speak the words which his god puts into his mouth.
1, 2. As Moses is unable to speak fluently, Aaron is appointed to be his spokesman with Pharaoh, just as in J (Exo_4:15 f.) he was appointed to be his spokesman with the people.
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, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 (1) See, I have made thee a god to…
VII.
(1) See, I have made thee a god to Pharaoh . . . —This is God’s answer to the objection of Moses that his lips were uncircumcised (Exo_6:12), and probably followed it immediately. The force of it would seem to be: “Thou art not called on to speak, but to act. In action thou wilt be to Pharaoh as a god—powerful, wonder-working, irresistible; it is Aaron who will have to speak to him, and he is eloquent” (Exo_4:14).
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Thy prophet.—Or spokesman—the declarer of thy mind, which is the primary sense of “prophet.”
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, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 Vers. 1-9. Once more God made allowance for the…
Vers. 1-9. Once more God made allowance for the weakness and self-distrust of Moses, severely tried as he had been by his former failure to persuade Pharaoh (Exo_5:1-5) and his recent rejection by the people of Israel. (Exo_6:9) He made allowance, and raised his courage and his spirits by fresh promises, and by a call upon him for immediate action. The process of deliverance, God assured him, was just about to begin. Miracles would be wrought until Pharaoh"s stubbornness was overcome. He was himself to begin the series at once by casting his rod upon the ground, that it might become a serpent (ver. 9). From this point Moses" diffidence wholly disappears. Once launched upon his Heaven-directed course, assured of his miraculous powers, committed to a struggle with the powerful Egyptian king, he persevered without blenching or wavering until success crowned his efforts.
I have made thee a god to Pharaoh. Moses was diffident of appearing a second time before Pharaoh, who was so much his worldly superior. God reminds him that he is in truth very much Pharaoh"s superior. If Pharaoh has earthly, he has unearthly power. He is to Pharaoh "as a god," with a right to command his obedience, and with strength to enforce his commands. Aaron shall be thy prophet, i.e. "thy spokesman the interpreter of thy will to others. Compare Exo_4:16.
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HOMILETICS.
Vers. 1, 2. God assigns to each man his intellectual grade.
Three different intellectual grades are here set before us that of the thinker, that of the expounder, and that of the mere recipient. Pharaoh, notwithstanding his exalted earthly rank, occupies the lowest position. He is to hang on the words of Aaron, who is to be to him as a prophet of the Most High. Aaron himself is to hang on the words of Moses, and to be simply his mouthpiece. Moses is to stand to both (compare Exo_4:16) as God. And here note, that the positions are not self-assumed God assigns them. So there are leaders of thought in all ages, to whom God has given their intellectual gifts, whom he has marked out for intellectual pre-eminency, and whom he makes to stand to the rest of men as gods. Sometimes they are their own prophets they combine, that is, the power of utterance with the power of thought. But very often they need an interpreter. Their lips are uncircumcised. They lack eloquence; or they even lack the power of putting their thoughts into words, and require a "prophet," to publish their views to the world. The "prophet-interpreter" occupies a position very much below theirs, but still one requiring important and peculiar gifts, such as God alone can give. He must have the intelligence to catch the true bearing, connection, and force of the ideas presented to him, often in rude and uncouth language, like statues rough-hewn. He must be able to work up the rough material into presentable form. He must have a gift of language, if not a gift of speech. The great mass of men occupy a lower rank than either of these; they can neither originate, nor skilfully interpret; it remains that they be content to receive. God has given to them their humble position, as he has given to the others their loftier ones. They should cultivate their receptivity. They should be satisfied to listen and learn. They should remember that if, on the one hand, outov meristov o aujtonta nohshon the other, ejsqlonti piqhtai
HOMILIES BY J. ORR Vers. 1-8. A god to Pharaoh.
Moses was in the trying position of being sent out anew upon a mission in which hitherto he had not had the slightest particle of success. His discouragement was natural. Pharaoh, on a previous occasion, had repulsed him. He had lost the ear even of his own people. The situation, since his former interview with the monarch, had altered for the worse. To proceed further was like rowing against wind and tide, with little prospect of ever reaching shore. Discouragement wrought in the usual way. It led him to magnify difficulties. He brought up again his old objection of his deficiencies of speech. Even with Aaron as an intermediary, he felt how awkward it would be to appear in the presence of Pharaoh, and not be able to deliver his own message. His inability of speech would certainly, he thought, expose him to contempt. Yet observe, God forebore with him. His reluctance was not without sin, but God, who knows our frame, does not expect to find in us all at once the perfection of angels, and is compassionate of our weakness. We have here, therefore
I A DISHEARTENED SERVANT SUITABLY ENCOURAGED. God told Moses
1. That he would clothe him with an authority which even Pharaoh would be compelled to respect. "See, I have made thee a god to Pharaoh" (ver. 1). It was not with words only that Moses was sent to Pharaoh. Powers would be given him to enforce his words with deeds. The judgments he would bring upon the land would clothe him with a supernatural terror make him a superhuman and almost a divine person in the eyes of Pharaoh and his servants. (cf. Exo_12:3) So God gives attestation to his servants still, making it evident by the power of the Holy Ghost upon them, that they come in his name, and speak with his authority. He accompanies their word with Divine power, giving it efficacy to arrest, convict, and convert, and compelling the haughtiest of the earth to acknowledge the source of their message. So Felix trembled before Paul. (Act_24:25) Paul"s Gospel came to the Thessalonians, "not in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance". (1Th_1:5)
2 That the work of deliverance would be no longer delayed. This also was implied in what God said to Moses: the time had come for speech to be exchanged for action. Everything indicated that the "charge" with which Moses was now entrusted was to be the final one. It should encourage desponding servants to reflect that God has his "set time" for the fulfilment of every promise; and that, when this period arrives, all their mourning will be turned into joy.
II THE COURSE OF ISRAEL"S DELIVERANCE FORETOLD.
1. Foretold because foreseen. It is God"s prerogative that he knows the end from the beginning. (Isa_42:9) Nothing can take him by surprise. He knows all the way his purposes are to travel. The whole future lies mapped out, as in a clear-drawn chart, before him.
2 Foreseen because pre-ordained. God, like Christ in the miracle of the loaves, knew in himself what he would do. (Joh_6:6) Nothing was left to chance in his arrangements. The steps in his plan were fixed beforehand. What would be done would be according to God"s "determinate counsel and foreknowledge" Act_2:23) would be "whatsoever (his) hand and (his) counsel determined before to be done". (Act_4:28) The deliverance was arranged in such a way as most to glorify the power and greatness of the Deliverer, and demonstrate his superiority to heathen idols. This in no wise implies that violence was in the very least done to human freedom, though it suggests that God can so interweave the volitions of men, in the situations in which he places them, into his purposes, as to leave not one of them outside his settled plan. The chief difficulty is in the hardening of Pharaoh"s heart, here (ver. 3) represented as an ordained link in the chain of God"s designs. But if this hardening simply means that God will place Pharaoh, already a bad man, in circumstances which he knows infallibly will harden his heart, and if this is done justly, and in punishment of former sins, the hardening taking effect through unalterable laws of the moral nature, which also are of God"s ordainment, it is difficult to see what righteous objection can be taken to it.
3 Foretold for wise ends. Similar predictions of the course of the deliverance had been made at earlier stages. (cf. Exo_3:19-22 Exo_4:21-24 Exo_6:1-9) They are here repeated
(1) For the instruction of Moses, that he might be prepared for all that was to happen that he might understand and cooperate with God in the execution of his designs.
(2) For the re-invigoration of Moses" faith.
(3) That it might be evidenced by the working-out of this fore-announced plan, that the God of Israel was indeed Jehovah, a free, personal Being, working in history for the accomplishment of gracious purposes. "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him". (Psa_25:14) God takes Moses into his counsel, and discovers to him something of his plan of operation. So he does in the Scriptures with his Church. (Rev_1:1)
II A GLIMPSE OF GOD"S END IN PROVIDENTIAL GOVERNMENT (vers. 3, 4). The end is twofold
1. The manifestation of the utterly free and unconstrained character of hisgrace and mercy in the salvation of man; and
2. What is the necessary counterpart of this, the manifestation of his powerand justice in the infliction of judgments upon his enemies. Even evil is thus made to contribute indirectly to the ultimate and eternal establishment of the righteousness of God. J.O.
HOMILIES BY H. T. ROBJOHNS Chaps. 7-10. The great conflict.
I will at this time send all my plagues," etc.: Exo_9:14. Keeping the last tremendous visitation apart, for it stands out in lone grandeur in the story, it is well to take the other nine plagues together in any homiletic, use we make of them; for
1. They have many features in common.
2. And are closely connected with one another. A landscape should not becut up, when we can see at a sweep the whole panorama. The subject, then, is Jehovah"s conflict with this great idolatrous world-power.
I THE AGENT. What was Moses? What was his Divine legation?
1. He was a patriot-deliverer, ranking with Tell, Bruce, etc. etc., as the saviour of his nation but more!
2. A statesman the creator (under God) of first a polity, and then a nation. He taught free men to govern themselves, under God. But Moses was more!
3. A prophet of the living God. Moses was intensely religious. He ranks with the greatest spiritual leaders of the world. His peer is Elijah, though Elijah was not quite equal. So great are they both that they appear on Tabor with the transfigured Lord. God, eternity, the soul, law, salvation, religion are the master motives of this great spirit. All that Moses was besides is to be traced to this deep root. The lesson is obvious: religion first then the things that accompany salvation.
II HIS DEEDS.
1. Their historic reality. Two facts certain
(1) Israel in Egypt.
(2) Israel in Canaan.
he historic problem is: How was the transition made?
(1) Kings are not in the habit of emancipating races (note! apparent exceptions William III and Revolution of 1688. Emancipation of serfs by the Russian Czar. Lincoln and the freedom of the four millions of slaves.)
(2) Israel never won its own freedom. Nor
(3) was Egypt overthrown by a foreign power, and so in the confusion Israel emerged to liberty.
(4) The Deliverer was God, and the mode, that described in the book.
2. Their exact nature. Exposition here of the miracles seriatim, with a careful note of the specialities of each. This as a foundation for the discussion of the question: Were the plagues natural or supernatural? They were either
(1) natural; or
(2) supernatural; or
(3) natural in kind,
but supernatural in degree, in circumstances and in concomitants. See Exo_10:12, 19 14:21. Our view is the last. But that the visitations were direct from the hand of God is clear from
(1) Their colossal proportions.
(2) Their concentration upon one epoch.
(3) Their relation to the moral controversy.
(4) Their gradation.
(5) Dependence on the word of Moses.
On the evidential value of the plagues, see "Speaker"s Commentary," vol. 1:241.
1. Their objective. This word here used in a military sense. What was the Divine object in these visitations? To hurl thunderbolts against the idolatries of Egypt: Exo_12:12. For detail, see Dr. Alexander"s Kitto"s Cycle., p. 75l, vol. 1:4. Their superiority to the acts of the magicians. Full discussion of the questions What the magicians really did, and how they did it, will be found in the Congregational Lectures by Rev. Walter Scott, of Airedale College, on "The Existence of Evil Spirits," 145-156. The conclusion, sustained by argument, is that they were adepts in sleight of hand. But, for homiletic purposes, show the grandeur of the scale on which Moses acted, and the imposing character of his deeds as a moral demonstration to the idolaters of Egypt.
