Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Exodus 8:1
And the LORD spoke unto Moses, Go unto Pharaoh, and say unto him, Thus saith the LORD, Let my people go, that they may serve me.
1. Go in unto Pharaoh ] as Exo 9:1, Exo 10:1 (both J).
Thus saith, &c.] The terms of the demand, as in the other introductions of J (Exo 8:20, Exo 9:1; Exo 9:13, Exo 10:3; cf. Exo 4:22-23, Exo 7:16).
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
1 4. The announcement of the plague to the Pharaoh, from J.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
1 15. The second plague. Frogs come up out of the Nile. The narrative consists of J and P only, without any traces of E.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Chapters Exo 7:14 to Exo 11:5
The first nine Plagues
The narrative of the Plagues, like that of the preceding chapters, is composite. The details of the analysis depend partly upon literary criteria, partly upon differences in the representation, which are not isolated, but recurrent, and which moreover accompany the literary differences and support the conclusions based upon them, the differences referred to often also agreeing remarkably with corresponding differences in the parts of the preceding narrative, especially in Exo 3:1 to Exo 7:13, which have already, upon independent grounds, been assigned to P, J, and E, respectively. No one source, however, it should be premised, in the parts of it that have been preserved, gives all the plagues.
The parts belonging to P are most readily distinguished, viz. (after Exo 7:8-13) Exo 7:19-20 a, 21b 22, Exo 8:5-7; Exo 8:15 b 19, Exo 9:8-12, Exo 11:9-10: the rest of the narrative belongs in the main to J, the hand of E being hardly traceable beyond Exo 7:15; Exo 7:17 b, 20 b, Exo 9:22-23 a, 31 32 (perhaps), 35a, Exo 10:12-13 a, 14 a, 15 b, 20, 21 23, 27, Exo 11:1-3.
Putting aside for the present purely literary differences, we have thus a threefold representation of the plagues, corresponding to the three literary sources, P, J, and E, of which the narrative is composed. The differences relate to not less than five or six distinct points, the terms of the command addressed to Moses, the part taken by Aaron, the demand made of the Pharaoh, the use made of the rod, the description of the plague, and the formulae used to express the Pharaoh’s obstinacy. Thus in P Aaron co-operates with Moses, and the command is Say unto Aaron (Exo 7:19, Exo 8:5; Exo 8:16; so before in Exo 7:9: even in Exo 9:8, where Moses alone is to act, both are expressly addressed); there is no interview with the Pharaoh, so that no demand is ever made for Israel’s release; the descriptions are brief; except in Exo 9:10, Aaron is the wonder-worker, bringing about the result by stretching out his rod at Moses’ direction (Exo 7:19, Exo 8:5 f., 16 f.; cf. Exo 7:9); the wonders wrought (‘signs and portents,’ Exo 7:3: P does not speak of them as ‘plagues’) are intended less to break down the Pharaoh’s resistance than to accredit Moses as Jehovah’s representative; they thus take substantially the form of a contest with the native magicians, who are mentioned only in this narrative (Exo 7:11 f., 22, Exo 8:7; Exo 8:18 f., Exo 9:11), and who at first do the same things by their arts, but in the end are completely defeated; the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart is expressed by za izz ( was strong, made strong), Exo 7:22, Exo 8:19, Exo 9:12, Exo 11:10 (Son 7:13), and the closing formula is, and he hearkened not unto them, as Jehovah had spoken, Exo 7:22, Exo 8:15 b, 19, Exo 9:12 (Son 7:13). In J, on the contrary, Moses one (without Aaron) is told to go in before the Pharaoh, and he addresses the Pharaoh himself (in agreement with Exo 4:10-16, where Aaron is appointed to be Moses’ spokesman not with Pharaoh, as in P, but with the people), Exo 7:14-16, Exo 8:1; Exo 8:9-10; Exo 8:20; Exo 8:26; Exo 8:29, Exo 9:1; Exo 9:13; Exo 9:29, Exo 10:1; Exo 10:9; Exo 10:25, Exo 11:4-10 [116] ; a formal demand is regularly made, Let my people go, that they may serve me, Exo 7:16, Exo 8:1; Exo 8:20, Exo 9:1; Exo 9:13, Exo 10:3 (comp. before, Exo 4:23); the interview with the Pharaoh is prolonged, and described in some detail; Jehovah Himself brings the plague, after it has been announced by Moses, usually on the morrow, Exo 8:23, Exo 9:5 f., 18, Exo 10:4, without any mention of Aaron or his rod; sometimes the king sends for Moses and Aaron to crave their intercession, Exo 8:8; Exo 8:25, Exo 9:27, Exo 10:16; the plague is removed, as it is brought, without any human intervention; the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart is expressed by kbd, hikbd ( was heavy, made heavy), Exo 7:14, Exo 8:15; Exo 8:32, Exo 9:7; Exo 9:34, Exo 10:1; and there is no closing formula: J also, unlike both P and E, represents the Israelites as living apart from the Egyptians, in the land of Goshen, Exo 8:22, Exo 9:26 (so before, Gen 45:10; Gen 46:28 f., &c.). The narrative generally is written (just as it is in Genesis, for instance) in a more picturesque and varied style than that of P; there are frequent descriptive touches, and the dialogue is abundant.
[116] Aaron, if he appears at all, is only Moses’ silent companion, Exo 8:8; Exo 8:12 (see vv. 9, 10), 25 (see vv. 26, 29), Exo 9:27 (see v. 29), Exo 10:8 (see v. 9). In Exo 10:3 it is doubtful if the plural, ‘and they said,’ is original: notice in v. 6b ‘and he turned.’
Some other, chiefly literary, characteristics of J may also be here noticed: refuseth ( ), esp. followed by to let the people go, Exo 7:14, Exo 8:2, Exo 9:2, Exo 10:3-4 (so before Exo 4:23); the God of the Heb 7:16 ; Heb 9:1 ; Heb 9:13 ; Heb 10:3 (so Exo 3:18; Exo 5:3); Thus saith Jehovah, said regularly to Pharaoh, Exo 7:17, Exo 8:1; Exo 8:20, Exo 9:1; Exo 9:13, Exo 10:3, Exo 11:4 (so Exo 4:22); behold with the participle (in the Heb.) in the announcement of the plague Exo 7:17, Exo 8:2; Exo 8:21, Exo 9:3; Exo 9:18, Exo 10:4 (so Exo 4:23); border, Exo 8:2, Exo 10:4; Exo 10:14; Exo 10:19; thou, thy people, and thy servants, Exo 8:3, Exodus 4, 9, 11, 21, 29, Exo 9:14 (see the note), cf. Exo 10:6; to intreat, Exo 8:8-9; Exo 8:28-29, Exo 9:28, Exo 10:17; such as hath not been, &c. Exo 9:18 b, 24 b, Exo 11:6 b, cf. Exo 10:6 b, 14 b; to sever, Exo 8:22, Exo 9:4, Exo 11:7; the didactic aim or object of the plague (or circumstance attending it) stated, Exo 7:17 a, Exo 8:10 b, 22 b, Exo 9:14 b, 16 b, 29 c, Exo 10:2 b, Exo 11:7 b.
The narrative of E has been only very partially preserved; so it is not possible to characterize it as fully as those of P or J. Its most distinctive feature is that Moses is the wonder-worker, bringing about the plague by his rod (in agreement with Exo 4:17; Exo 4:20 b, where it is said to have been specially given to him by God), Exo 7:15 b, 17 b, 20 b, Exo 9:23 a, Exo 10:13 a (cf. afterwards, Exo 14:16, Exo 17:5; Exo 17:9); only in the case of the darkness (Exo 10:21 f.) does he use his hand for the purpose. This feature differentiates E from both P (with whom the wonder-working rod is in Aaron’s hand), and J (who mentions no rod, and represents the plague as brought about directly, after Moses’ previous announcement of it, by Jehovah Himself). E uses the same word be or make strong, for ‘harden,’ that P does, but he follows the clause describing the hardening of the Pharaoh’s heart by the words, and he did not let the children of Israel (or them) go, Exo 9:35 (contrast J’s phrase, v. 34b), Exo 10:20; Exo 10:27 (cf. Exo 4:21 E). He also pictures the Israelites, not, as J does, as living apart in Goshen, but as having every one an Egyptian ‘neighbour’ (Exo 3:2, Exo 11:2, Exo 12:35 f.), and consequently as settled promiscuously among the Egyptians.
The scheme, or framework, of the plagues, as described by P, J, and E, is thus suggestively exhibited by Bntsch:
In P we have
And Jehovah said unto Moses, Say unto Aaron, Stretch out thy rod , and there shall be. And they did so: and Aaron stretched out his rod, and there was. And the magicians did so ( or could not do so) with their secret arts. And Pharaoh’s heart was hardened; and he hearkened not unto them, as Jehovah had spoken.
J’s formula is quite different
And Jehovah said unto Moses, Go in unto Pharaoh, and say unto him, Thus saith Jehovah, the God of the Hebrews, Let my people go that they may serve me. And if thou refuse to let them go, behold I will. And Jehovah did so; and there came ( or and he sent, &c.). And Pharaoh called for Moses, and said unto him, Entreat for me, that. And Jehovah did so , and removed. But Pharaoh made his heart heavy, and he did not let the people go.
The formula of E is again different
And Jehovah said unto Moses, Stretch forth thy hand (with thy rod) toward , that there may be. And Moses stretched forth his hand ( or his rod) toward , and there was. But Jehovah made Pharaoh’s heart hard, and he did not let the children of Israel go.
It has long since been remarked by commentators that the plagues stand in close connexion with the actual conditions of Egypt; and were in fact just miraculously intensified forms of the diseases or other natural occurrences to which Egypt is more or less liable (see particulars in the notes on the different plagues). They were of unexampled severity; they came, and in some cases went, at the announcement, or signal, given by one of the Hebrew leaders; one followed another with unprecedented swiftness; in other respects also they are represented as having an evidently miraculous character.