2. Their climacteric character. When God deals with sinners, he begins afar off, and only very gradually draws near and close to their deepest life and acutest feeling. So here he touches first the river then comfort (frogs, Ice, flies) then cattle then the skin of the people then food (hail and locusts) then threatens life by the suffocating effects of the fifty days" sand-storm darkness at last life itself. "I will sing of mercy" as well as "of judgment," etc.
III HIS WORDS. Fine homiletic use may be made of the verbal controversy which went on between Moses and Pharaoh all the time of these visitations, and which increased in tragic vehemence as blow after blow descended. Note Pharaoh"s waverings, relentings, and anon persistence; and also the occasional passionate entreaties of the hardened sinner on behalf of the awestruck and repentant people. But "whom the gods purpose to destroy they first of all madden.
IV EFFECTS.
1. On the Egyptians. Leading some finally to attach themselves to the redeemed of the Lord.
2. On Moses. Called to a stupendous work. Timid. Trained to confidence in God, and obedience to his slightest word. Note! So God is ever training his servants.
3. On Israel, through Moses.
V LESSONS. The main ones of this great controversy.
1. The object of God in dealing with men. To beat down the idolatries of the human heart to reveal himself his law his salvation to reconcile men with himself.
2. The inevitable conflict, i.e. until God"s purpose be accomplished. Show the reality of this conflict in the case of every sinner. Message after message, mercy after mercy, judgment after judgment. If men will not be reconciled, then there must be antagonism; to that antagonism there can be but one end. It is in this sense that Amos challenges Israel to meet thy God, O Israel." This is the word of the Lord as "a man of war.
3. The futility of the repentance of fear. Case of Pharaoh. Case of every sinner. Fear, however, has its mission to awaken to concern. But no repentance is solid, lasting in its effect, but that which takes place in view
of the love of our Father as seen in the cross of Jesus Christ our Lord. R.
HOMILIES BY G. A. GOODHART Chaps. 7-10. The Lord, he is the God.
Egypt was a pleasant land garden of the Lord". (Gen_13:10) The river, the source of its fertility, was fenced off from desert on either side by cliff ranges canopied from morning to evening by the ever blue, bright sky. No wonder that the inhabitants should think much of such a land, that they should come to say of river, land, sky, "These be thy gods, O Egypt!" The veil of nature, which should reveal as by shadow cast on sheet may hide, the unseen God: cf. Rom_1:20. The struggle with Pharaoh shows us God asserting himself proving himself "God of gods" as well as "Lord of lords." Regarding the river as the source of fertility; the land as the sphere for fertility; the sky as the guardian of fertility see how God openly manifests the dependence of each and all on him.
I THE RIVER. "The beneficent Nile, the very life of the state and of the people" (Stanley).
(1) Middle of June season of annual overflow. To all appearance more than ever divine-Pharaoh (Exo_7:15) probably openly acknowledging its divinity. Suddenly turned into blood loathsome; no longer a source of fertility, but a source of corruption and death at the command of Jehovah, the unrecognised invisible source whence the fertilising power had been derived.
(2) Later. Subsidence of the water. The river mud seems to breed frogs. Compelled at the Divine command to fructify not grain but reptiles.
(3) Later. Even the dust of the sun-dried mud turned by Jehovah into a tormenting pest. "The river is mine, and the soil which it deposits is mine; even the very dust which it leaves is mine. Have not I, the Lord, made all these things?
II THE LAND. So far the fiver has been made to plague the land; but Jehovah needs no intermediary. He has direct power over the land also.
Exo_8:21, Exo_8:22. Swarms of flies (gnats) coming up as it were outof the ground. Yet land severed from land Goshen spared, "so that thou mayest know that I am Jehovah in the midst of the land
Exo_9:3. Murrain in the cattle the creatures most nearlyconnected with the land; identified with its prosperity; deified as its representatives at a set time, within appointed limits.
Exo_9:9. Pestilence on man and beast. The furnace-ash strewedheavenwards. The land as modified by human agency turned into a plague upon the men who used it. "The land is mine, and the cattle are mine, the very furnace-ash which ye might almost clam as self-made is mine. Have not I, the Lord, made all these things?
III THE SKY. The previous plague (Exo_9:8) "toward the heaven," seems to challenge the sky divinities. Now they also are to be proved subject.
Exo_9:22. At the word of Jehovah the protector becomes thedevastator. Clouds gather and pour out water. Pharaoh and Egypt, too, shall know that the earth belongs to no sky divinity, but to Jehovah: Exo_5:2-9.
1. 10:13. The winds, compelled into Jehovah"s service, becomecharioteers for his locust armies.
2. 10:21. The sun, source of light, chief of the gods even heis draped in darkness at the word of Jehovah. "The sky is mine with its clouds and winds, even the sun in all his glory. Have not I, the Lord, made all these things?
Application: People still forget God still, practically, deify his gifts, and so plant them as to hide the Giver of them. The world, our respectable every-day world, not unlike Egypt. Health (life, zwh), the river that fertilises it. Circumstances (life, biov), the land fertilised. Thought, intelligence, wisdom, the sky which seems to canopy and protect both. Deify them and forget the God above them, and God will yet manifest himself by strange plagues on your divinities. Your river shall be turned into blood, and your sun into darkness cf. Tennyson, "Palace of Art." These things, too health, happiness, intelligence he will surely show that he and no other has maple them all. G.
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, 5, 6, 7, 11, 14 I have made thee a god to Pharaoh.
Exo_7:1-2
I have made thee a god to Pharaoh.
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The moral position in which some men stand to others
God made Moses to be a god to Pharaoh, and Aaron to be a prophet. There are many good and noble men in the world to-day, who are gods, the instructors and rulers, of their fellow-creatures.
I. This exalted moral position is the result of divine allotment. And the Lord said unto Moses, see, I have made thee a god to Pharaoh.
II. This exalted moral position involves arduous work and terrible responsibility.
1. The true gods of society have something more to do than to amuse it. The bearing of their efforts has reference to souls, to mans life in its relation to the Infinite. A man whose highest aim is to excite the merriment of society, is too far removed from divinity to be mistaken for a god.
2. The true gods of society find their employment in communicating to men the messages of God. They come to teach us; to awaken us; to enable us to fulfil the will of God. Hence their work is arduous and responsible.
III. This exalted moral position is most efficiently employed in seeking the freedom of men. But for the slavery of Israel Moses would not have been a god unto Pharaoh. The position is the outcome of a condition of things it ought to remove. It is not for self-aggrandizement. It is to give men the freedom of a Divine salvation. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
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 v3
CHAPTER VII.
THE HARDENING OF PHARAOH'S HEART.
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Exo_7:3-13.
When Moses received his commission, at the bush, words were spoken which are now repeated with more emphasis, and which have to be considered carefully. For probably no statement of Scripture has excited fiercer criticism, more exultation of enemies and perplexity of friends, than that the Lord said, "I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and he shall not let the people go," and that in consequence of this Divine act Pharaoh sinned and suffered. Just because the words are startling, it is unjust to quote them without careful examination of the context, both in the prediction and the fulfilment. When all is weighed, compared, and harmonised, it will at last be possible to draw a just conclusion. And although it may happen long before then, that the objector will charge us with special pleading, yet he will be the special pleader himself, if he seeks to hurry us, by prejudice or passion, to give a verdict which is based upon less than all the evidence, patiently weighed.
Let us in the first place find out how soon this dreadful process began; when was it that God fulfilled His threat, and hardened, in any sense whatever, the heart of Pharaoh? Did He step in at the beginning, and render the unhappy king incapable of weighing the remonstrances which He then performed the cruel mockery of addressing to him? Were these as insincere and futile as if one bade the avalanche to pause which his own act had started down the icy slopes? Was Pharaoh as little responsible for his pursuit of Israel as his horses were--being, like them, the blind agents of a superior force? We do not find it so. In the fifth chapter, when a demand is made, without any sustaining miracle, simply appealing to the conscience of the ruler, there is no mention of any such process, despite the insults with which Pharaoh then assails both the messengers and Jehovah Himself, Whom he knows not. In the seventh chapter there is clear evidence that the process is yet unaccomplished; for, speaking of an act still future, it declares, "I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and multiply My signs and My wonders in the land of Egypt" (Exo_7:3). And this terrible act is not connected with the remonstrances and warnings of God, but entirely with the increasing pressure of the miracles.
The exact period is marked when the hand of doom closed upon the tyrant. It is not where the Authorised Version places it. When the magicians imitated the earlier signs of Moses, "his heart was strong," but the original does not bear out the assertion that at this time the Lord made it so by any judicial act of His (Exo_7:13). That only comes with the sixth plague; and the course of events may be traced, fairly well, by the help of the margin of the Revised Version.
After the plague of blood "Pharaoh's heart was strong" ("hardened"), and this is distinctly ascribed to his own action, because "he set his heart even to this" (Exo_7:22-23).
After the second plague, it was still he himself who "made his heart heavy" (Exo_8:15).
After the third plague the magicians warned him that the very finger of some god was upon him indeed: their rivalry, which hitherto might have been somewhat of a palliation for his obstinacy, was now ended; but yet "his heart was strong" (Exo_8:19).
Again, after the fourth plague he "made his heart heavy"; and it "was heavy" after the fifth plague, (Exo_8:32, Exo_9:7).
Only thenceforward comes the judicial infatuation upon him who has resolutely infatuated himself hitherto.
But when five warnings and penalties have spent their force in vain, when personal agony is inflicted in the plague of boils, and the magicians in particular cannot stand before him through their pain, would it have been proof of virtuous contrition if he had yielded then? If he had needed evidence, it was given to him long before. Submission now would have meant prudence, not penitence; and it was against prudence, not penitence, that he was hardened. Because he had resisted evidence, experience, and even the testimony of his own magicians, he was therefore stiffened against the grudging and unworthy concessions which must otherwise have been wrested from him, as a wild beast will turn and fly from fire. He was henceforth himself to become an evidence and a portent; and so "The Lord made strong the heart of Pharaoh, and he hearkened not unto them" (Exo_9:12). It was an awful doom, but it is not open to the attacks so often made upon it. It only means that for him the last five plagues were not disciplinary, but wholly penal.
Nay, it stops short of asserting even this: they might still have appealed to his reason; they were only not allowed to crush him by the agency of terror. Not once is it asserted that God hardened his heart against any nobler impulse than alarm, and desire to evade danger and death. We see clearly this meaning in the phrase, when it is applied to his army entering the Red Sea: "I will make strong the hearts of the Egyptians, and they shall go in" (Exo_14:17). It needed no greater moral turpitude to pursue the Hebrews over the sands than on the shore, but it certainly required more hardihood. But the unpursued departure which the good-will of Egypt refused, their common sense was not allowed to grant. Callousness was followed by infatuation, as even the pagans felt that whom God wills to ruin He first drives mad.
This explanation implies that to harden Pharaoh's heart was to inspire him, not with wickedness, but with nerve.
And as far as the original language helps us at all, it decidedly supports this view. Three different expressions have been unhappily rendered by the same English word, to harden; but they may be discriminated throughout the narrative in Exodus, by the margin of the Revised Version.
One word, which commonly appears without any marginal explanation, is the same which is employed elsewhere about "the cause which is too hard for" minor judges (Deu_1:17, cf. Deu_15:18, etc.). Now, this word is found (Exo_7:13) in the second threat that "I will harden Pharaoh's heart," and in the account which was to be given to posterity of how "Pharaoh hardened himself to let us go" (Exo_13:15). And it is said likewise of Sihon, king of Heshbon, that he "would not let us pass by him, for the Lord thy God hardened his spirit and made his heart strong" (Deu_2:30). But since it does not occur anywhere in all the narrative of what God actually did with Pharaoh, it is only just to interpret this phrase in the prediction by what we read elsewhere of the manner of its fulfilment.
The second word is explained in the margin as meaning to make strong. Already God had employed it when He said "I will make strong his heart" (Exo_4:21), and this is the term used of the first fulfilment of the menace, after the sixth plague (Exo_9:12). God is not said to interfere again after the seventh, which had few special terrors for Pharaoh himself; but from henceforth the expression "to make strong" alternates with the phrase "to make heavy." "Go in unto Pharaoh, for I have made heavy his heart and the heart of his servants, that I might show these My signs in the midst of them" (Exo_10:1).
It may be safely assumed that these two expressions cover between them all that is asserted of the judicial action of God in preventing a recoil of Pharaoh from his calamities. Now, the strengthening of a heart, however punitive and disastrous when a man's will is evil (just as the strengthening of his arm is disastrous then), has in itself no immorality inherent. It is a thing as often good as bad,--as when Israel and Joshua are exhorted to "Be strong and of a good courage" (Deu_31:6-7, Deu_31:23), and when the angel laid his hand upon Daniel and said, "Be strong, yea, be strong" (Dan_10:19). In these passages the phrase is identical with that which describes the process by which Pharaoh was prevented from cowering under the tremendous blows he had provoked.
The other expression is to make heavy or dull. Thus "the eyes of Israel were heavy with age" (Gen_48:10), and as we speak of a weight of honour, equally with the heaviness of a dull man, so we are twice commanded, "Make heavy (honour) thy father and thy mother"; and the Lord declares, "I will make Myself heavy (get Me honour) upon Pharaoh" (Deu_5:16, Exo_20:12, Exo_14:4, Exo_14:17-18). In these latter references it will be observed that the making "strong" the heart of Pharaoh, and the making "Myself heavy" are so connected as almost to show a design of indicating how far is either expression from conveying the notion of immorality, infused into a human heart by God. For one of the two phrases which have been thus interpreted is still applied to Pharaoh; but the other (and the more sinister, as we should think, when thus applied) is appropriated by God to Himself: He makes Himself heavy.
It is also a curious and significant coincidence that the same word was used of the burdens that were made heavy when first they claimed their freedom, which is now used of the treatment of the heart of their oppressor (Exo_5:9).
It appears, then, that the Lord is never said to debauch Pharaoh's heart, but only to strengthen it against prudence and to make it dull; that the words used do not express the infusion of evil passion, but the animation of a resolute courage, and the overclouding of a natural discernment; and, above all, that every one of the three words, to make hard, to make strong, and to make heavy, is employed to express Pharaoh's own treatment of himself, before it is applied to any work of God, as actually taking place already.
Nevertheless, there is a solemn warning for all time, in the assertion that what he at first chose, the vengeance of God afterward chose for him. For indeed the same process, working more slowly but on identical lines, is constantly seen in the hardening effect of vicious habit. The gambler did not mean to stake all his fortune upon one chance, when first he timidly laid down a paltry stake; nor has he changed his mind since then as to the imprudence of such a hazard. The drunkard, the murderer himself, is a man who at first did evil as far as he dared, and afterwards dared to do evil which he would once have shuddered at.
Let no man assume that prudence will always save him from ruinous excess, if respect for righteousness cannot withhold him from those first compliances which sap the will, destroy the restraint of self-respect, wear away the horror of great wickedness by familiarity with the same guilt in its lesser phases, and, above all, forfeit the enlightenment and calmness of judgment which come from the Holy Spirit of God, Who is the Spirit of wisdom and of counsel, and makes men to be of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord.
Let no man think that the fear of damnation will bring him to the mercy-seat at last, if the burden and gloom of being "condemned already" cannot now bend his will. "Even as they refused to have God in their knowledge, God gave them up unto a reprobate mind" (Rom_1:28). "I gave them My statutes and showed them My judgments, which if a man do, he shall even live in them.... I gave them statutes that were not good, and judgments wherein they should not live" (Eze_20:11, Exo_20:25).
This is the inevitable law, the law of a confused and darkened judgment, a heart made heavy and ears shut, a conscience seared, an infatuated will kicking against the pricks, and heaping to itself wrath against the day of wrath. Wilful sin is always a challenge to God, and it is avenged by the obscuring of the lamp of God in the soul. Now, a part of His guiding light is prudence; and it is possible that men who will not be warned by the fear of injury to their conscience, such as they suppose that Pharaoh suffered, may be sobered by the danger of such derangement of their intellectual efficiency as really befel him.
In this sense men are, at last, impelled blindly to their fate (and this is a judicial act of God, although it comes in the course of nature), but first they launch themselves upon the slope which grows steeper at every downward step, until arrest is impossible.
On the other hand, every act of obedience helps to release the will from its entanglement, and to clear the judgment which has grown dull, anointing the eyes with eye-salve that they may see. Not in vain is the assertion of the bondage of the sinner and the glorious liberty of the children of God.
A second time, then, Moses presented himself before Pharaoh with his demands; and, as he had been forewarned, he was now challenged to give a sign in proof of his commission from a god.
And the demand was treated as reasonable; a sign was given, and a menacing one. The peaceable rod of the shepherd, a fit symbol of the meek man who bore it, became a serpent[10] before the king, as Moses was to become destructive to his realm. But when the wise men of Egypt and the enchanters were called, they did likewise; and although a marvel was added which incontestably declared the superior power of the Deity Whom Aaron represented, yet their rivalry sufficed to make strong the heart of Pharaoh, and he would not let the people go. The issue was now knit: the result would be more signal than if the quarrel were decided at one blow, and upon all the gods of Egypt the Lord would exercise vengeance.
What are we to think of the authentification of a religion by a sign? Beyond doubt, Jesus recognised this aspect of His own miracles, when He said, "If I had not done among them the works that none other man did, they had not had sin" (Joh_15:24). And yet there is reason in the objection that no amount of marvel ought to deflect by one hair's breadth our judgment of right and wrong, and the true appeal of a religion must be to our moral sense.
No miracle can prove that immoral teaching is sacred. But it can prove that it is supernatural. And this is precisely what Scripture always proclaims. In the New Testament, we are bidden to take heed, because a day will come, when false prophets shall work great signs and wonders, to deceive, if possible, even the elect (Mar_13:22). In the Old Testament, a prophet may seduce the people to worship other gods, by giving them a sign or a wonder which shall come to pass, but they must surely stone him: they must believe that his sign is only a temptation; and above whatever power enabled him to work it, they must recognise Jehovah proving them, and know that the supernatural has come to them in judgment, not in revelation (Deu_13:1-5).
Now, this is the true function of the miraculous. At the most, it cannot coerce the conscience, but only challenge it to consider and to judge.
A teacher of the purest morality may be only a human teacher still; nor is the Christian bound to follow into the desert every clamorous innovator, or to seek in the secret chamber every one who whispers a private doctrine to a few. We are entitled to expect that one who is commissioned directly from above will bear special credentials with him; but when these are exhibited, we must still judge whether the document they attest is forged. And this may explain to us why the magicians were allowed for awhile to perplex the judgment of Pharaoh whether by fraud, as we may well suppose, or by infernal help. It was enough that Moses should set his claims upon a level with those which Pharaoh reverenced: the king was then bound to weigh their relative merits in other and wholly different scales.
THE PLAGUES.
Exo_7:14.
There are many aspects in which the plagues of Egypt may be contemplated.
We may think of them as ranging through all nature, and asserting the mastery of the Lord alike over the river on which depended the prosperity of the realm, over the minute pests which can make life more wretched than larger and more conspicuous ills (the frogs of the water, the reptiles that disgrace humanity, and the insects that infest the air), over the bodies of animals stricken with murrain, and those of man tortured with boils, over hail in the cloud and blight in the crop, over the breeze that bears the locust and the sun that grows dark at noon, and at last over the secret springs of human life itself.
No pantheistic creed (and the Egyptian religion struck its roots deep into pantheistic speculation) could thus completely exalt God above nature, as a superior and controlling Power, not one with the mighty wheels of the universe, of which the height is terrible, but, as Ezekiel saw Him, enthroned above them in the likeness of fire, and yet in the likeness of humanity.
No idolatrous creed, however powerful be its conception of one god of the hills and another of the valleys, could thus represent a single deity as wielding all the arrows of adverse fortune, able to assail us from earth and sky and water, formidable alike in the least things and in the greatest. And presently the demonstration is completed, when at His bidding the tempest heaps up the sea, and at His frown the waters return to their strength again.
And no philosophic theory condescends to bring the Ideal, the Absolute, and the Unconditioned, into such close and intimate connection with the frog-spawn of the ditch and the blain upon the tortured skin.
We may, with ample warrant from Scripture, make the controversial application still more simple and direct, and think of the plagues as wreaking vengeance, for the worship they had usurped and the cruelties they had sanctioned, upon all the gods of Egypt, which are conceived of for the moment as realities, and as humbled, if not in fact, yet in the sympathies of priest and worshipper (Exo_12:12).
Then we shall see the domain of each impostor invaded, and every vaunted power to inflict evil or to remove it triumphantly wielded by Him Who proves His equal mastery over all, and thus we shall find here the justification of that still bolder personification which says, "Worship Him, all ye gods" (Psa_97:7).
The Nile had a sacred name, and was adored as "Hapee, or Hapee Mu, the Abyss, or the Abyss of Waters, or the Hidden," and the king was frequently portrayed standing between two images of this god, his throne wreathed with water-lilies. The second plague struck at the goddess HEKT, whose head was that of a frog. The uncleanness of the third plague deranged the whole system of Egyptian worship, with its punctilious and elaborate purifications. In every one there is either a presiding divinity attacked, or a blow dealt upon the priesthood or the sacrifice, or a sphere invaded which some deity should have protected, until the sun himself is darkened, the great god RA, to whom their sacred city was dedicated, and whose name is incorporated in the title of his earthly representative, the Pharaoh or PH-RA. Then at last, after all these premonitions, the deadly blow struck home.
Or we may think of the plagues as retributive, and then we shall discover a wonderful suitability in them all. It was a direful omen that the first should afflict the nation through the river, into which, eighty years before, the Hebrew babes had been cast to die, which now rolled bloody, and seemed to disclose its dead. It was fit that the luxurious homes of the oppressors should become squalid as the huts of the slaves they trampled; that their flesh should suffer torture worse than that of the whips they used so unmercifully; that the loss of crops and cattle should bring home to them the hardships of the poor who toiled for their magnificence; that physical darkness should appal them with vague terrors and undefined apprehensions, such as ever haunt the bosom of the oppressed, whose life is the sport of a caprice; and at last that the aged should learn by the deathbed of the prop and pride of their declining feebleness, and the younger feel beside the cradle of the first blossom and fruit of love, all the agony of such bereavement as they had wantonly inflicted on the innocent.