What judgement, however, are we to form with regard to their historical character? The narratives, there are strong reasons for believing, were written long after the time of Moses, and do not do more than acquaint us with the traditions current among the Hebrews at the time when they were written: we consequently have no guarantee that they preserve exact recollections of the actual facts. That there is no basis of fact for the traditions which the narratives incorporate is in the highest degree improbable: we may feel very sure of this, and yet not feel sure that they describe the events exactly as they happened. ‘As the original nucleus of fact,’ writes Dillm. (p. 66 f., ed. 2, p. 77), ‘we may suppose that at the time of Israel’s deliverance Egypt was visited by various adverse natural occurrences, which the Israelites ascribed to the operation of their God, and by which their leaders, Moses and Aaron, sought to prove to the Egyptian court the superiority of their God above the king and gods of Egypt; it must however be admitted that in the Israelitish story ( Sage) these occurrences had for long been invested with a purely miraculous character. And if all had once been lifted up into the sphere of God’s unlimited power, the compiler could feel no scruple in combining the different plagues mentioned in his sources into a series of ten, in such a manner as to depict, in a picture drawn with unfading colours, not only the abundance of resources which God has at His disposal for helping His own people, and humiliating those who resist His will, but also the slow and patient yet sure steps with which He proceeds against His foes, and the growth of evil in men till it becomes at last obstinate and confirmed.’ The real value of the narratives, according to Dillmann, is thus not historical, but moral and religious. And from these points of view their typical and didactic significance cannot be overrated. The traditional story of the contest between Moses and the Pharaoh is applied so as to depict, to use Dillmann’s expression, ‘in unfading colours,’ the impotence of man’s strongest determination when it essays to contend with God, and the fruitlessness of all human efforts to frustrate His purposes.
Dr Sanday, whose historical bias, if he has one, always leads him to conservative conclusions, has expressed himself recently on the subject, in an essay on the Symbolism of the Bible, in words which are well worth quoting: ‘The early chapters of Genesis are not the only portion of the Pentateuchal history to which I think that we may rightly apply the epithet “symbolical.” Indeed I suspect that the greater part of the Pentateuch would be rightly so described in greater or less degree. The narrative of the Pentateuch culminates in two great events, the Exodus from Egypt and the giving of the Law from Mount Sinai. What are we to say of these? Are they historical in the sense in which the Second Book of Samuel is historical? I think we may say that they are not. If we accept as I at least feel constrained to accept at least in broad outline the critical theory now so widely held as to the composition of the Pentateuch, then there is a long interval, an interval of some four centuries or more, between the events and the main portions of the record as we now have it. In such a case we should expect to happen just what we find has happened. There is an element of folk-lore, of oral tradition insufficiently checked by writing. The imagination has been at work.
‘If we compare, for instance, the narrative of the Ten Plagues with the narrative of the Revolt of Absalom, we shall feel the difference. The one is nature itself, with all the flexibility and easy sequence that we associate with nature. The other is constructed upon a scheme which is so symmetrical that we cannot help seeing that it is really artificial. I do not mean artificial in the sense that the writer, with no materials before him, sat down consciously and deliberately to invent them in the form they now have; but I mean that, as the story passed from mouth to mouth, it gradually and almost imperceptibly assumed its present shape’ ( The Life of Christ in recent Research, 1907, p. 18f.).
The ‘Plagues’ are denoted by the following terms:
(1) maggphh, properly a severe blow, Exo 9:14 J (see the note).
(2) nga‘, a heavy touch or stroke, Exo 11:1 E (see the note).
(3) ngeph (cognate with No. 1), a severe blow, Exo 12:13 P (by implication, of the tenth plague only).
Nos 2 and 3 of these are rendered in LXX. , and Nos. 1, 2, 3 in the Vulg. plaga: hence the Engl. plague.
They are also spoken of as:
(4) ’thth, signs, LXX. (proofs of God’s power), Exo 8:23 J, Exo 10:1-2 J or the compiler of JE, Exo 7:3 P; probably also in Exo 4:17; Exo 4:28 E. Cf. Num 14:11; Num 14:22 (JE); also in the NT.
In Exo 4:8-9; Exo 4:30 (all J) the same word is used, not of the ‘plagues,’ but of ‘signs’ to be wrought, or, in v. 30, actually wrought, before the Pharaoh, to accredit Moses, as Jehovah’s representative. In Exo 4:17; Exo 4:28, the reference might be similarly, not to the ‘plagues,’ but to the antecedent credentials, to be given by Moses.
(5) mphthim, portents, LXX. (unusual phaenomena, arresting attention, and calling for explanation: see on Exo 4:21; and cf. Act 2:43, &c.), Exo 7:3, Exo 11:9-10 (all P); also, probably, Exo 4:21 E.
In Exo 7:9 P the same word is used, not of one of the ‘plagues,’ but of the preliminary portent of Aaron’s rod becoming a serpent, wrought before Pharaoh.
(6) niphl’th, wonders or marvels (extraordinary phaenomena), Exo 3:20 J.
N.B. In EVV., No. 5 is in Ex. confused with No. 6; elsewhere in the OT. it is confused with both No. 4 and No. 6 (cf. on Exo 4:21).
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Exo 8:1-14
The frogs came up.
The procession of frogs
I. The creatures that were to come. The frogs of Egypt distinguished for five things. Their ash colour dotted with green spots; changed their colour when alarmed; small; crawled like toads; made a singular, some say an abominable noise, both under the water and on the land.
II. The places to which the creatures did come.
III. The power which caused the creatures to come. As the changing of the Nile showed that all the elements of nature were under the control of God, so the coming of the frogs to the land of Egypt proved that the animal parts of creation were under His control.
IV. The purposes for which the creatures came.
1. On account of pride (Exo 8:2). God still abhors pride, and ever will. Can chastise the proud in a similar way. Can send disease to the pretty face; take away the idols, money, dress, friends; weakness to either body or mind; death to the unbroken circle. Walk humbly with thy God.
2. On account of superstition. Because the rising of the sun made wild beasts retire, the Egyptians looked on them as emblems of the suns power. Because the croaking of frogs helped travellers in a desert to discover waters, the Egyptians held them in some reverence. Regarded the frog also as sacred to the Nymphs and Muses. Called attendants upon the deities of streams and fountains. To correct this wrong and extravagant notion about frogs, the Lord sent them over all the land. We should be careful about the objects we love and hate, esteem and disesteem, revere and abhor.
V. The kings request to have the creatures removed granted. (A. McAuslane, D. D.)
Lessons
1. Where the first judgment moveth not, the second may make sinners yield.
2. Vengeance makes wicked men call for Gods messengers who have despised them.
3. Gods judgments may work scornful oppressors to intreat the despised ministers of God.
4. Jehovahs judgments may and will make proudest potentates to acknowledge Him.
5. In the confession of the wicked God only can take away their judgments.
6. Wicked oppressors themselves do acknowledge that mercy from Jehovah cometh by the prayer of His.
7. Under sense of judgment persecutors may promise liberty of persons and consciences to the Church.
8. Such forced promises are seldom made good by such oppressors (Exo 8:8). (G. Hughes, B. D.)
The plague of frogs; or, the socially great smitten with the supremely contemptible
I. That the socially great sometimes provoke the judgments of God.
1. That the socially great provoke the judgments of God by rejecting His claims.
2. By slighting His servants.
3. By rejecting His credentials of truth and duty.
II. That the socially great have no means whereby to resist the judgments of God.
1. This judgment was afflictive, loathsome, extensive, irresistible.
2. This judgment yields not to social position, wealth, authority, force.
III. That the socially great often involve others less guilty in the retribution they invite.
IV. That the socially great are always surrounded by those who are willing to strengthen them in opposition to the Divine claims. Lessons:
1. That the socially great ought to be in sympathy with the requirements of God.
2. That the socially great ought to know better than provoke the wrath of the Great King.
3. That social position will not avert the retributions of God. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
Superstitions respecting frogs
There is no doubt that frogs were in Egypt the objects of some kind of superstitious regard. It is difficult to say whether they were most reverenced or feared, but, either as good agents or evil, they were numbered among the sacred animals of the Egyptians. The magicians used them in their divinations, and pretended to foretell future events by the changes and swellings which these creatures undergo. Frogs were supposed to be generated from the mud of the river. A frog sitting upon the sacred lotus was symbolical of the return of the Nile to its bed after the inundations. The name Chrur, which seems to have been derived from the sound of its croaking, was also used, with only a slight variation, Hhrur, to denote the Nile descending. Seated upon a date-stone, with a young palm-leaf rising from its back, it was a type of man in embryo. The importance attached to the frog in some parts of Egypt is further apparent from its having been embalmed and honoured with burial in the tombs of Thebes; and from its frequent appearance upon the monuments and inscriptions. Among the former is the god Pthah, having the head of a frog, and representing the creative power of the deity; there is also a frog headed goddess named Heka, who was worshipped in the district of Sah, as the wife of Chnum, the god of the cataracts, and to whose favour the annual overflow of the Nile, with all the benefits which followed, was ascribed. Plutarch says the frog was an emblem of the sun, and that the brazen palm tree at Delphi, sacred to Apollo or Osiris, had a great number of frogs engraved upon its base. In hieroglyphics the frog is an emblem of fecundity, an idea which arose naturally from its connection with the river. As the wealth and prosperity of Egypt depended upon the annual overflowing of the Nile, it is not surprising that the people of that land, who seem in every possible instance to have worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, should have ascribed peculiar honour to the frogs, which abounded most in the time of the inundations; they may have regarded them as in some sense the authors of their benefits, or rather as beneficent agents sent forth by their sacred river to assist and direct its fertilizing process. But it is probable that the sacred character of these animals was attributable, in some parts of Egypt at least, to the fears entertained for them by the Egyptians, as spirits of evil. There are even now in Africa tribes of ignorant heathen, worshippers of devils, who bow down before the most hideous images they can invent or fashion, and call upon them with abject supplications, in order to propitiate their fetish, and to turn aside the evils he might bring upon them. St. John, in the book of Revelation, represents the frog as an evil spirit; and his emblems were generally derived from symbolical ideas which prevailed of old (Rev 16:13). Such probably were the frogs which the magicians of Egypt brought forth in opposition to Moses, spirits of devils. Satan, who had greater license and a wider range in those dark times and places than he has now, sent out his demons in this form, at the call of his false prophets, to confirm the Egyptians in their rebellion against God; and the magicians did so with their enchantments, and brought up frogs upon the land of Egypt (Exo 8:7). Whether the Egyptians looked upon these reptiles as benefactors, or dreaded them as ministers of evil, the wonderful plague with which they were now afflicted was a judgment against them for their miserable superstition, and a sign which they could scarcely fail to understand. Fond as they were of a multitude of deities, here were more than they could wish for or endure. David says: He sent frogs among them, which destroyed them (Psa 78:45): it was not a mere inconvenience, therefore, but a real punishment; yet we may suppose the Egyptians would not venture to kill or even to resist their sacred tormentors. So terrible and wide-spread was the evil, that we find traces of it in the oldest historians, whose accounts, being derived only from tradition, are inaccurate as to place and people, but founded, we may suppose, upon the realities which are here recorded. Diodorus tells us of a people called Autariats, who were forced by frogs bred in the clouds, which poured down upon them instead of rain, to forsake their country (1. iii. c. 30); Pliny tells a similar story of the inhabitants of a district in Gaul. The fact that the frogs of Egypt were sent upon the people by Gods command would naturally lead to the idea of their descent from the clouds; while the exodus, both of Israelites and Egyptians, which followed soon afterwards, might give occasion to the story that the people were driven out of their country by the plague. (T. S. Millington.)
To-morrow.
To-morrow (for close of year)
We have arrived at another milestone on the journey of life. How many more we have to pass before we reach our journeys end we cannot say; for, unlike the milestones by the roadside, which not only tell the traveller how far he has travelled but how much farther off his destination is; our passing years are milestones which only point backwards. In the face of this terrible uncertainty, then, how foolish it is to echo the word of Pharaoh and say, To-morrow.
1. In postponing the day of salvation, we are postponing our own happiness. Think of the madness of Pharaoh, enduring another night of the frogs when he could obtain instant release from them. And yet he was no more mad than the sinner is who postpones his salvation from day to day. His sins are more numerous and nauseous than the frogs of Egypt. They swarm everywhere; they leave their slime upon everything; they spawn in the dark corners of his heart; he is plagued with them, and can get no peace.
2. In this procrastination we are flying in the face of Gods clearest warnings. Ten times over Gods warnings were repeated to Pharaoh before the final destruction came; but even this is not the limit of His longsuffering to usward. His warnings are often uttered a hundred times over to us before the final crash. Yet many pay no heed to them. They are startled for a while, and give a passing thought to their souls, only to sweep away such thoughts in worldliness again, and cry To-morrow! I will think of this to-morrow. A traveller from India thus relates some of the experiences of his voyage:–Flocks of greedy albatrosses and cape-pigeons crowded around the ships stern. A hook was baited with fat, and upwards of a dozen albatrosses rushed at it instantly; and as one after another was being hauled on deck, the remainder, regardless alike of the struggles of the captured anti the vociferations of the crew, kept swimming about the stern. Not even the birds which were indifferently hooked, and made their escape, desisted from seizing the bait a second time. Poor, foolish birds, to disregard the death-struggles of so many of their companions and their own experience of the sharpness of the hook! Poor, foolish men, to disregard more terrible warnings still, to procrastinate in spite of the sudden destruction of so many of their companions in the ways of sin and the sharp trials that God has sent to urge them to escape the like destruction:
3. In putting off the great question of salvation till to-morrow, we forget that tomorrow will in all probability see us harder-hearted than to-day. Pharaoh was softened while he was plague-stricken. He seemed even near becoming a worshipper of the true God, for he said to Moses, Intreat the Lord for me. But when the warning was past, and the morrow came, he relapsed into his old hardhearted enmity towards God; all the harder for his temporary softening. Transient impressions are terribly dangerous. If you take the red-hot metal and plunge it into cold water, you make it harder than it was before. So it was with the heart of Pharaoh; so it is with our hearts too. (G. A. Sowter, M. A.)
The folly of delaying till tomorrow
To-morrow! has been the cry for years. Serious intentions enough have been formed; but serious intentions, formed only to be forgotten, are but paving a religious way to hell. A sea captain tells how he fell in with the Central America on the very evening when she went down. He relates how that, having hailed her, Captain Hernden replied, I am sinking! Had you not better send your passengers on board of us? said the captain. Will you stand by me till morning? was Captain Herndens reply. Ill try, said the captain; but had you not better send your passengers on board at once? Stand by me till morning! was the only answer. The captain did his utmost to stand by the ill-fated ship, but mid the darkness of the night and the force of the tempest he saw the Central America no more, and subsequently received information apprised him that within an hour of that time she went down in the wild Atlantic. What a pity that poor Captain Hernden would put off till the next day that which might have been done that night. But though he doubtless had, to him, some sufficient reason for the course he pursued, that cannot be said of those who neglect the great salvation.
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
CHAPTER VIII
The plague of frogs threatened, 1, 2.
The extent of this plague, 3, 4.
Aaron commanded to stretch out his hand, with the rod, over the
river and waters of Egypt, in consequence of which the frogs came,
5, 6.
The magicians imitate this miracle, 7.
Pharaoh entreats Moses to remove the frogs, and promises to let
the people go, 8.
Moses promises that they shall be removed from every part of Egypt,
the river excepted, 9-11.
Moses prays to God, and the frogs die throughout the land of Egypt,
12-14.
Pharaoh, finding himself respited, hardens his heart, 15.
The plague of lice on man and beast, 16, 17.
The magicians attempt to imitate this miracle, but in vain, 18.
They confess it to be the finger of God, and yet Pharaoh continues
obstinate, 19.
Moses is sent again to him to command him to let the people go, and
in case of disobedience he is threatened with swarms of flies,
20, 21.
A promise made that the land of Goshen, where the Israelites dwelt,
should be exempted front this plague, 22, 23.
The flies are sent, 24.
Pharaoh sends for Moses and Aaron, and offers to permit them to
sacrifice in the land, 25.
They refuse, and desire to go three days’ journey into the
wilderness, 26, 27.
Pharaoh consents to let them go a little way, provided they would
entreat the Lord to remove the flies, 28.
Moses consents, prays to God, and the flies are removed, 29-31.
After which Pharaoh yet hardened his heart, and refused to let the
people go, 32.
NOTES ON CHAP. VIII
The SECOND plague – FROGS
Verse 1. Let my people go] God, in great mercy to Pharaoh and the Egyptians, gives them notice of the evils he intended to bring upon them if they continued in their obstinacy. Having had therefore such warning, the evil might have been prevented by a timely humiliation and return to God.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
1. the Lord spake unto Moses, Gounto PharaohThe duration of the first plague for a whole weekmust have satisfied all that it was produced not by any accidentalcauses, but by the agency of omnipotent power. As a judgment of God,however, it produced no good effect, and Moses was commanded to waiton the king and threaten him, in the event of his continuedobstinacy, with the infliction of a new and different plague. AsPharaoh’s answer is not given, it may be inferred to have beenunfavorable, for the rod was again raised.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And the Lord spake unto Moses,…. Either whilst the plague upon the waters continued, or immediately upon the removal of it:
go unto Pharaoh, and say unto him, thus saith the Lord, let my people go, that they may serve me; mentioning neither time nor place, where, when, and how long they should serve him, for which their dismission was required, but insist on it in general.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
The plague of Frogs, or the second plague, also proceeded from the Nile, and had its natural origin in the putridity of the slimy Nile water, whereby the marsh waters especially became filled with thousands of frogs. is the small Nile frog, the Dofda of the Egyptians, called rana Mosaica or Nilotica by Seetzen, which appears in large numbers as soon as the waters recede. These frogs ( in Exo 8:6, used collectively) became a penal miracle from the fact that they came out of the water in unparalleled numbers, in consequence of the stretching out of Aaron’s staff over the waters of the Nile, as had been foretold to the king, and that they not only penetrated into the houses and inner rooms (“bed-chamber”), and crept into the domestic utensils, the beds ( ), the ovens, and the kneading-troughs (not the “dough” as Luther renders it), but even got upon the men themselves.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| The Plagues of Egypt. | B. C. 1491. |
1 And the LORD spake unto Moses, Go unto Pharaoh, and say unto him, Thus saith the LORD, Let my people go, that they may serve me. 2 And if thou refuse to let them go, behold, I will smite all thy borders with frogs: 3 And the river shall bring forth frogs abundantly, which shall go up and come into thine house, and into thy bedchamber, and upon thy bed, and into the house of thy servants, and upon thy people, and into thine ovens, and into thy kneadingtroughs: 4 And the frogs shall come up both on thee, and upon thy people, and upon all thy servants. 5 And the LORD spake unto Moses, Say unto Aaron, Stretch forth thine hand with thy rod over the streams, over the rivers, and over the ponds, and cause frogs to come up upon the land of Egypt. 6 And Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt; and the frogs came up, and covered the land of Egypt. 7 And the magicians did so with their enchantments, and brought up frogs upon the land of Egypt. 8 Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron, and said, Intreat the LORD, that he may take away the frogs from me, and from my people; and I will let the people go, that they may do sacrifice unto the LORD. 9 And Moses said unto Pharaoh, Glory over me: when shall I intreat for thee, and for thy servants, and for thy people, to destroy the frogs from thee and thy houses, that they may remain in the river only? 10 And he said, To morrow. And he said, Be it according to thy word: that thou mayest know that there is none like unto the LORD our God. 11 And the frogs shall depart from thee, and from thy houses, and from thy servants, and from thy people; they shall remain in the river only. 12 And Moses and Aaron went out from Pharaoh: and Moses cried unto the LORD because of the frogs which he had brought against Pharaoh. 13 And the LORD did according to the word of Moses; and the frogs died out of the houses, out of the villages, and out of the fields. 14 And they gathered them together upon heaps: and the land stank. 15 But when Pharaoh saw that there was respite, he hardened his heart, and hearkened not unto them; as the LORD had said.