And since the fear of disadvantage in war had prompted the murder of the Hebrew children, it was right that the retributive blow should destroy first their children and then their men of war.
When we come to examine the plagues in detail, we discover that it is no arbitrary fancy which divides them into three triplets, leading up to the appalling tenth. Thus the first, fourth, and seventh, each of which begins a triplet, are introduced by a command to Moses to warn Pharaoh "in the morning" (Exo_7:15), or "early in the morning" (Exo_8:20, Exo_9:13). The third, sixth and ninth, on the contrary, are inflicted without any warning whatever. The story of the third plague closes with the defeat of the magicians, the sixth with their inability to stand before the king, and the ninth with the final rupture, when Moses declares, "Thou shalt see my face no more" (Exo_8:19, Exo_9:11, Exo_10:29).
The first three are plagues of loathsomeness--blood-stained waters, frogs and lice; the next three bring actual pain and loss with them--stinging flies, murrain which afflicts the beasts, and boils upon all the Egyptians; and the third triplet are "nature-plagues"--hail, locusts and darkness. It is only after the first three plagues that the immunity of Israel is mentioned; and after the next three, when the hail is threatened, instructions are first given by which those Egyptians who fear Jehovah may also obtain protection. Thus, in orderly and solemn procession, marched the avengers of God upon the guilty land.
It has been observed, concerning the miracles of Jesus, that not one of them was creative, and that, whenever it was possible, He wrought by the use of material naturally provided. The waterpots should be filled; the five barley-loaves should be sought out; the nets should be let down for a draught; and the blind man should have his eyes anointed, and go wash in the Pool of Siloam.
And it is easily seen that such miracles were a more natural expression of His errand, which was to repair and purify the existing system of things, and to remove our moral disease and dearth, than any exercise of creative power would have been, however it might have dazzled the spectators.
Now, the same remark applies to the miracles of Moses, to the coming of God in judgment, as to His revelation of Himself in grace; and therefore we need not be surprised to hear that natural phenomena are not unknown which offer a sort of dim hint or foreshadowing of the terrible ten plagues. Either cryptogamic vegetation or the earth borne down from upper Africa is still seen to redden the river, usually dark, but not so as to destroy the fish. Frogs and vermin and stinging insects are the pest of modern travellers. Cattle plagues make ravage there, and hideous diseases of the skin are still as common as when the Lord promised to reward the obedience of Israel to sanitary law by putting upon them none of "the evil diseases of Egypt" which they knew (Deu_7:15).[11] The locust is still dreaded. But some of the other visitations were more direful because not only their intensity but even their existence was almost unprecedented: hail in Egypt was only not quite unknown; and such veiling of the sun as occurs for a few minutes during the storms of sand in the desert ought scarcely to be quoted as even a suggestion of the prolonged horror of the ninth plague.
Now, this accords exactly with the moral effect which was to be produced. The rescued people were not to think of God as one who strikes down into nature from outside, with strange and unwonted powers, superseding utterly its familiar forces. They were to think of Him as the Author of all; and of the common troubles of mortality as being indeed the effects of sin, yet ever controlled and governed by Him, let loose at His will, and capable of mounting to unimagined heights if His restraints be removed from them. By the east wind He brought the locusts, and removed them by the south-west wind. By a storm He divided the sea. The common things of life are in His hands, often for tremendous results. And this is one of the chief lessons of the narrative for us. Let the mind range over the list of the nine which stop short of absolute destruction, and reflect upon the vital importance of immunities for which we are scarcely grateful.
The purity of water is now felt to be among the foremost necessities of life. It is one which asks nothing from us except to refrain from polluting what comes from heaven so limpid. And yet we are half satisfied to go on habitually inflicting on ourselves a plague more foul and noxious than any occasional turning of our rivers into blood. The two plagues which dealt with minute forms of life may well remind us of the vast part which we are now aware that the smallest organisms play in the economy of life, as the agents of the Creator. Who gives thanks aright for the cheap blessing of the unstained light of heaven?
But we are insensible to the every-day teaching of this narrative: we turn our rivers into fluid poison; we spread all around us deleterious influences, which breed by minute forms of parasitical life the germs of cruel disease; we load the atmosphere with fumes which slay our cattle with periodical distempers, and are deadlier to vegetation than the hail-storm or the locust; we charge it with carbon so dense that multitudes have forgotten that the sky is blue, and on our Metropolis comes down at frequent intervals the darkness of the ninth plague, and all the time we fail to see that God, Who enacts and enforces every law of nature, does really plague us whenever these outraged laws avenge themselves. The miraculous use of nature in special emergencies is such as to show the Hand which regularly wields its powers.
At the same time there is no more excuse for the rationalism which would reduce the calamities of Egypt to a coincidence, than for explaining away the manna which fed a nation during its wanderings by the drug which is gathered, in scanty morsels, upon the acacia tree. The awful severity of the judgments, the series which they formed, their advent and removal at the menace and the prayer of Moses, are considerations which make such a theory absurd. The older scepticism, which supposed Moses to have taken advantage of some epidemic, to have learned in the wilderness the fords of the Red Sea,[12] to have discovered water, when the caravan was perishing of thirst, by his knowledge of the habits of wild beasts, and finally to have dazzled the nation at Horeb with some kind of fireworks, is itself almost a miracle in its violation of the laws of mind. The concurrence of countless favourable accidents and strange resources of leadership is like the chance arrangement of a printer's type to make a poem.
There is a common notion that the ten plagues followed each other with breathless speed, and were completed within a few weeks. But nothing in the narrative asserts or even hints this, and what we do know is in the opposite direction. The seventh plague was wrought in February, for the barley was in the ear and the flax in blossom (Exo_9:31); and the feast of passover was kept on the fourteenth day of the month Abib, so that the destruction of the firstborn was in the middle of April, and there was an interval of about two months between the last four plagues. Now, the same interval throughout would bring back the first plague to September or October. But the natural discoloration of the river, mentioned above, is in the middle of the year, when the river begins to rise; and this, it may possibly be inferred, is the natural period at which to fix the first plague. They would then range over a period of about nine months. During the interval between them, the promises and treacheries of the king excited alternate hope and rage in Israel; the scribes of their own race (once the vassals of their tyrants, but already estranged by their own oppression) began to take rank as officers among the Jews, and to exhibit the rudimentary promise of national order and government; and the growing fears of their enemies fostered that triumphant sense of mastery, out of which national hope and pride are born. When the time came for their departure, it was possible to transmit orders throughout all their tribes, and they came out of Egypt by their armies, which would have been utterly impossible a few months before. It was with them, as it is with every man that breathes: the delay of God's grace was itself a grace; and the slowly ripening fruit grew mellower than if it had been forced into a speedier maturity.
THE FIRST PLAGUE.
Exo_7:14-25.
It was perhaps when the Nile was rising, and Pharaoh was coming to the bank, in pomp of state, to make official observation of its progress, on which the welfare of the kingdom depended, and to do homage before its divinity, that the messenger of another Deity confronted him, with a formal declaration of war. It was a strange contrast. The wicked was in great prosperity, neither was he plagued like another man. Upon his head, if this were Menephtah, was the golden symbol of his own divinity. Around him was an obsequious court. And yet there was moving in his heart some unconfessed sense of awe, when confronted once more by the aged shepherd and his brother, who had claimed a commission from above, and had certainly met his challenge, and made a short end of the rival snakes of his own seers. Once he had asked "Who is Jehovah?" and had sent His ambassadors to their tasks again with insult. But now he needs to harden his heart, in order not to yield to their strange and persistent demands. He remembers how they had spoken to him already, "Thus saith the Lord, Israel is My son, My firstborn, and I have said unto thee, Let My son go that he may serve Me; and thou hast refused to let him go: behold, I will slay thy son, thy firstborn" (Exo_4:22, R.V.). Did this awful warning come back to him, when the worn, solemn and inflexible face of Moses again met him? Did he divine the connection between this ultimate penalty and what is now announced--the turning of the pride and refreshment of Egypt into blood? Or was it partly because each plague, however dire, seemed to fall short of the tremendous threat, that he hoped to find the power of Moses more limited than his warnings? "Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil."
And might he, at the last, be hardened to pursue the people because, by their own showing, the keenest arrow in their quiver was now sped? Whatever his feelings were, it is certain that the brothers come and go, and inflict their plagues unrestrained; that no insult or violence is attempted, and we can see the truth of the words "I have made thee as a god unto Pharaoh."
It is in clear allusion to his vaunt, "I know not Jehovah," that Moses and Aaron now repeat the demand for release, and say, "Hitherto thou hast not hearkened: behold, in this thou shalt know that I am Jehovah." What follows, when attentively read, makes it plain that the blow falls upon "the waters that are in the river," and those that have been drawn from it into canals for artificial irrigation, into reservoirs like the lakes Moeris and Mareotis, and even into vessels for immediate use.
But we are expressly told that it was possible to obtain water by digging wells. Therefore there is no point whatever in the cavil that if Moses turned all the water into blood, none was left for the operations of the magicians. But no comparison whatever existed between their petty performances and the immense and direful work of vengeance which rolled down a putrid mass of corrupt waters through the land, spoiling the great stores of water by which later drought should be relieved, destroying the fish, that important part of the food of the nation, for which Israel afterwards lusted, and sowing the seeds of other plagues, by the pollution of that balmy air in which so many of our own suffering countrymen still find relief, but which was now infected and loathsome. Even Pharaoh must have felt that his gods might do better for him than this, and that it would be much more to the point just then to undo his plague than to increase it--to turn back the blood to water than contribute a few drops more. If this was their best effort, he was already helpless in the hand of his assailant, who, by the uplifting of his rod, and the bold avowal in advance of responsibility for so great a calamity, had formally defied him. But Pharaoh dared not accept the challenge: it was effort enough for him to "set his heart" against surrender to the portent, and he sullenly turned back into the palace from the spot where Moses met him.
Two details remain to be observed. The seven days which were fulfilled do not measure the interval between this plague and the next, but the period of its infliction. And this information is not given us concerning any other, until we come to the three days of darkness.[13] It is important here, because the natural discoloration lasts for three weeks, and mythical tendencies would rather exaggerate than shorten the term.
Again, it is contended that only with the fourth plague did Israel begin to enjoy exemption, because then only is their immunity recorded.[14] But it is strange indeed to suppose that they were involved in punishments the design of which was their relief; and in fact their exemption is implied in the statement that the Egyptians (only) had to dig wells. It is to be understood that large stores of water would everywhere be laid up, because the Nile water, however delicious, carries much sediment which must be allowed to settle down. They would not be forced, therefore, to fall back upon the polluted common sources for a supply.