Pharaoh is here first threatened and then plagued with frogs, as afterwards, in this chapter, with lice and flies, little despicable inconsiderable animals, and yet by their vast numbers rendered sore plagues to the Egyptians. God could have plagued them with lions, or bears, or wolves, or with vultures or other birds of prey; but he chose to do it by these contemptible instruments. 1. That he might magnify his own power. He is Lord of the hosts of the whole creation, has them all at his beck, and makes what use he pleases of them. Some have thought that the power of God is shown as much in the making of an ant as in the making of an elephant; so is his providence in serving his own purposes by the least creatures as effectually as by the strongest, that the excellency of the power, in judgment as well as mercy, may be of God, and not of the creature. See what reason we have to stand in awe of this God, who, when he pleases, can arm the smallest parts of the creation against us. If God be our enemy, all the creatures are at war with us. 2. That he might humble Pharaoh’s pride, and chastise his insolence. What a mortification must it needs be to this haughty monarch to see himself brought to his knees, and forced to submit, by such despicable means! Every child is, ordinarily, able to deal with those invaders, and can triumph over them; yet now so numerous were their troops, and so vigorous their assaults, that Pharaoh, with all his chariots and horsemen, could make no head against them. Thus he poureth contempt upon princes that offer contempt to him and his sovereignty, and makes those who will not own him above them to know that, when he pleases, he can make the meanest creature to insult them and trample upon them. As to the plague of frogs we may observe,
I. How it was threatened. Moses, no doubt, attended the divine Majesty daily for fresh instructions, and (perhaps while the river was yet blood) he is here directed to give notice to Pharaoh of another judgment coming upon him, in case he continue obstinate: If thou refuse to let them go, it is at thy peril, Exo 8:1; Exo 8:2. Note, God does not punish men for sin unless they persist in it. If he turn not, he will whet his sword (Ps. vii. 12), which implies favour if he turn. So here, If thou refuse, I will smite thy borders, intimating that if Pharaoh complied the controversy should immediately be dropped. The plague threatened, in case of refusal, was formidably extensive. Frogs were to make such an inroad upon them as should make them uneasy in their houses, in their beds, and at their tables; they should not be able to eat, nor drink, nor sleep in quietness, but, wherever they were, should be infested by them, Exo 8:3; Exo 8:4. Note, 1. God’s curse upon a man will pursue him wherever he goes, and lie heavily upon him whatever he does. See Deut. xxviii. 16, c. 2. There is no avoiding divine judgments when they invade with commission.
II. How it was inflicted. Pharaoh not regarding the alarm, nor being at all inclined to yield to the summons, Aaron is ordered to draw out the forces, and with his outstretched arm and rod to give the signal of battle. Dictum factum–No sooner said then done the host is mustered, and, under the direction and command of an invisible power, shoals of frogs invade the land, and the Egyptians, with all their art and all their might, cannot check their progress, nor so much as give them a diversion. Compare this with that prophecy of an army of locusts and caterpillars, Joel ii. 2, c. and see Isa 34:16; Isa 34:17. Frogs came up, at the divine call, and covered the land. Note, God has many ways of disquieting those that live at ease.
III. How the magicians were permitted to imitate it, v. 7. They also brought up frogs, but could not remove those that God sent. The unclean spirits which came out of the mouth of the dragon are said to be like frogs, which go forth to the kings of the earth, to deceive them (Rev. xvi. 13), which probably alludes to these frogs, for it follows the account of the turning of the waters into blood. The dragon, like the magicians, intended by them to deceive, but God intended by them to destroy those that would be deceived.
IV. How Pharaoh relented under this plague: it was the first time he did so, v. 8. He begs of Moses to intercede for the removal of the frogs, and promises fair that he will let the people go. He that a little while ago had spoken with the utmost disdain both of God and Moses is now glad to be beholden to the mercy of God and the prayers of Moses. Note, Those that bid defiance to God and prayer in a day of extremity will, first or last, be made to see their need of both, and will cry, Lord, Lord, Matt. vii. 22. Those that have bantered prayer have been brought to beg it, as the rich man that had scorned Lazarus courted him for a drop of water.
V. How Moses fixes the time with Pharaoh, and then prevails with God by prayer for the removal of the frogs. Moses, to show that his performances had no dependence upon the conjunctions or oppositions of the planets, or the luckiness of any one hour more than another, bids Pharaoh name his time. Nellum occurrit tempus regi–No time fixed on by the king shall be objected to, v. 9. Have thou this honour over me, tell me against when I shall entreat for thee. This was designed for Pharaoh’s conviction, that, if his eyes were not opened by the plague, they might by the removal of it. So various are the methods God takes to bring men to repentance. Pharaoh sets the time for to-morrow, v. 10. And why not immediately? Was he so fond of his guests that he would have them stay another night with him? No, but probably he hoped that they would go away of themselves, and then he should get clear of the plague without being obliged either to God or Moses. However, Moses joins issue with him upon it: “Be it according to thy word, it shall be done just when thou wouldst have it done, that thou mayest know that, whatever the magicians pretend to, there is none like unto the Lord our God. None has such a command as he has over all the creatures, nor is any one so ready to forgive those that humble themselves before him.” Note, The great design both of judgments and mercies is to convince us that there is none like the Lord our God, none so wise, so mighty, so good, no enemy so formidable, no friend so desirable, so valuable. Moses, hereupon, applies to God, prays earnestly to him, to remand the frogs, v. 12. Note, We must pray for our enemies and persecutors, even the worst as Christ did. In answer to the prayer of Moses, the frogs that came up one day perished the next, or the next but one. They all died (v. 13), and, that it might appear that they were real frogs, their dead bodies were left to be raked together in heaps, so that the smell of them became offensive, v. 14. Note, The great Sovereign of the world makes what use he pleases of the lives and deaths of his creatures; and he that gives a being, to serve one purpose, may, without wrong to his justice, call for it again immediately, to serve another purpose.
VI. What was the issue of this plague (v. 15): When Pharaoh saw there was a respite, without considering either what he had lately felt or what he had reason to fear, he hardened his heart. Note, 1. Till the heart is renewed by the grace of God, the impressions made by the force of affliction do not abide; the convictions wear off, and the promises that were extorted are forgotten. Till the disposition of the air is changed, what thaws in the sun will freeze again in the shade. 2. God’s patience is shamefully abused by impenitent sinners. The respite he gives them, to lead them to repentance, they are hardened by; and while he graciously allows them a truce, in order to the making of their peace, they take that opportunity to rally again the baffled forces of an obstinate infidelity. See Ecc 8:11; Psa 78:34, &c.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
EXODUS – CHAPTER EIGHT
Verses 1-4:
There is no way to determine how much time elapsed between the first and the second plagues. The second plague, like the first, was a judgment not only upon the land of Egypt, but upon the gods they worshipped.
Jehovah instructed Moses to announce a second sign to Pharaoh. This was to be a plague of frogs throughout the entire land. It would affect every area of Egyptian society, from the court of Pharaoh to the lowest slave in the land. It would be particularly odious, because of the extreme cleanliness of the Egyptians. Frogs would come from the Nile and the marshes and pools adjacent, and would cover the land. They would invade the houses, the bedchambers, and the beds of the Egyptians. They would even find their way into the vessels used to prepare food.
This plague was against the Egyptian goddess Heka, a frog-headed female deity, representative of creative power. Frogs were sacred to this deity.
“Frog” tseparda, designates the “Rana Mosaica.” It resembles our toad, a filthy, disgusting creature which crawls along the ground. Its constant croaking becomes very annoying after a short time.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
1. And the Lord spake. Again, as if the matter were only now begun, God demands of Pharaoh His own peculiar right, viz., that His people should serve Him, but out of the land of Egypt, that His worship might be separate and pure from all defilement, for He desired (as was before said) by this separation of His people to condemn the superstitions of the Egyptians. Meanwhile there was no excuse for the tyrant, when, with sacrilegious boldness, he presumed to deprive God of His just honor. Therefore, in refusing to let them go, he was declared not only to be cruel, but also a despiser of God. Threatening is also added, that at least he may, however unwillingly, be driven to obey; for thus must the stubborn be dealt with, who never are brought to duty except when forced by fear or punishment. Indeed, God sometimes also threatens His own servants, in order to stimulate their laziness; but especially is He more severe towards the perverse and disobedient. Thus is it said, (Psa 18:26,)
“
With the pure thou wilt shew thyself pure; and with the froward thou wilt shew thyself froward.”
This is the reason why He sanctions His command with threats (92) when He addresses Pharaoh. In this second plague there are, besides, two things to be remarked by us; for, first, God shews that the Egyptians had hitherto held their lives by a precarious tenure, as it were, because He had protected them from the incursion of frogs by His special mercy. We know that Egypt, on account of its many marshes, and the sluggish and almost stagnant Nile, was full of frogs and venomous animals; now, when great multitudes of them come forth suddenly, cover the surface of the fields, penetrate even to the houses and bed-chambers, and finally ascend even into the royal palace, it plainly appears that they were before only restrained by God’s hand, and thus that the God of the Hebrews was the guardian and keeper of that kingdom. Secondly, God chose not only to inflict a punishment upon the Egyptians, but to expose them to mockery by its ignominious nature; nor can we doubt but that their pain must have been much embittered by this contumely, when they saw that they were thus evil-entreated not by some victorious army, but by filthy reptiles; and besides this, that their calamity had its origin in the Nile, which enriched their country with so many advantages. But let us learn from this history that there are many deaths mixed up with our life, and that it is not otherwise lengthened out to us, except as God restrains the dangers which everywhere beset us; and again, although He may not openly strike us with lightning from heaven, nor arm his angels for the destruction of men, still, at His slightest nod, all creatures are ready to execute this judgments; and, therefore, we must ascribe it to His kindness and long-suffering, if the wicked do not perish at each moment. Finally, if we are ever galled by ignominy or disgrace, let us remember that this happens designedly, that the shame itself may mortify our pride.
(92) In the Fr. the word here used is miracles, probably a misprint for menaces.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
ISRAELS BONDAGE. MOSES AND THE EXODUS
Exo 1:1 to Exo 15:21.
DR. J. M. Grays five rules for Bible reading: Read the Book, Read the Book Continuously, Read the Book Repeatedly, Read the Book Independently, Read the Book Prayerfully, are all excellent; but the one upon which I would lay emphasis in this study of Exodus is the second of those rules, or, Read the Book Continuously. It is doubtful if there is any Book in the Bible which comes so nearly containing an outline, at least, of all revelation, as does the Book of Exodus. There is scarcely a doctrine in the New Testament, or a truth in the Old, which may not be traced in fair delineation in these forty chapters.