And now let us contrast this miracle with the first of the New Testament. One spoiled the happiness of the guilty; the other rescued the overclouded joy of the friends of Jesus, not turning water into blood but into wine; declaring at one stroke all the difference between the law which worketh wrath, and the gospel of the grace of God. The first was impressive and public, as the revelation upon Sinai; the other appealed far more to the heart than to the imagination, and befitted well the kingdom that was not with observation, the King who grew up like a tender plant, and did not strive nor cry, the redeeming influence which was at first unobtrusive as the least of all seeds, but became a tree, and the shelter of the fowls of heaven.
FOOTNOTES:
[10] It is true that the word means any large reptile, as when "God created great whales"; but doubtless our English version is correct. It was certainly a serpent which he had recently fled from, and then taken by the tail (iv. 4). And unless we suppose the magicians to have wrought a genuine miracle, no other creature can be suggested, equally convenient for their sleight of hand.
[11] To this day, amid squalid surroundings for which nominal Christians are responsible, the immunity of the Jewish race from such suffering is conspicuous, and at least a remarkable coincidence.
[12] But indeed this notion is not yet dead. "A high wind left the shallow sea so low that it became possible to ford it. Moses eagerly accepted the suggestion, and made the venture with success," etc.--Wellhausen, "Israel," in Encyc. Brit.
[13] x. 22. The accurate Kalisch is therefore wrong in speaking of "The duration of the first plague, a statement not made with regard to any of the subsequent inflictions."--Commentary in loco.
[14] Speaker's Commentary, i., p. 242; Kalisch on Exo_8:18; Kiel, i. 484.
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, 3, 8, 14 MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Exo_7:1-2
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Exo_7:1-2
THE MORAL POSITION IN WHICH SOME MEN STAND TO OTHERS
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God made Moses to be a god to Pharaoh, and Aaron to be a prophet. There are many good and noble men in the world to-day, who are the gods, the instructors and rulers, of their fellow-creatures.
I. This exalted moral position is the result of Divine allotment. “And the Lord said unto Moses, see, I have made thee a god to Pharaoh.”
1. Men are not to place themselves in this moral position to others. A man is not to make himself a god unto his fellows. Some ambitious spirits do this, and in the attempt become as Satans to their comrades. They become imperious. They make unjust demands on those they rule. The man divinely appointed to this position, will never usurp social influence, though he will always yield it, because it will be the natural accompaniment of his holy life. He will not pander to popular sentiment. He will speak to humanity the messages of God.
2. Men are not to be placed in this moral position merely by the suffrages of their fellow-creatures. The Israelites did not call Moses to the work of their freedom. Pharaoh did not place Moses and Aaron in these relations to himself. The appointment was of God. Society determines its own mental and social gods, and inshrines its men of wealth and genius as deities, but the moral gods of the universe are of Divine appointment. Society would make a wrong selection of gods, if left to its own choice. It would prefer the morally indulgent to the heroic and the true. It would be in danger of making a mistake and of crowning the ambitious rather than the lowly. Hence the selection must be Divine.
II. This exalted moral position involves arduous work and terrible responsibility.
1. The true gods of society have something more to do than amuse it. The visit of Moses to Pharaoh would be no great source of amusement to either party. The gods of humanity are comparatively withdrawn from the vulgar and secular matters of life, the bearing of their efforts is eminently moral. It has reference to souls, to man’s life in its relation to the Infinite. A man whose highest aim is to excite the merriment of society, is too far removed from divinity to be mistaken for a God.
2. The true gods of society find their employment in communicating to men the messages of God. Moses and Aaron were to communicate God’s message to Pharaoh. God frequently has distinct messages for individual men in reference to their moral conduct. These are carried by the divinely-appointed prophets of society. They come to teach us. To awaken us. To enable us to fulfil the will of God. Hence their work is arduous and responsible.
III. This exalted moral position is the most efficiently employed in seeking the freedom of men. But for the slavery of Israel Moses would not have been a god unto Pharaoh. The position is the outcome of a condition of things it ought to remove. It is not for self-aggrandizement. It is to give men the freedom of a divine salvation.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Exo_7:1-2. In the Hebrew Scriptures, magistrates, as representing a portion of the jurisdiction of God, are called gods. The expression was very commonly applied to those who were possessed of dignity or official power, “Ye are gods;” and in this sense Moses is said to have been made a god unto Pharaoh; and Aaron his brother was to be his prophet. You are already aware of the reason of this distinction between the two brethren. Moses complained that he had no power of eloquence, or was of uncircumcised lip; and God’s reply to that was, “You, Moses, shall be the oracle or depository of truth; and Aaron, who has the gift of eloquence, shall unfold and express it.” God did not alter their constitutional characteristics; but he made use of their existing constitutional peculiarities to do his great work. So, still, when God employs men to execute His purposes, He does not re-create them, but He sanctifies them, He uses them as they are. Any body reading the New Testament, will see that each writer has a style of his own; so much so, that if you were to read a few verses from one or the other of the writers,. I should be able to say whether they were written by Matthew, or Paul, or Peter. God did not destroy the idiosyncracies of the sacred penman, but he retained their variety of style, and consecrated that variety to be the more elegant vehicle of important and precious truth. So, when God sent Moses and Aaron to do his work in Egypt, He did not make Moses eloquent, which he was not, nor did he make Aaron learned, which he was not; but he made Aaron the eloquent man, draw upon the stores of Moses, the learned man, and thus each did efficiently and naturally the work that God had assigned them. So, at the era of the Reformation, Luther’s eloquence and energy would have been extremely defective, if he could not have fallen back upon the rich stores of Melancthon’s learning. So in the Acts of the Apostles, the energy and boldness of Peter were shown in his speaking; and the love, patience, and piety of John, were shown in his keeping silence. God thus takes different men of different constitutional peculiarities for different purposes.—(Dr. Cumming.)
Great is God’s goodness and patience to reason with, and encourage His backward servants.
Men judging themselves as uncircumcised, may be made by Jehovah as gods.
Prophets are merely God’s mouth and lips to His Church.
God orders one instrument from another to utter His mind to worldly powers.
At God’s word poor despicable creatures command oppressing powers to release the oppressed, and it shall be done in time.
ILLUSTRATIONS
BY THE
REV. WM. ADAMSON
Divine Favour! Exo_7:2. If we saved, remarks Faber, the life of the queen’s child, we would not easily forget the grateful look of the royal mother’s face. It would be long before her burning words of thanks died away in our ears—a sovereign’s tears, and those tears of joy, are not things to be readily forgotten. But what a very unimportant thing this is compared with being allowed to please God by obedience to His commands. There need therefore be no reluctance on our part. Let us not be backward servants. Well may we adopt as our own the dying prayer of Usher, “O Lord, forgive me my sins, especially my sins of omission.”—By such omission we become the losers—we lose the sweet approving smile of God.
I’m sure it makes a happy day,
When I can please Him any way.
—Hewitt.
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 Exo 7:3-4.
Exo 7:3-4.
The text brings before us the two great results which God forewarned Moses would rise from the struggle between His will and that of the king. On the one hand, the tyranny was to be gradually overthrown by the sublime manifestations of the power of the Lord; on the other, the heart of Pharaoh himself was to be gradually hardened in the conflict with the Lord. Here two questions arise for consideration.
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I. Why was the overthrow of Pharaoh’s tyranny through the miracles of Moses so gradual? Why did not God, by one overwhelming miracle, crush for ever the power of the king? (1) It was not God’s purpose to terrify Pharaoh into submission. He treats men as voluntary creatures, and endeavours by appealing to all that is highest in their natures to lead them into submission. (2) In his determination to keep Israel in slavery Pharaoh had two supports—his confidence in his own power, and the flatteries of the magicians. Through both these sources the miracles appealed to the very heart of the man. (3) The miracles appealed to Pharaoh through the noblest thing he had left, his own sense of religion. When the sacred river became blood, and the light turned to darkness, and the lightning gleamed before him, he must have felt that the hidden God of nature was speaking to him. Not until he had been warned and appealed to in the most powerful manner did the final judgment come.
II. We are told that the heart of Pharaoh was hardened by the miracles which overthrew his purpose. What does this mean? One of the most terrible facts in the world is the battle between God’s will and man’s will. In the case of Pharaoh we see an iron will manifesting itself in tremendous resistance, the results of which were the hardening and the overthrow. There are three possible explanations of the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart. (1) It may be attributed entirely to the Divine Sovereignty. But this explanation is opposed to the letter of Scripture. We read that Pharaoh hardened his heart. (2) We may attribute it wholly to Pharaoh himself. But the Bible says distinctly, "The Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart." (3) We may combine the two statements, and thus we shall get at the truth. It is true that the Lord hardened Pharaoh, and true also that Pharaoh hardened himself.
E. L. Hull, Sermons, 3rd series, p. 94.
References: Exo 7:3.—Parker, vol. ii., p. 50. 7:8-10:29, 30.—W. M. Taylor, Moses the Lawgiver, p. 77. Exo 7:9.—Parker, vol. ii., p. 311. Exo 7:12.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. ix., No. 521, and Evening by Evening, p. 181.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
F. W. Grant 1903 · Public Domain On v8 Section 2. (Exo 7:8-11.)
Section 2. (Exo 7:8-11.)
The destruction of all fleshly dependence (Egypt) the accompaniment of the word of salvation.
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And now the judgments begin, prefaced by a sign, however, in the mercy of God, which is not that, and by which, if possible, conviction might be brought home to the haughty king. It takes its place, therefore, with the rest as part of the divine testimony. Of the plagues themselves, Keil has rightly distinguished the last -the death of the first-born -from all the rest. The announcement of it, indeed, falls in with the others, as he places it, for very evident reasons. The principal one which separates the plague itself is the relation which it bears to Israel and their redemption. It is not only the stroke by which they are freed, and in which God Himself appears, no longer acting through what men call "second causes," but it is that by means of which they themselves for the first time are taught their true condition before God, and take the place in which alone salvation is possible to them. Thus, in the history of redemption, its relation is with that part in which we shall find the actual accomplishment of this. The present section shows only the preparation for it.
As to the nine plagues that remain, Keil has also given reason for believing that "they are arranged in three groups of three plagues each. For the first and second, the fourth and fifth, and the seventh and eighth were announced beforehand by Moses to the king; whilst the third, sixth, and ninth were sent without any such announcement. Again, the first, fourth, and seventh were announced to Pharaoh in the morning, and the first and fourth by the side of the Nile, both of them being in connection with the overflowing of the river. . . . . This grouping is not a mere external arrangement, . . . but is founded on the facts themselves, and the effect which God intended the plagues to produce, as we may gather from these circumstances, that the Egyptian magicians, who had imitated the first plagues, were put to shame with their arts by the third, and were compelled to see in it the finger of God, -that they were smitten themselves by the sixth, and unable to stand before Moses, -and that after the ninth, Pharaoh broke off all further negotiation."
There are other and deeper distinctions, as we shall see; but we may add to these that "in the first three, Aaron uses the rod; in the second three, it is not mentioned; in the third three, Moses uses it, though in the last of them only his hand is mentioned. All these marks of order lie on the face of the narrative, and point to a deeper order of nature and reason out of which they spring." (Murphy.)
The numerical significance accords fully with all this, while it leads us more directly to the deeper reason. Commentators have thus far shown us little of this, while the typical instruction, allowed to be so manifest generally in the book of Exodus, has apparently not been seen at all. Yet it is surely here as elsewhere.