God speaks in this Book out of the burning bush. Sin, with its baneful effects, has a prominent place in its pages; and Salvation, for all them that trust in Him, with judgment for their opposers, is a conspicuous doctrine in this Old Testament document. God, Sin, Salvation, and Judgmentthese are great words! The Book that reveals each of them in fair outline is a great Book indeed, and its study will well repay the man of serious mind.
Exodus is a Book of bold outlines also! Its author, like a certain school of modern painters, draws his picture quickly and with but few strokes, and yet the product of his work approaches perfection. How much of time and history is put into these three verses:
And all the souls that came out of the loins of Jacob were seventy souls: for Joseph was in Egypt already. And Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation. And the Children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty; and the land was filled with them (Exo 1:5-7).
These three verses contain 215 years of time, and all the events that crowded into that period would, if they were recorded, fill volumes without end. And, while there are instances of delineation in detail in the Book of Exodus, the greater part of the volume is given to the bolder outlines which sweep much history into single sentences.
In looking into these fifteen chapters, I have been engaged with the question of such arrangement as would best meet the demands of memory, and thereby make the lesson of this hour a permanent article in our mental furniture. Possibly, to do that, we must seize upon a few of the greater subjects that characterize these chapters, and so phrase them as to provide mental promontories from which to survey the field of our present study. Surely, The Bondage of Israel, The Rise of Moses, and the Exodus from Egypt, are such fundamentals.
THE BONDAGE OF ISRAEL.
The bondage of Israel, like her growth, requires but a few sentences for its expression.
Now, there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph. And he said unto his people, Behold, the people of the Children of Israel are more and mightier than we; Come on, let us deal wisely with them; lest they multiply, and it come to pass, that, when there falleth out any war, they join also unto our enemies, and fight against us, and so get them up out of the land. Therefore they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pit horn and Raamses. But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. And they were grieved because of the Children of Israel. And the Egyptians made the Children of Israel to serve with rigour: And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar, and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field: all their service, wherein they made them serve, was with rigour (Exo 1:8-22).
There are several features in Egypts conduct in effecting the bondage of Israel which characterize the conduct of all imperial nations.
The bondage began with injustice. Israel was in Egypt by invitation. When they came, Pharaoh welcomed them, and set apart for their use the fat of the land. The record is,
Joseph placed his father and his brethren, and gave them a possession in the land of Egypt, in the best of the land, in the land of Raamses, as Pharaoh had commanded (Gen 47:11).
There they flourished until a king arose which knew not Joseph. Then a tax was laid upon them; eventually taskmasters were set over them, and those who came in response to Pharaohs invitation, Come unto me and I will give you the good of the, land of Egypt, and ye shall eat of the fat of the land, were compelled by his successors to take the place of slaves. It seems as difficult for a nation as it is for an individual to refrain from the abuse of power. A writer says, Revolution is caused by seeking to substitute expediency for justice, and that is exactly what the King of Egypt and his confederates attempted in the instance of these Israelites. It would seem that the result of that endeavor ought to be a lesson to the times in which we live, and to the nations entrusted with power. Injustice toward a supposedly weaker people is one of those offences against God which do not go unpunished, and its very practice always provokes a rebellion which converts a profitable people into powerful enemies.
It ought never to be forgotten either that injustice easily leads to oppression. We may suppose the tax at first imposed upon this people was comparatively slight, and honorable Egyptians found for it a satisfactory excuse, hardly expecting that the time would ever come when the Israelites should be regarded chattel-slaves. But he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much. It is doubtful if there is any wrong in mans moral relations which blinds him so quickly and so effectually as the exercise of power against weakness.
Joseph Parker, in speaking of the combat between Moses and the Egyptian, says, Every honorable-minded man is a trustee of social justice and common fair play. We have nothing to do with the petty quarrels that fret society, but we certainly have to do with every controversysocial, imperial, or internationalwhich violates human right and impairs the claims of Divine honor. We must all fight for the right. We feel safer by so much if we know there are amongst us men who will not be silent in the presence of wrong, and will lift up a testimony in the name of righteousness, though there be none to cheer them with one word of encouragement.
It is only a step from enslaving to slaughter. That step was speedily taken, for Pharaoh charged all his people, saying, Every son that is born ye shall cast into the river (Exo 1:22). Unquestionably there is a two-fold thought in this fact. Primarily this, whom the tyrant cannot control to his profit, he will slay to his pleasure; and then, in its deeper and more spiritual significance, it is Satans effort to bring an end to the people of God. The same serpent that effected the downfall of Adam and Eve whispered into Cains ear, Murder Abel; and into the ears of the Patriarchs, Put Joseph out of the way; and to Herod, Throttle all the male children of the land; and to the Pharisee and Roman soldier, Crucify Jesus of Nazareth. It remains for us of more modern times to learn that the slaughter of the weak may be accomplished in other ways than by the knife, the Nile, or the Cross. It was no worse to send a sword against a feeble people, than, for the sake of filthy lucre, to plant among them the accursed saloon. Benjamin Harrison, in a notable address before the Ecumenical Missionary Conference held in the City of New York years ago, said, The men who, like Paul, have gone to heathen lands with the message, We seek not yours but you, have been hindered by those who, coming after, have reversed the message. Rum and other corrupting agencies come in with our boasted civilization, and the feeble races wither before the breath of the white mans vices.
Egypt sought to take away from Israel the physical life which Egypt feared; but God has forewarned us against a greater enemy when He said, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. * * Fear Him, which after He hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear Him. If in this hour of almost universal disturbance the sword cannot be sheathed, let us praise God that our Congress and Senate have removed the saloona slaughter-house from the midst of our soldiers, and our amended Constitution has swept it from the land.
THE RISE OF MOSES.
I do not know whether you have ever been impressed in studying this Book of Exodus with what is so evidently a Divine ordering of events. It is when the slaughter is on that we expect the Saviour to come. And that God who sits beside the dying sparrow never overlooks the affliction of His people. When an edict goes forth against them, then it is that He brings their deliverer to the birth; hence we read, And there went a man of the house of Levi and took to wife a daughter of the house of Levi, and the woman conceived and bare a son (Exo 2:1-2),
That is Moses; that is Gods man! It is no chance element that brings him to the kingdom at such a time as this. It is no mere happening that he is bred in Pharaohs house, and instructed by Jochebed. It is no accident that he is taught in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. It is all in perfect consequence of the fact that God is looking upon the Children of Israel, and is having respect unto them.
Against Pharaohs injustice He sets Moses keen sense of right. When Moses sees an Egyptian slay an oppressed Israelite, he cannot withhold his hand. And, when after forty years in the wilderness he comes back to behold afresh the affliction of his people, he chooses to suffer with them rather than enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. God never does a better thing for a nation than when He raises up in it such a man. We have heard a great deal of Socrates wisdom, but it is not in the science of philosophy alone that that ancient shines; for when Athens was governed by thirty tyrants, who one day summoned him to the Senate House, and ordered him to go with others named to seize Leon, a man of rank and fortune, whose life was to be sacrificed that these rulers might enjoy his estate, the great philosopher flatly refused, saying, I will not willingly assist in an unjust act. Thereupon Chericles sharply asked, Dost thou think, Socrates, to talk in this high tone and not to suffer? Far from it, replied the philosopher, I expect to suffer a thousand ills, but none so great as to do unjustly. That day Socrates was a statesman of the very sort that would have saved Athens had his ideas of righteousness obtained.
Against Pharaohs oppression He sets Moses Divine appointment. There were many times when Moses was tempted to falter, but Gods commission constrained his service. When Moses said, Who am I that I should go unto Pharaoh? God answered, Surely I will be with thee. When Moses feared his own people who would not believe in his commission, God answered, Thus shalt thou say unto the Children of Israel, I AM hath sent you. When Moses feared that the Israelites would doubt his Divine appointment, God turned the rod in his hand into a worker of wonders. And, when Moses excused himself on the ground of no eloquence, God replied, Go, and I will be with thy mouth and teach thee what thou shalt say. With any man, a conviction of Divine appointment is a power, but for him who would be a saviour of his fellows, it is an absolute essential.
Pastor Stalker, speaking to the subject of a Divine call to the service of soul-winning, said, Enthusiasm for humanity is a noble passion and sheds a beautiful glow over the first efforts of an unselfish life, but it is hardly stern enough for the uses of the world. There come hours of despair when men seem hardly worth our devotion. * * Worse still is the sickening consciousness that we have but little to give; perhaps we have mistaken our vocation; it is a world out of joint, but were we born to put it right? This is where a sterner motive is needed than love for men. Our retreating zeal requires to be rallied by the command of God. It is His work; these souls are His; He has committed them to our care, and at the judgment-seat He will demand an account of them. All Prophets and Apostles who have dealt with men for God have been driven on by this impulse which has recovered them in hours of weakness and enabled them to face the opposition of the world. * * This command came to Moses in the wilderness and drove him into public life in spite of strong resistance; and it bore him through the unparalleled trials of his subsequent career. How many times he would have surrendered the battle and left his fellows to suffer under Pharaohs heels, but for the sound of that voice which Joan of Arc heard, saying to him as it said to her, Go on! Go on!
Against Pharaohs slaughter God set up Moses as a Saviour. History has recorded the salvation of his people to many a man, who, either by his counsels in the time of peace or his valor in the time of war, has brought abiding victory. But where in annals, secular or sacred, can you find a philosopher who had such grave difficulties to deal with as Moses met in lifting his people from chattel slaves to a ruling nation? And where so many enemies to be fought as Moses faced in his journey from the place of the Pyramids to Pisgahs Heights?
Titus Flaminius freed the Grecians from the bondage with which they had long been oppressed. When the herald proclaimed the Articles of Peace, and the Greeks understood perfectly what Flaminius had accomplished for them, they cried out for joy, A Saviour! a Saviour! till the Heavens rang with their acclamations.
But Moses was worthy of greater honor because his was a more difficult deed. I dont know, but I suppose one reason why Moses name is coupled with that of the Lamb in the Oratorio of the Heavens, is because he saved Israel out of a bondage which was a mighty symbol of Satans power, and led them by a journey, which is the best type of the pilgrims wanderings in this world, and brought them at last to the borders of Canaan, which has always been regarded as representative of the rest that remaineth for the people of God.
THE EXODUS FROM EGYPT
involves some items of the deepest interest.
The ten plagues prepare for it. The river is turned into blood; frogs literally cover the land; the dust is changed to lice; flies swarm until all the houses are filled; the beasts are smitten with murrain; boils and blains, hail, locusts and darkness do their worst, and the death of the first-born furnishes the climax of Egyptian affliction, and compels the haughty Pharaoh to bow in humility and grief before the will of the Most High God (chaps. 7-12).
There is one feature of these plagues that ought never to be forgotten. Without exception, they spake in thunder tones against Egyptian idolatry. The Nile River had long been an object of their adoration. In a long poem dedicated to the Nile, these lines are found:
Oh, Nile, hymns are sung to thee on the harp,
Offerings are made to thee: oxen are slain to thee;
Great festivals are kept for thee;
Fowls are sacrificed to thee.
But when the waters of that river were turned to blood, the Egyptians supposed Typhon, the God of Evil, with whom blood had always been associated, had conquered over their bountiful and beautiful Osiristhe name under which the Nile was worshiped.
The second plague was no less a stroke at their hope of a resurrection, for a frog had long symbolized to them the subject of life coming out of death. The soil also they had worshiped, and now to see the dust of it turned suddenly into living pests, was to suffer under the very power from which they had hoped to receive greatest success. The flies that came in clouds were not all of one kind, but their countless myriads, according to the Hebrew word used, included winged pests of every sort, even the scarabaeus, or sacred beetle. Heretofore, it had been to them the emblem of the creative principle; but now God makes it the instrument of destruction instead. When the murrain came upon the beasts, the sacred cow and the sacred ox-Apis were humbled. And ~when the ashes from the furnace smote the skin of the Egyptians, they could not forget that they had often sprinkled ashes toward Heaven, believing that thus to throw the ashes of their sacrifices into the wind would be to avert evil from every part of the land whither they were blown. Geikie says that the seventh plague brought these devout worshipers of false gods to see that the waters, the earth and the air, the growth of the fields, the cattle, and even their own persons, all under the care of a host of divinities, were yet in succession smitten by a power against which these protectors were impotent. When the clouds of locusts had devoured the land, there remained another stroke to their idolatry more severe still, and that was to see the Sun, the supreme god of Egypt, veil his face and leave his worshipers in total darkness. It is no wonder that Pharaoh then called to Moses and said, Go ye, serve the Lord; but it is an amazing thing that even yet his greed of gain goads him on to claim their flocks and their herds as an indemnity against the exodus of the people. There remained nothing, therefore, for God to do but lift His hand again, and lo, death succeeded darkness, and Pharaoh himself became the subject of suffering, and the greatest idol of the nation was humbled to the dust, for the king was the supreme object of worship.
He is a foolish man who sets himself up to oppose the Almighty God. And that is a foolish people who think to afflict Gods faithful ones without feeling the mighty hand of that Father who never forgets His own.
One day I was talking with a woman whose husband formerly followed the habit of gambling. By this means he had amassed considerable wealth, and when she was converted and desired to unite with the church, he employed every power to prevent it, and even denied her the privilege of church attendance. One morning he awoke to find that he was a defeated man; his money had fled in the night, and in the humiliation of his losses, he begged his wifes pardon for ever having opposed her spirit of devotion. Since that time, though living in comparative poverty, she has been privileged to serve God as she pleased; and, as she said to me, finds in that service a daily joy such as she at one time feared she would never feel again. Gods plagues are always preparing the way for an exodus on the part of Gods oppressed.
The Passover interpreted this exodus. That greatest of all Jewish feasts stands as a memorial of Israels flight from Egypt as a symbol of Gods salvation for His own, and as an illustration of the saving power of the Blood of the Lamb.
The opponents of the exodus perished. Our study concludes with Israels Song of Deliverance, beginning, The Lord is my strength and song, and He has become my salvation, and concluding in the words of Miriam, Sing ye to the Lord, for He hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath He thrown into the sea. See Exo 15:1-21. Such will ever be the end of those who oppress Gods people and oppose the Divine will.
When one studies the symbolism in all of this, and sees how Israel typifies Gods present-day people, and Moses, their deliverer, Jesus our Saviour, and defeated Pharaoh, the enemy of our souls, destined to be overthrown, he feels like joining in the same song of deliverance, changing the words only so far as to ascribe the greater praise to Him who gave His life a deliverance for all men; and with James Montgomery sing:
Hail to the Lords Anointed
Great Davids greater Son
Who, in the time appointed,
His reign on earth begun.
He comes to break oppression,
To set the captive free,
To take away transgression,
And rule in equity.
He comes, with succor speedy,
To those who suffer wrong;
To help the poor and needy,
And bid the weak be strong;
To give them songs for sighing,
Their darkness turn to light,
Whose souls, condemned and dying.
Were precious in His sight.
Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley
CRITICAL NOTES.
Exo. 8:2. Frogs] Heb. marsh-leapers (Gesenius): marsh-croakers (Ewald, Frst, Davies).
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.Exo. 8:1-7
THE PLAGUE OF FROGS; OR, THE SOCIALLY GREAT SMITTEN WITH THE SUPREMELY CONTEMPTIBLE
The great River of Egypt has now been smitten for seven days, and has rolled in one vast torrent of blood, indicative of the wrath of God against an impious king. But this did not move the heart of Pharaoh, as probably a sufficient supply of wholesome water was obtained for him by digging round about the river, and as long as this might be the case, he cared not for the affliction of his nation. But God was more merciful than the king, and caused the river to return to its usual pure and welcome condition. But though this judgment was removed, the Divine requirement was not withdrawn, the freedom of Israel was still demanded. And to urge this, the messengers of God are sent again to the king with the threat of new penalty if he refuse. Now the plague of frogs is sent, and the sacred river is again the scene of dire retribution. Out of its bed and numerous water-courses, Moses called up an overwhelming swarm of frogs, and upon the stretching forth of Aarons rod these creatures issued forth in such numbers that the land was full of them. This was evidently a miracle, for they came and departed suddenly at the command of Moses and Aaron, and their advent in such numbers could not be accounted for on any other supposition. It is evident that Pharaoh regarded it as such, for he besought its removal from the servant of God. The Egyptians considered it a necessary part of their religion to purify themselves by frequent washings in the river. But now these ablutions would be rendered impossible. There is no doubt that frogs were in Egypt the objects of superstitious regard; they were numbered among the sacred animals of the Egyptians. They were often regarded as omens of evil. This punishment was not a mere inconvenience, it was a destruction. (Psa. 78:45.)
I. That the socially great sometimes provoke the judgments of God.
1. That the socially great provoke the judgments of God by rejecting His claims. Pharaoh had held Israel in dire bondage for a long time, when God had commanded their freedom. He had refused to need the Divine voice in this matter. And all the great potentates of the earth who hearken not to the requests of heaven, as they are from time to time made known, are involving, and will bring unwelcome retribution upon themselves and the people they govern. And not only kings, but all, whatever their social rank, who slight the claims of God, either in reference to themselves or their companions, will be visited with punishment.
2. That the socially great provoke the judgments of God by slighting His servants. The king of Egypt had slighted Moses and Aaron, had rejected their word, had derided their mission, had disobeyed their God, and had doubted their unmistakable credentials. He will not be held guiltless for so doing. Men cannot illtreat the messengers of God and be blameless. He will defend the rights, and give emphasis to the message of those who speak in His name, and by His authority. He will not allow, even the socially Great to illtreat his ministers; they are the representatives of heavens King, and must be received as such. Nations and individuals have brought severe retribution upon themselves by their wicked persecution of the messengers of God.
3. That the socially Great provoke the judgments of God by rejecting His credentials of truth and duty. Pharaoh had not merely slighted the message of God, and the servants of God, but had done so after the clearest evidence of Divine authority and duty. And all those who neglect the inspired word and its holy teaching, the providence of God and its sacred indications of duty, are likely to be visited with dire retributions.
II. That the socially Great have no means whereby to resist the judgments of God. Pharaoh had no means whereby to resist the inroad and march of these slimy and croaking frogs. They came into all his borders, into his house, and into his bedchamber; his food was not free from their intrusion. He could not protect himself from these contemptible creatures. In this service his army was useless, and strategem was without avail. Hence this judgment was
(1) afflictive,
(2) loathsome,
(3) extensive,
(4) irresistible. Pharaoh was a proud man, but now his pride is humbled. His armaments are great and numerous, but the armaments of God are seen to be far more numerous, more capable of woe, and more readily at command. And so there are times when God afflicts men with judgments that are the result of contemptible agencies, and even the greatest kings are thus visited and tormented. Their power is defeated by frogs; not by lions. They are the prey of the worthless and despicable. They are not stricken by an overwhelming pestilence; they are troubled by some trivial malady which under ordinary circumstances would yield to easy remedy; but which now defies all skill. God can soon humble the sinner, even though it be the proud monarch of Egypt. These judgments yield
(1) not to social position,
(2) not to wealth,
(3) not to authority.
(4) not to force. If the frogs are to depart from the land of Pharaoh, it must be upon the express command of God; until this is uttered they must remain as a plague.
III. That the socially Great often involve others less guilty. in the retributions they invite. These frogs came not merely upon Pharaoh, but upon his people and nation. The socially Great are seldom alone in their retributions, they have so many dependants, and sustain so many relations to those by whom they are surrounded, that they generally involve a multitude in their sins and condemnation. The frogs covered the land of Egypt. Every home was afflicted by them, and every individual was annoyed by them. And so, the socially Great who are guilty of disobedience to the claims of God bring suffering upon multitudes.
IV. That the socially Great are always surrounded by those who are willing to strengthen them in opposition to the Divine claims. The magicians were called and by their enchantments brought up frogs upon the land of Egypt. It would have been far more to the point if these sorcerers had done something to remove the frogs, but in this they were utterly impotent. There are always those who are willing to strengthen the wicked in their evil doings. LESSONS:
1. That the socially Great ought to be in sympathy with the requirements of God.
2. That the socially Great ought to know better than provoke the wrath of the Great King.
3. That social position will not avert the retributions of God.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Exo. 8:1-2. Jehovah orders new dispatches unto his enemies upon their obstinacy.