This section falls, then, into four parts, the first of which shows us the world in the light of nature simply, or looked at by itself; the second looks at it as distinguished from the people of God, the division being, as it is really called, a "redemption" of the latter; while in the third, the inflictions are more distinctly from heaven; the fourth contains the warning of that final infliction in which the "chief of all their strength" being smitten, they are effectually humbled in the dust before God. But we must proceed slowly.
1. The numerals show us plainly that we must commence the first group of miracles, with the miracle of the rod itself. The signs, then, stand thus:
(1) the rod turned into a serpent;
(2) the river turned to blood, -the means of sustaining life turned into a cause of death;
(3) the plague of frogs, -the unclean things that come out of the river;
(4) the dust becoming lice. Let us look at them in order.
(1) And first, the miracle of the rod.
The rod is the sign of the power conferred upon Moses: hence it is not strange that our attention should first of all be directed to it. The rod turned into a serpent showed the whole power of Egypt delivered into Moses’ hand. As here addressed to Pharaoh, it was a challenge of the completest kind; and if imitated by the magicians, the feebleness of the imitation is apparent in Aaron’s rod swallowing up their rods. Of course, it was impossible for them really to imitate so stupendous a miracle, in which Jehovah, the God of the Hebrews, was demonstrated as the Creator. All the power of Satan was incompetent to bring into being the smallest creature; and the language here is meant merely to affirm that to outward appearance the thing was done, -by what juggle need not be told.
It is simple enough, if we recognize the evil that is in the world, and that yet God is, -that the evil must be in His hand, must have at least its permission, and therefore its mission also from Him. His hand has made leviathan, and He that made him can make His sword approach unto him. "He maketh the wrath of man to praise Him, and the remainder of wrath He will restrain." This enables us, on the one hand, to see God in every thing; on the other, it reveals where the world is before Him. The evil in it is no accident. The forms of misery apparent every where are the multitudinous witnesses of its condition as away from Him. And this truth of God’s indictment of the world is the true Moses’ rod, to work the miracle of conviction in the soul. It is by the power of this truth that all the glory of the world passes away, and sin, judgment, and God who judges become reality to the soul.
But here we meet also the power of the enemy to resist conviction in the magicians of Egyptians, -the "wise men," deep in nature’s secrets, -the prophets of the god of this world. Their work is in imitation of the power of God, to show, if possible, that this is not His hand from which the judgment comes, -that it is not judgment. They cannot abate the evil; they are powerless to avert the storm that is about to sweep through Egypt: they have no real help -cannot pretend to it, never think of it. They have only their pitiful, agnostic evidence, such as it is, that that which is attributed to God can be produced otherwise, so that there is no need for Him in the matter. Their rods too can become serpents: there are other powers in the universe which can produce evil. Be it so: the power of God is demonstrated in this, that Aaron’s rod swallows easily their rods. All other powers need to be accounted for, are dependent, not original, do not conflict in the least with that divine power above all, to which conscience affirms our responsibility, and which alone satisfies the need of the heart. True, the world is then under His judgment, but that only (if sin be a reality, ) confirms the truth into complete conviction.
(2) There has been yet, however, no judgment. The second sign begins these, and there could not be a more notable one. With the Egyptians, "the Nile was in the strictest sense regarded as divine, and was worshiped under a variety of names. As the bountiful Osiris, and under many other divine names, the Nile was the beneficent god of Egypt -the representative of all that was good. Evil had, however, also its god, the deadly enemy of Osiris, -the hated Typhon -the source of all that was cruel, violent, and wicked. With this abhorred being the touch or sight of blood was associated. He himself was represented as blood-red; red oxen, and even red-haired men were sacrificed to him, and blood, as his symbol, rendered all unclean who came near it. To turn the Nile waters into blood was thus to defile the sacred river -to make Typhon triumph over Osiris -and to dishonor the religion of the land in one of its supremest expressions." (Geikie.)
But though we may see in this way how such a miracle would appeal to the Egyptians, we do not need the teachings of mythology to interpret it to us. The river, as we see in Scripture itself, was the very symbol of independence. Egypt drank no water of the rain of heaven: its source of supply was not above; and this is the world in its independence of God. But this independence of God, the Giver of life, is only death, and turns to death. The judgment here as elsewhere reveals the actual spiritual condition. That which as the creature of God, and His minister, is but the means of multiplied blessing, separated from Him, produces but more confirmed and complete separation. This is so simple that it needs no insisting on, and Scripture is full of it. (Job 21:14; Psa 73:7; Psa 73:11.)
But it should be noticed now, what every commentary dilates upon, that these judgments of God which begin here have in measure their natural counterparts. Thus the "Nile, at a certain stage of its yearly rise, assumes a red color, due to the presence of minute vegetative and animal growths." And "when the Nile and its canals are full, in the height of inundation, the abounding moisture quickens inconceivable myriads of frogs and toads, which swarm every where, even in ordinary years." Again, "when the inundation has risen above the level of the canals and channels, and is rapidly flowing over the entire surface, . . . gnats and flies innumerable burst from their pupae and spring into perfect existence. The eggs that produce them were laid in the retiring waters of the former flood. They have matured in the interval, and vivify instantaneously on the dust absorbing moisture enough to discolor it." At the close of the inundation, when the water is very foul, murrain has been noticed to occur. Such a relation of these divine judgments to ordinary occurrences has surely meaning for us, not merely in that economy of the miraculous, which many have remarked upon, but much rather as emphasizing how the whole order of nature marshals itself under the divine hand against the transgressor.
The red Nile-water, however, is pleasant and drinkable, not, as in the case before us, a scourge which the magicians again may counterfeit but cannot remove. The priests of nature can show how this can be done -can do it themselves, substituting in a way common to all ages, never more common than to-day, "nature" for the God of nature, "law" for Him who rules by it. In all this, it is confessed however, there is no help for man -no remedy. Rather is his case given up as remediless, as nature’s laws are pitiless; there is no divine heart to turn to. In making man a machine, you escape from sin by denying all morality: but conscience refuses this. Any way, the waters are still turned to blood: the plague is not even moderated, but increased.
(3) In the third miracle -the plague of frogs, the river is again a means of distress to the Egyptians. In this case it is evidently by their numbers, their intrusion every where, and as is implied -swarming out of the mud and slime, -their uncleanness, that they become so. This last is, as perhaps all commentators agree, the fundamental idea, and it is this by which its numerical place is justified. Connected, moreover, with the last plague, as it is, undeniably, we find that we are following the same track as the apostle when he speaks of the result of departure from God: that "even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not seemly," or, as he otherwise puts it, "to uncleanness." (Rom 1:28; Rom 1:24.) Here are plainly the unclean things that come out of the river, when the creature is worshiped and served rather than the Creator. Man having cast off God dishonors himself, and the lusts he seeks to satisfy have sprung out of departure from God. To return to Him is the only remedy: "If any man is athirst, let him come unto Me, and drink; and he that believeth on Me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water." (Joh 7:37-38.)
The wise men of the world have here again no remedy. The water will readily produce frogs for them also; all their disquisitions tend, as they did in Egypt, to hallow the frog, though they may have too much of it. The gods of the heathen were largely just men’s lusts and passions deified; and to do them honor, they indulged them. But to call evil good cannot make it so; and to harden the conscience cannot satisfy the heart.
(4) And now, not the water, but the land, produces its myriads for their torture. The dust of the land smitten with the rod becomes "lice." I take this, with the A.V., to be the true meaning of the word kinnim. "In the Talmud, the kinnah is a louse. The Jewish interpreters (including Onkelos and Josephus), the Syriac, the Arabic, and the Talmud give this meaning, which is supported by Bochart. The Septuagint gives skniphes, which Gesenius and others take to mean gnats. But konops or empis is the gnat. The sknips is said to be an ant that preys on figs, or an insect that lives under the bark of trees. Either of these bears more analogy to the louse than to the gnat or mosquito. The louse also is found ’on men and beasts,’ while the gnat flies in the air." (Murphy.) Baker suggests that "lice would shrivel at once in the hot sun of Africa," and contends for the kindred thought of "ticks," of which a kind lives in hot sand and dust, and is a great enemy to man and beast. (Quoted from Geikie.)
The insignificance of the creature used, the dust as that from which it originates, and the place of this plague in the order of these visitations, seem all to point in one direction. Dust is frequently connected in Scripture with death "the dust of death." (Psa 22:15.) "Dust unto dust" was the original verdict which put on man the stamp of vanity. The book of Ecclesiastes shows us death as the great tormentor of man, leveling him, with all his wisdom and his pride, to the beast. (Chap. Ecc 3:19, etc.) What is beyond death only divine revelation and not human reasoning can show (v. Ecc 3:21); and conscience, if it point beyond, shadows the future with its accusations.
This, then, I take as the spiritual significance of this fourth testimony. Without it, the evidence as to the world’s condition would be very incomplete indeed. With it, we have surely a striking picture of what the world is -under Satan’s rule, God cast off, corrupt through lust, death brooding over it! And as to the last feature of it, though the wisdom of the world may labor to make it "natural," the whole instinct of that nature of man to which they appeal shrinks from and abhors it. If it be so, man is lower than the beast, tormented as to the future as the beast is not, craving as his rational heritage an immortality which is denied to him. No: here (as the magicians say) is "the finger of God," and it writes upon the dust itself, as Christ wrote upon it for the Pharisees in after-times, man’s condemnation.
And if man be under condemnation, his mouth is stopped; it is for God only to open His. Thus Pharaoh’s wise men utter their last word here. The world is now seen in the true "light of nature" -if nature has any light. But God has more to say, if man has not; and Egypt’s revealing plagues are not yet concluded.
2. In the three plagues that follow, we find emphasized the division put between the Egyptians and the Israelites, -literally, redemption,"a word I have preserved for evident reasons. God’s separation of His people is a redemption, the work of His grace in them as well as for them, which in the typical meaning comes out very distinctly. But this typical meaning has been itself almost unrecognized hitherto. I am not aware, at least, of any attempt to bring it out connectedly, though surely such meaning there must be. Apart from this, every commentary will show how barren of any specific spiritual significance these inflictions upon Egypt are. The typical meaning is indeed an illumination.
(1) In the first plague here there is a difficulty as to its nature even, which might seem to forbid interpretation. The word used as to it (arob) seems plainly derived from arab, to mix, and would thus mean "mixture," as in the margin of our common version. It is used nowhere else except in the book of Psalms (Psa 78:45; Psa 105:31), referring to the same infliction; but a kindred word, ereb, denotes the "mixed multitude" that went out of Egypt with the Israelites. Symmachus, Aquila, and Jerome, of the ancients, translate it "mixture," with many more modern, applying it, as again the common version does, to flies. It is objected, however, to this, that ver. Psa 105:31 is against it, but it does not seem evident that this could not apply to "one" of the myriad swarms that made up the great swarm. The Septuagint has, however, "the dog-fly," and by this or "the gad-fly" many would translate it. But the authority of the Septuagint, though great, is far from infallible, and the other is a supposition. Certainly, if we are to abide by the Hebrew, which is alone inspired, the first meaning would seem the true one.