God doubles and trebles His demands upon His enemies to persuade them.
God warns His adversaries against refusing His message.
Gods goodness warns sinners before He brings vengeance on them.
It is Gods work to smite with frogs and plague sinners by His creatures.
Exo. 8:3-4. At Gods word the waters which produce creatures to nourish, abound with creatures to destroy.
Prodigious are the armies of frogs when God raiseth them.
Houses and persons are easily overcome by poor frogs when God commands them.
But it strikes one as a strange thing to speak of frogs going into ovens. As our ovens are, of course, the approach of a frog would be impossible from the intensity of the heat with which the oven is charged, and its height from the ground. But an Egyptian oven was a hole in the earth, in which they put wood for fire, over which they put an earthen pitcher, and the bread was placed inside that, and baked by the action of the fire in the hole beneath. It seems to us a barbarous mode, but it was the Egyptian one. And you can conceive that when this hole was filled with frogs, the preparation of bread would thereby become utterly impracticable.(Dr. Cumming.)
Exo. 8:5-7. Gods command for execution surely follows that of His threatening.
Gods word of execution has its extent and bounds.
Gods executioners are ready and obedient.
Aarons arm stretched out with Gods word works mighty plagues.
The devil by his instruments may find frogs, but can make none.
God makes magicians to afflict His enemies, but not to ease them.
ILLUSTRATIONS
BY THE
REV. WM. ADAMSON
Frogs! Exo. 8:2. A frog sitting upon the sacred lotus was symbolical, says Millington, of the return of the Nile to its bed after the inundations. Seated upon a date stone, with a young palm leaf rising from its back, it was a type of man in embryo. Mungo Park describes the lively sensations of gratitude and joy with which he was affected during one of his excursions in the desert, on hearing the croaking of innumerable frogs at a short distance from him. By such sounds the traveller, when nearly perishing with thirst, was guided to the spot where the life-restoring water was to be found:
For as he wandered in the burning plain
Fainting, he heard a low amphibious strain,
And guided by the hoarse refreshing sound,
Came to the place where, from the reedy ground,
The cooling waters spread their life around.
Anthol Grec.
Divine Finger! Exo. 8:3. The plagues have an Egyptian groundwork. They present to Pharaoh no utterly new and unknown phenomena, but show the obstinate despot that the various natural agencies at work in the land were under the sole and entire control of Jehovah, and that He was as much the God of Egypt as of Israel. The low, marshy ground in the neighhourhood of the Nile naturally abounds in frogs, and at the time of the inundation in September, their numbers become formidable. These leave their haunts at Gods command, and swarm over the land a great army. Pompey boasted that, with one stamp of his foot, he could rouse all Italy to arms; but God, by one word of His mouth, can summon the creatures of the earth and sea and sky to do His strange work of judgment.Therefore
Let not guilt presumptuous rear her crest,
Nor virtue droop despondent.
Bally.
Frog-symbols! Exo. 8:5. On the ancient coat-of-arms of the French kings was a curious heraldic device of three frogs from the Gallic swamps. In Revelation 16; Rev. 5:13, we have three frogs, the unclean tenants of fenny ground, those vermin which love the glimmering twilight, coming forth from the marshy lands bordering the great river of spiritual Rome. Those loathsome frog-demons are represented as tormenting and disturbing the despotic autocracy of Christendom. But, they are the judgment of God upon the tyrant-spirit of absolutism; and His servant summons them fearlessly.
Such is the fearless confidence of love,
And such amazement fearless love compels
So Moses stood unmoved fore Pharaohs face.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
The Text of EXODUS
TRANSLATION
8 And Je-ho-vah spake unto Mo-ses, Go in unto Pha-raoh, and say unto him, Thus saith Je-ho-vah, Let my people go, that they may serve me. (2) And if thou refuse to let them go, behold, I will smite all thy borders with frogs: (3) and the river shall swarm with frogs, which shall go up and come into thy house, and into thy bedchamber, and upon thy bed, and into the house of thy servants, and upon thy people, and into thine ovens, and into thy kneading-troughs: (4) and the frogs shall come up both upon thee, and upon thy people, and upon all thy servants. (5) And Je-ho-vah said unto Mo-ses, Say unto Aar-on, Stretch forth thy hand with thy rod over the rivers, over the streams, and over the pools, and cause frogs to come up upon the land of E-gypt. (6) And Aar-on stretched out his hand over the waters of E-gypt; and the frogs came up, and covered the land of E-gypt. (7) And the magicians did in like manner with their enchantments, and brought up frogs upon the land of E-gypt.
(8) Then Pha-raoh called for Mo-ses and Aar-on, and said, Entreat Je-ho-vah, that he take away the frogs from me and from my people; and I will let the people go, that they may sacrifice unto Je-ho-vah. (9) And Mo-ses said unto Pha-raoh, Have thou this glory over me: against what time shall I entreat for thee, and for thy servants, and for thy people, that the frogs be destroyed from thee and thy houses, and remain in the river only? (10) And he said, Against to-morrow. And he said, Be it according to thy word; that thou mayest know that there is none like unto je-ho-vah our God. (11) And the frogs shall depart from thee, and from thy houses, and from thy servants, and from thy people; they shall remain in the river only. (12) And Mo-ses and Aar-on went out from Pha-raoh: and Mo-ses cried unto Je-ho-vah concerning the frogs which he had brought upon Pha-raoh. (13) And Je-ho-vah did according to the word of Mo-ses; and the frogs died out of the houses, out of the courts, and out of the fields. (14) And they gathered them together in heaps; and the land stank. (15) But when Pha-raoh saw that there was respite, he hardened his heart, and hearkened not unto them; as Je-ho-vah had spoken.
(16) And Je-ho-vah said unto Mo-ses, Say unto Aar-on, Stretch out thy rod, and smite the dust of the earth, that it may become lice throughout all the land of E-gypt. (17) And they did so, and Aar-on stretched out his hand with his rod, and smote the dust of the earth, and there were lice upon man, and upon beast; all the dust of the earth became lice throughout all the land of Egypt. (18) And the magicians did so with their enchantments to bring forth lice, but they could not: and there were lice upon man, and upon beast. (19) Then the magicians said unto Pha-raoh, This is the finger of God: and Pha-raohs heart was hardened, and he hearkened not unto them; as Je-ho-vah had spoken.
(20) And Je-ho-vah said unto Mo-ses, Rise up early in the morning, and stand before Pha-raoh; lo, he cometh forth to the water; and say unto him, Thus saith Je-ho-vah, Let my people go, that they may serve me. (21) Else, if thou wilt not let my people go, behold, I will send swarms of flies upon thee, and upon thy servants, and upon thy people, and into thy houses: and the houses of the E-gyp-tians shall be full of swarms of flies, and also the ground whereon they are. (22) And I will set apart in that day the land of Go-shen, in which my people dwell, that no swarms of flies shall be there; to the end thou mayest know that I am Je-ho-vah in the midst of the earth. (23) And I will put a division between my people and thy people: by to-morrow shall this sign be. (24) And Je-ho-vah did so; and there came grievous swarms of flies into the house of Pha-raoh, and into his servants houses: and in all the land of E-gypt the land was corrupted by reason of the swarms of flies.
(25) And Pha-raoh called for Mos-es and for Aar-on, and said, Go ye, sacrifice to your God in the land. (26) And Mo-ses said, It is not meet so to do; for we shall sacrifice the abomination of the E-gyp-tians to Je-ho-vah our God: lo, shall we sacrifice the abomination of the E-gyp-tians before their eyes, and will they not stone us? (27) We will go three days journey into the wilderness, and sacrifice to Je-ho-vah our God, as he shall command us. (28) And Pha-raoh said, I will let you go, that ye may sacrifice to Je-ho-vah your God in the wilderness; only ye shall not go very far away: entreat for me. (29) And Mo-ses said, Behold, I go out from thee, and I will entreat Je-ho-vah that the swarms of flies may depart from Pha-raoh, from his servants, and from his people, to-morrow: only let not Pha-raoh deal deceitfully any more in not letting the people go to sacrifice to Je-ho-vah. (30) And Mo-ses went out from Pha-raoh, and entreated Je-ho-vah. (31) And Je-ho-vah did according to the word of Mo-ses; and he removed the swarms of flies from Pha-raoh, from his servants, and from his people; there remained not one. (32) And Pha-raoh hardened his heart this time also, and he did not let the people go.
EXPLORING EXOBUS: CHAPTER EIGHT
QUESTIONS ANSWERABLE FROM THE BIBLE
1.
What purpose was in Gods mind for his people after Pharaoh let them go? (Exo. 8:1; Exo. 9:1; Exo. 10:3)
2.
Where would the frogs originate? (Exo. 8:3)
3.
What would the frogs get into? (Exo. 8:3-4)
4.
Whose hand signaled the frogs to come up? (Exo. 8:5-6)
5.
How did the magicians frog-miracle compare to that of Moses and Aaron? (Exo. 8:7-8)
6.
What did Pharaoh promise after the frogs came upon the land? (Exo. 8:8)
7.
What did Moses mean by Glory over me? (Exo. 8:9)
8.
Where would frogs remain after the plague was removed? (Exo. 8:9)
9.
When were the frogs to be removed? (Exo. 8:10)
10.
What did Moses do to get the frogs removed? (Exo. 8:12)
11.
Where did the frogs die? (Exo. 8:13)
12.
What was done with the dead frogs? (Exo. 8:14)
13.
What was Pharaohs response after the death of the frogs? (Exo. 8:15)
14.
What was Aarons rod to smite? (Exo. 8:16)
15.
What did the lice attack? (Exo. 8:17)
16.
Could the magicians duplicate the plague of lice? (Exo. 8:19)
17.
What was the magicians comment about the lice? (Exo. 8:19)
18.
Where did Moses meet Pharaoh after the plague of lice? (Exo. 8:20)
19.
Where would there be swarms of flies? (Exo. 8:21)
20.
How did the plague of flies affect different areas differently? (Exo. 8:22)
21.
What compromise offer did Pharaoh make to Moses? (Exo. 8:25)
22.