But in this case the instrument employed we must be content to ignore. It was something that "devoured," as the seventy-eighth psalm shows; something of small size, making up for this in numbers; various in kind, whether flies or insects generally: the prominent thought is that of "mixture."
Trying this by its numerical place, we may see that this is not unity, though in its place, and we are led to ask, May not this be the thought suggested, that lack of unity which is implied in "mixture," -mixture in place of unity?
Fanciful enough this will seem, no doubt; but in these types, let us remember, we have what is addressed to the imagination, subject to Scripture and spiritual judgment. Let us go on, therefore, and see whither this may lead us.
It is the contrast between the world and the people of God that is before us, and here the index number gives us a plain contrast: it speaks, on the one hand, of "obedience," "righteousness," on the other, of "will," "rebellion." God’s work is one, manifested always as that, -internally, still more than externally, a unity. Man also, when obedient to His will, is at one with himself as with God, -at one with himself because with God. His life is of a piece, self-consistent and harmonious. If sin come in, it is a confusion, a contrary will: independence of God is discord, disunity, and man no longer at one with God is no longer at one with himself either. His "will," astray from God, falls asunder into many divided "wills," as the "lusts" within "war in" his "members." (Jas 4:1.) And so with all that comes under the power of evil: it corrupts, falls apart, is disorganized; death, which is the stamp upon and fruit of sin, is separation, dissolution.
"Mixture," combination, union, is still possible, and this is man’s substitute for God’s unity. But it only reveals the want of it. At one with God, we are at one with ourselves, and all things are at one with us also. Outside of this, there is nothing but a jarring concourse of incompatible things: the bond of the universe is snapped; and to one taught of God, the world is a thing smitten with the plague of incoherency, confusion, "mixture." Out of which is only one way of deliverance.
The secret of the condition of things is now revealed. The wise men are useless: Pharaoh turns to Moses and Aaron, but only to suggest an impossible compromise. "Go, sacrifice unto your God in the land. Here again is "mixture" -a half obedience which is not obedience. Worship God where you are, he says; -that is, typically, Remain in the world; don’t leave it. But that is impossible. In the world, faith’s sacrifice is an abomination, -Christ’s cross only an offense. The cross is the judgment of the world -of man in the flesh, -and if we can worship there, no cross is needed: it is in this case simply a false indictment against man. Thus there is irreconcilable difference between the world and the believer. By the cross, he is crucified to the world and the world to him, and he glories in that which has done this. How impossible, then, to mix the world and Christ!
He who has turned to Christ has owned the enmity in which he was, and found the reconciliation. He has obedience endeared to him in Christ’s obedience to death for him. His is the blessedness of "the man to whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile." He is separated from the world and from the world’s plague of mixture. He is at one with God and at one with himself: he has taken his true place in that universe of God which has on it every where as that the mark of unity.
(2) The two plagues following in this series, however little outwardly connected with the first, will be found to have the most real typical connection. In this second one, the destruction of the cattle takes place, -the ordained servants of man, the type of that service which he needs and must receive from others. Independent really he cannot be. The higher any creature is in the scale of being, the more its needs multiply and the more dependent is it. And with man, the higher (or more civilized) is his natural life, the more complex and numerous are the services he requires from others. The "division of labor" means, of course, but this. Happy would the world be if men could simply accept this -could serve and be served according to God’s ordinance. Each caring for the other, how well would all be served! how blessed would it be to live in such an atmosphere of love -ministered to and ministering -as this implies!
But the world is away from God; weary, restless, dissatisfied, its craving is lust, its god its belly, and "corruption" is "in the world through lust." In the selfish strife of private interest, the forms of love required by society, serve but as the stones upon graves to mark that the spirit has departed. There is a murrain upon the cattle, except where, among the people of God, the spirit of love has been gained in the knowledge of redemption. Here love manifests itself in service -necessarily, if it be love; there is ability and heart to minister; grace has in a higher way perfected the design in nature: the cattle are preserved.
(3) In the next plague, the ashes of the furnace sprinkled toward heaven bring an eruptive disease upon man and beast. The "furnace," derived from a word which means "to subdue," was, as some think, a lime-kiln, or for smelting ore, and connected with those public works in Egypt at which Israel had been made so cruelly to labor. Egypt itself had been such a furnace for the people of God, and as such had earned for itself righteous retribution. This seems a very natural explanation of Moses’ significant action. The disease that followed is too briefly described to be identified; but if so, we may be sure there is no need to identify it: all that is needed for the lesson is surely given us. It is noted by all commentators that the uncleanness resulting from such an attack must have been peculiarly severe upon a people who, like the Egyptians, were so punctiliously observant of personal cleanliness, and with whom this was a part of their religion. Typically, it would fittingly speak of the corruption of sin, the breaking out of that moral disease which Isaiah uses language such as might be drawn from it to describe: "From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores." (Isa 1:6.)
This is the inward condition of the world exposed; for as already said, these plagues only expose what is the true state of things as before God. And the connection between such a state and Egypt’s lime-kilns is easy to apprehend. The pomp and glory of the world minister to the lust of ambition and greed of all kinds out of which comes the corruption that is in the world, and in which it finds also its judgment; and this seems to be the meaning of what we have here. And now the magicians cannot stand before Moses: as long afterward the words "he that is without sin among you" scatter the would-be judges of the adulteress, so are Egypt’s wise men scattered now; "for the boil was upon the scribes and upon all the Egyptians." Who, indeed, is exempt, save he in whom Christ is found the object for his heart, and the "exceeding great and precious promises" deliver from the "corruption which is in the world through lust"?
3. Here, then, a second stage in the conviction of the natural man is reached. We are now, in the third stage, to see, man being what he is, what the attitude of heaven must be toward him. The three plagues that follow all distinctly point to heaven as their place of origin. Here too the rod, which in the last three had not been seen, appears again, -a thing which the typical meaning alone as it would seem, accounts for. For it will be seen that the middle plagues to men seem scarcely divine inflictions: they proceed more from man himself, although, in fact, the government of God may truly be seen in them. But now we come again, as in the first plagues, to direct, positive inflictions.
(1) And first, we have the hail: and here once more we find what might seem a mixture -a concord of contraries. Yet nature furnishes it, though, of course, in this case, increased into a miracle. With the occurrence of hail and fire, (that is, electricity,) we are all familiar. They are products of the same cause -the meeting of a mass of warm air, saturated with moisture, with a cold upper current. Heat and cold must thus mingle together to produce it, and the electricity is disengaged, apparently, at the same time as the freezing of the vapor. We have in the book of Revelation, under the first trumpet, the occurrence of hail and fire; and in the eighteenth psalm, "hailstones and coals of fire" are emphasized as expressions of the divine wrath. Cold is the absence of heat, as darkness is of light; and light and heat are near akin, as, of course, are cold and darkness. God is light, and heat is the glow of His presence, which toward sin is wrath -the flame of fire. But cold and heat alike have their part in the storm of His wrath. If He forsake, it must be in anger, never indifference; never, therefore, mere withdrawal, -the chill and the fire mingle, and thus what should have been blessing, like the drops of vapor, becomes a pitiless iron shower which destroys every thing before it.
Thus upon the world the wrath of God abideth, suspended indeed by His forbearing love, which at the same time has provided a place of refuge. But still there are "the treasures of the hail which " He has "preserved against the time of trouble, against the day of battle and war." (Job 38:22-23.) And they will be poured out yet, while the heavens proclaim His righteousness in it. It is this that makes it so terrible, that it is the action of righteousness; and this, faith anticipates and takes home as a present thing governing one’s thoughts and conduct.
(2) If the Lord be thus against the sinner, the world is full also of witnesses to this attitude of His. Man may have departed from God and become hostile to Him, but nature in its whole framework is obedient, and serves Him still. Thus the sinner finds himself in a stream of hostile forces, the hosts of the Lord, which the army of locusts vividly presents to us. "The locusts have no king," says Agur, "yet go they forth all by bands." (Pro 30:27.) "Nothing in their habits," says a recent observer, is more striking than the pertinacity with which they all pursue the same line of march, like a disciplined army." This instinctive discipline, with an invisible king, shows whose hosts they are -under whose marshaling: "His army," the Lord calls them. (Joe 2:11.) "In every stage of their existence," says the same person who was just now quoted, "these locusts give a most impressive view of the power of God to punish a wicked world." To contend with them is hopeless, and the destruction caused by them is absolute: "the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them." (Joe 2:3.)
Thus nature, with its laws, serves the Law-giver, and woe to those who contend against their God. They are hopelessly in the grasp of destructive forces which fully own the One they do not -are the disciplined hosts of the Lord of Hosts. This an insect may teach us here, if only we have hearts to learn the lesson.
Along with this, we have in this section Pharaoh’s second attempt at compromise, as vain as the first one was. The men may go: the little ones must be left behind; in which case, of course, the little ones become a pledge for the return of their parents. But salvation is here, as the New Testament declares it, for thee and for thy house. If Pharaoh’s thought is to retain or bring back the fathers by the children’s means, God’s is, to save the children with and by means of their fathers. The circumcision of the Israelite’s house gives the divine rule for the old economy. The new cannot be behind it: "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house." (Act 16:31.)
This, then, is the tenor of universal Scripture. God’s all-embracing love would make of His people hands to reach out to others, and of the human ties which He has established, links by which the new creation itself shall be drawn together. He would thus claim for His own that which is, with no acquiescence on His part, departed from Him, and use as His that natural affection which, though fallen, is not incapable of being renewed and spiritualized. Thus He meets and satisfies the deepest instincts of our manhood, the divine Father manifesting Himself as not strange to what is best in human fatherhood, and teaching us to feel in ourselves the original likeness in which at first He created us to Himself.
The children of believers are, of course, naturally like other children. The nature we can impart is the old, and not the new: to have this, they must be born again, as all must. Nor does it follow necessarily, as we know, that because a man is saved his house must be. But if with faith in God there be faithfulness in the place in which God has put us, He has promised, "Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old, he will not depart from it." Here is the thing, no doubt, which tests us; for it is not our words only that have fruit in this way; it is the combined influence of our words and ways. That three days’ remove from Egypt, if really taken, will have immense effect. And that we have come out to keep a feast to the Lord will give the positive side, without which separation from the world becomes a mere cold and hard asceticism.
These things are our types, and the God of Israel is as full of power to-day as ever He was: of that, these very locusts may remind us.
(3.) And now we come to the last plague of these nine -the last but one of all poured out upon the land of Egypt. The plague of darkness is one the significance of which is simple for those who know the meaning of the darkness upon the cross. God is light: darkness is the withdrawal of light, the forsaking of God. And this was (as we may see in the twenty-second psalm,) the most terrible part of that judgment upon sin which our dear Lord bore for us in His body on the tree. God is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, and cannot look upon sin: even from Him who knew no sin, when made sin, He must turn away; and so the cry of forsaken sorrow interprets the darkness to us. The "outer darkness" is its expression in the eternity to come.
God-abandonment! who save that solitary Sufferer can interpret this to us? Men would indeed choose to get away from God here, and the "far-off country "can be for awhile even a place of pleasure while we are recklessly wasting what can never be regained. But even the far-off country is not the hell where men will find the answer to their desire to get away from God. In Egypt, for three awful days they sat overwhelmed; none looked upon another, or rose from his seat. In that darkness that is the "shadow of death," it is said, "they sit;" but what when it is not the shadow, but death itself, and the eternal flame shall give yet no light?
"In Thy light we see light." In the ends of the earth, no place so destitute but some beams of that light must come. When men have found the place of their choice -a place without God, where, from the necessity of His nature, He can never be, all figures fail to convey the reality of that horror of utter darkness which they shall find it.
Here, then, fittingly, these nine plagues end. Pharaoh attempts, at the very last, another compromise. If he cannot prevent their going out, he will at least make them as poor as he can. Their flocks and herds were the main part of all which, as a shepherd-people, they possessed. They are thus the fitting type of our possessions -of that which we have in the world. These must be left, says Pharaoh; -the first attempt we have perhaps to define the doctrine which has since met such wide acceptance, alas! among the people of God, -that we are to separate what is "secular" from what is sacred," -and that if we ourselves must needs go on pilgrimage, we must not have our all out of Egypt, honestly owning God’s title to all we have.
A certain claim, it is owned as reasonable, the Lord should have; but the things are ours outside this tax upon them. Yet does not this show how little we know what it is to be the Lord’s, when we have in any thing divided interests from His? Does it not show that we know little what it is to be in Christ, while we have another self with independent aims and motives? Is this other self, can it be, any thing else than the old self, which knows not Christ, and refuses Him?
Thus it is, surely, that along with this lesson of what the holiness of God is as against sin, we are made to learn what is the claim of that holiness -we will not say upon His redeemed, but rather for them. It is, in fact, in the very idea of redemption itself, necessary, in order to realize the fullness of blessing in it, that not only we, but all that is ours, shall be brought out of Egypt. "There shall not a hoof be left behind," says Moses, "for thereof must we take to serve Jehovah our God, and we know not wherewith we must serve Jehovah our God till we come thither." How true it is that we have not even -cannot have -the knowledge of the Lord’s will concerning us until we are, with all belonging to us, where God’s salvation brings us -outside the world.
(4) But God does not intend His people to go out of Egypt empty. They are to leave it rather with the spoil of Egypt in their hands; and yet, in taking this, they take but what is their own. Take to-day out of the world all that is the fruit or accompaniment of God’s salvation-work -take out of it all that Scripture has enriched it with -how poor would it be left! It is but the result of what the world is, that God could not take His people out of it without leaving it empty of all true blessing and enlightenment.
And now one last warning is permitted to Pharaoh ere the final stroke of judgment falls. At midnight, the time of deepest darkness, Jehovah is coming into the land Himself, and "all their first-born, the chief of all their strength," shall die. The thunderbolt of Israel’s deliverance is at last to fall. The prostration of the world is to be the deliverance of those for whom God has undertaken. The type is easily read by its own light.
F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 The Rod of Moses turned into a Serpent. The…
The Rod of Moses turned into a Serpent. The First Plague
1. A god to Pharaoh] see on Exo_4:16. Thy prophet] A prophet is a spokesman. The prophets of God are those who declare His will. In doing this they may foretell His judgments and predict the future; but prediction is a secondary feature of prophecy, and is not contained in the original and proper sense of the word in which it is used here, where Aaron is called the prophet or mouthpiece of Moses. To prophesy sometimes means to declare God's praise in song. Thus Miriam is called a prophetess in Exo_15:20, Eldad and Medad are said to have prophesied in Num_11:25 (see note there), Deborah was a prophetess (Jdg_4:4; Jdg_5:1), and in 1Ch_25:1-3 the sacred musicians in the temple are said to 'prophesy with harps': cp. also 1Sa_10:10; 1Sa_19:20; 1Co_14:1;
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4, 5. The purpose of the miraculous events connected with the exodus was not only the deliverance of the Israelites, but the manifestation of Jehovah's character to the Egyptians: see on Exo_4:21.
7. See on Exo_2:21.
9. Thy rod] Moses had entrusted his rod to Aaron: cp. Exo_2:15, which is spoken to Moses.
11. Magicians] lit. 'engravers, sacred scribes': cp. Gen_41:8 RV. They are depicted on the monuments with a quill pen on their heads and a book in their hands. A belief in magic was universal in Egypt and had a most potent influence in every department of thought and conduct. The magicians were a recognised body of men whose services were very frequently employed to interpret dreams, to avert misfortune, or to bring discomfiture upon an enemy: cp. on Num_22:5. Here Pharaoh calls his magicians to a trial of strength with Moses and Aaron, and they are able to imitate some of the wonders. In the end, however, they confess themselves beaten (Exo_8:19). According to Jewish tradition two of the magicians who 'withstood Moses' were called Jannes and Jambres: see 2Ti_3:8.
12. They became serpents] Serpent charming is still practised in Egypt and has been described by several travellers. What was done on this occasion was probably a clever piece of sleight of hand. The magicians when they were called in might know what was expected of them, and be prepared to imitate what was done by Aaron.
13. He hardened Pharaoh's heart] This should be 'Pharaoh's heart was hardened,' as in RV. The Heb. is the same here as in Exo_7:22 : see on Exo_4:21.
14-25. The First Plague:—The Water of the Nile turned into Blood.
The Nile was regarded as a god to whom worship and sacrifice were offered. The defilement of its waters, therefore, was a severe blow to the religious prejudices of the Egyptians. It was also a great calamity, as the Nile was the source of all the fertility of Egypt, and its fish were largely used for food, some kinds being regarded as sacred.
15. He goeth out unto the water] either to bathe or to pay his devotions to the sacred river: see on Exo_2:5.
19. Streams.. rivers] the various canals and branches of the Nile.
20, 21. At the annual rising of the Nile its waters frequently turn a dull red colour owing to the presence of mud, vegetable débris, and minute animalcules. This plague, therefore, like the following, may have been an aggravation of a natural phenomenon. It is to be observed, however, that whereas the natural discoloration of the water has no pernicious effect on the fish of the Nile, these all died under the plague.
22. The magicians probably obtained some water by digging near the Nile (see Exo_7:24), and in some way were able to convince Pharaoh, who of course was willing to be convinced, that they could imitate the sign wrought by Moses and Aaron. Their sign, however, must have been on a much smaller scale, seeing that all the Nile water was already transformed.
25. The plague lasted seven days. Nothing is said of its removal.
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 vv5, 11, 12 A prophetic sign also. The nations shall know Jehovah…
when
A prophetic sign also. The nations shall know Jehovah when He restores and blesses Israel in the kingdom. (Isa 2:1-3); (Isa 11:10-16); (Isa 11:1); (Isa 60:4-5); (Eze 37:28).
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 v14 4. The Nine Plagues and the Tenth Judgment Announced
4. The Nine Plagues and the Tenth Judgment Announced
CHAPTER 7:14-25 The First Plague
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1. The plague announced (Exo 7:14-19)
2. The judgment executed (Exo 7:20-25)
Nine judgment plagues follow, and after they had passed, the tenth, the great judgment, fell upon Egypt. There are striking and different characteristics of these plagues. Aaron uses his rod in the beginning of the plagues, while Moses stretches out his rod and hand in the last three, not counting the slaying of the firstborn. Some of them were announced beforehand, others were not announced and came without warning. We give them now in their order:
1. Water turned into blood;
2. Frogs;
3. Lice;
4. Flies;
5. Murrain;
6. Boils;
7. Hail;
8. Locusts;
9. Darkness (see Psa 105:26-36).
The process of the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart progresses with these judgments till God hardened him completely. After the first plague his heart was hardened (or firm) and deliberately he set himself to do this. Note this process in Exo 8:15; Exo 8:19; Exo 8:31; and Exo 9:7. When this present age closes with the great tribulation and the vials of God’s wrath are poured out upon an unbelieving world, the hearts of the earthdwellers and Christ rejectors will be hardened and thus ripe for the day of wrath. The book of Revelation acquaints us with this solemn fact.
“The plagues of Egypt are founded on the natural features which Egypt presents, so that they are unprecedented and extraordinary, not so much in themselves, as on account of their power and extent, and their rapid succession when Moses simply gives the command. As they are, consequently, both natural and supernatural, they afford both to faith and to unbelief the freedom to choose (in Pharaoh, unbelief prevailed); they are, besides, adapted to convince the Egyptians that Jehovah is not merely the national God of the Israelites, but a God above all gods, who holds in his hand all the powers of nature likewise, which Egypt was accustomed to deify” (J.H. Kurtz).
The water of the river Nile was turned into blood. The Nile was worshipped by the Egyptians and now this great river was polluted. Strange that even orthodox commentators can state that the change in the water was a change in color produced by red earth or by a certain water plant. But we know a real change took place, for the water stank and the fish died. Thus the Nile , known as Osiris, became an object of abomination and death. The messengers of Satan imitated this miracle also. This plague lasted seven days.
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, 8, 14 Moses as God’s Ambassador to Pharaoh
Moses as God’s Ambassador to Pharaoh
v. 1. And the Lord said unto Moses, See, I have made thee a god to Pharaoh, He had given him authority as His ambassador, with power to carry out His judgments; and Aaron, thy brother, shall be thy prophet, by acting as spokesman of the revelations given to Moses.
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v. 2. Thou shalt speak all that I command thee, communicate the commands and the revelations of God to Aaron; and Aaron, thy brother, shall speak unto Pharaoh, that he send the children of Israel out of his land. That aim Aaron was always to keep in mind, to induce the king of Egypt to permit the emigration of Israel.
v. 3. And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and multiply My signs and wonders in the land of Egypt. Because Pharaoh would harden his heart in the first place, the Lord intended to punish him by leaving him in this sin of obduracy. In this way the glory of the Lord would be increased by the many miracles which were to be performed before Pharaoh.
v. 4. But Pharaoh shall not hearken unto you, on account of his condition of hard-heartedness, that I may lay My hand upon Egypt, and bring forth Mine armies, the hosts that were to wage the Lord’s battles, and My people, the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great judgments. The Lord would judge, condemn, and punish the entire land of Egypt because the people consented to the sins of their king.
v. 5. And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord when I stretch forth Mine hand upon Egypt, in avenging justice and in almighty power, and bring out the children of Israel from among them.
v. 6. And Moses and Aaron did as the Lord commanded them, so did they. They accepted the commission given them.
v. 7. And Moses was fourscore years old and Aaron fourscore and three years old when they spake unto Pharaoh. This concludes the narrative of the call of Moses and Aaron. Both of them now willingly placed themselves under the direction of the Lord, just as all true servants of God perform His will whenever He commands.
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, 6, 8, 11, 14, 16, 19, 20, 23 I have made you like a god
I have made you like a god
"I will cause Pharaoh to consider you as a god"
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translationWords
Yahweh
Moses
God
Pharaoh
Aaron
prophet
command
people group
Israel
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, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 11, 14, 22 7:1-7 In this final scene in the offer of…
7:1-7 In this final scene in the offer of rescue, the Lord once again answered Moses’ fears of not being able to speak eloquently. He would allow Moses to speak through Aaron (see 4:16), but Pharaoh will refuse to listen regardless. God’s power, not Moses’ eloquence, was the important factor. Moses and Aaron then took the step of faith and did what God had commanded. The first crisis (see study note on 5:22-23) had passed.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.