What did Moses refer to as the abomination of the Egyptians? (Exo. 8:26)
23.
Did Pharaoh actually promise to let Israel go? (Exo. 8:28; Exo. 8:8)
24.
What second compromise offer did Pharaoh make? (Exo. 8:28)
25.
Where did Moses go to pray that the flies be removed? (Exo. 8:29-30)
26.
How many flies remained? (Exo. 8:31)
27.
What was Pharaohs reaction after the removal of the flies? (Exo. 8:32)
EXODUS EIGHT: LITTLE CREATURESBIG PLAGUES!
(The supremely great smitten by the supremely contemptible!)
1.
Frogs; Exo. 8:1-15.
2.
Lice (gnats); Exo. 8:16-19.
3.
Flies; Exo. 8:20-32.
COMPROMISES THAT CONTINUE CAPTIVITY!
(Pharaohs compromise offers)
1.
Go; sacrifice in the land. (Exo. 8:25)
(The compromise of remaining in the world.)
2.
Go, but not very far. (Exo. 8:28) (The compromise of lukewarmness)
3.
Go, ye that are men. (Exo. 10:11)
(The compromise of undedicated families)
4.
Everyone go; but leave your flocks. (Exo. 10:24)
(The compromise of undedicated livelihoods)
FLEETING REPENTANCE IN FRIGHTENED REBELS (Exo. 8:8-15)
1.
Caused by disasters; (Exo. 8:8)
2.
Causes men to call Gods ministers; (Exo. 8:8)
3.
Causes men to make promises; (Exo. 8:8)
4.
Causes procrastination in seeking deliverance; (Exo. 8:10)
5.
Brings blessings briefly (Exo. 8:11-14)
6.
Quickly forgotten; (Exo. 8:15)
THE FINGER OF GOD! (Exo. 8:19)
1.
Cannot be escaped; (Exo. 8:16-17)
2.
Cannot be counterfeited; (Exo. 8:18)
3.
Cannot be comprehended by some; (Exo. 8:19)
GODS REDEMPTION FOR HIS PEOPLE; (Exo. 8:23)
1.
It is obvious; (Exo. 8:22)
2.
It is protective; (Exo. 8:24)
3.
It is instructive; (Exo. 8:22)
4.
It leads to deliverance; (Exo. 8:20; Exo. 8:25)
EXPLORING EXODUS: NOTES ON CHAPTER EIGHT
1.
What is in chapter eight?
This chapter contains the stories of three plagues the frogs, the lice (or gnats), and the flies. The chapter closes with Pharaohs first compromise offers to Moses. The chapter tells how the plagues soon forced Pharaoh to admit that Jehovah was causing them, and that Moses prayers could remove them. Also in this chapter we learn how the magicians of Egypt (and the gods of Egypt) utterly failed to match Moses deeds or protect Egypt.
2.
What demand and threat did Jehovah give Pharaoh? (Exo. 8:1-2)
He demanded the Pharaoh let Israel go so that they might serve Him. Serving God in this case involved sacrificing to Him (Exo. 3:12; Exo. 3:18). God threatened to smite ALL of Pharaohs land with frogs if he refused to let Israel go.
Refusing was a habit with Pharaoh. See Exo. 7:14. The warning, If you refuse . . . was given before several plagues. See Exo. 8:2; Exo. 8:21; Exo. 9:2; Exo. 10:4.
3.
What did the Egyptians think of frogs?
Frogs were highly regarded before this plague. Each September after the summer overflowing of the Nile had gone down, frogs would become numerous in ponds of water all over Egypt. Their croaking was a reminder that the gods had done their duty again and another fruitful year lay before them.
Within Egyptian mythology the frog was the embodiment of the life-giving power.[174] The frog was the symbol of the goddess Hekt (Heqt), who was thought to blow the breath of life into the nostrils of the bodies of men that her husband (Khnum) fashioned on the potters wheel from the dust of the earth. She also supposedly assisted women in childbirth, and was a symbol of the resurrection and fertility.
[174] Martin Noth, op. cit., p. 75.
4.
Where would the frogs penetrate? (Exo. 8:3-4)
From the river they would go everywhere. Frogs would enter the houses, where they would be particularly offensive to the scrupulously clean Egyptians. (See notes on Exo. 8:15; Exo. 8:17.) Psa. 105:30 says, Their land brought forth frogs in abundance, in the chambers of their kings. There was no escaping this scourge. By digging holes the Egyptians had found some relief from the water-to-blood plague, but they could not escape the frogs. They entered homes, bed-chambers, even ovens and kneading troughs, where unbaked bread was rising. This was most unusual; for frogs do not normally seek dry places like beds or ovens, nor do they crawl on people.
An Egyptian oven was only a hole in the earth, in which they put wood for a fire, and over which they put an earthen pitcher. The bread was placed inside that, and baked by the action of the fire in the hole beneath. We can imagine that when this hole was filled with frogs the preparation of bread would become utterly impractical.
5.
What act started the plague of frogs? (Exo. 8:5)
Aaron stretched forth his hand with his rod in his hand, over the rivers (referring to the branches of the Nile delta), the streams (or canals), and pools. See notes on Exo. 7:19. Aaron used the rod in the first three plagues (Exo. 7:19; Exo. 8:5; Exo. 8:16).
6.
How disastrous was the plague of frogs? (Exo. 8:6)
It was not a mere inconvenience; it was a destruction, or ruination. Psa. 78:45 says, He sent . . . frogs, which destroyed them. It stopped all usual activities of life. People could not work, or sleep, or eat, or move about without the most dreadful interference from the frogs. Frogs leaped upon and crawled over people wherever they were.
We are sure that the popularity of the frog-goddess Hekt dropped to near zero after this plague.
Egypts power was defeated not by lions, but by frogs. The supremely powerful Pharaoh was brought low by the supremely contemptible frogs.
The plague of frogs was clearly a miracle. The frogs came and died suddenly at the command of Moses and Aaron. Their coming in such great numbers can be accounted for on no other basis.
7.
How did the magicians respond to the frog plague? (Exo. 8:7)
By their enchantments (secret arts) they brought up more frogs upon the land of Egypt. This certainly did not help the Egyptians. They needed frogs removed, and not more frogs. But to Pharaoh the implications of the magicians duplicating the frog miracle were more important even than relief from the frog-scourge. At least he could satisfy himself that he was not dealing with a uniquely powerful Jehovah and a uniquely powerful Moses.
Note again that it was by enchantments that the magicians brought up frogs on Egypt. This makes us think that supernatural powers of Satan were involved. Compare Exo. 7:11; Exo. 7:22; Exo. 8:18. Rev. 16:14 prophesies, Three unclean spirits, as it were frogs, proceed forth; for they are spirits of demons, working signs.
8.
What did the frogs teach Pharaoh about Jehovah? (Exo. 8:8)
He learned that Jehovah was very real and out of his league; and that he needed Moses as an intercessor. The man who once said that he did not know Jehovah (Exo. 5:2) now requests that Jehovah be entreated. He begins and ends his speech with the name of Jehovah.
9.
What did Pharaoh ask Moses to do? (Exo. 8:8)
To entreat, or intercede, to Yahweh (Jehovah) to take away the frogs. In return he promised to permit Israel to go and sacrifice. He certainly did not keep this promise. This pattern of appeal-promise-reneging soon became a habit. Four times Pharaoh asked Moses to entreat the LORD to remove some plague (Exo. 8:8; Exo. 8:28; Exo. 9:28; Exo. 10:17). Four times Moses complied (Exo. 8:12; Exo. 8:30; Exo. 9:33; Exo. 10:18). Four times Pharaoh backed down and would not keep his promise (Exo. 8:15; Exo. 8:32; Exo. 9:34-35; Exo. 10:20).
Pharaohs repentance was that of a hypocrite, and not a godly sorrow. He desired not a new life, but simply removal of the judgment that had come upon the nation. When hypocrites have been overpowered, they often beg for deliverance and make promises. Thus did king Jeroboam I (1Ki. 13:6), and Simon the sorcerer (Act. 8:24). Pharaoh was like people who repent and make promises when in the anguish of a sick room, or in a storm, or war, or bankruptcy. Such repentance and promises often do not last long when the troubles are past.
10.
What does Glory over me mean? (Exo. 8:9) Who said this?
Literally it says, Glorify thyself. It means to take the honor or advantage over me, by directing me as to when I shall entreat God for you and your servants, to cut off the frogs from you. This was a face-saving gesture granted by Moses to Pharaoh. Moses did not say when he would remove the frogs, but when he would pray about it.
Granting Pharaoh the privilege (?) of designating when Moses should pray for deliverance from frogs actually enhanced the power and honor of Moses! Pharaoh would perceive that Moses could do this not just at some time of Moses choosing, but at any time Pharaoh said.
11.
Why did Pharaoh not ask for immediate deliverance? (Exo. 8:10)
Why wait till tomorrow? Possibly Pharaoh hoped that by the next day the frogs would be going away by themselves, and he would be clear of the plague without being obligated either to Moses or to Jehovah.
Perhaps it was a face-saving gesture for Pharaoh. It was as if he said, I can tough this out another day! You have not made me cry out in utter abject helplessness. He was still basically unwilling to yield to the claims of God upon him and to Moses authority.
12.
What would Pharaoh learn by the removal of the frogs? (Exo. 8:10)
That there was no one else like Jehovah, our God. Compare Exo. 9:14. The our reflects some justifiable Israelite pride. The truth that no one else is like God is frequently asserted in later scriptures (Deu. 33:26; 2Sa. 7:22; Isa. 46:9).
13.
Where would there be frogs after the plague? (Exo. 8:11)
In the river only. Their presence in the river indicates that the river was no longer polluted. The blood was all gone.
14.
Where did Moses pray about the frogs? (Exo. 8:12)
He went out from Pharaoh. This he did also after the plagues of flies (Exo. 8:29), hail (Exo. 9:29), and locusts (Exo. 10:18). Often prayer is best done privately. Praying in Pharaohs presence would seem like casting pearls before swine.
15.
Did Moses prayers remove the frogs? (Exo. 8:13-14)
Yea, verily! The frogs outside of the river, in fields, courtyards, and houses ALL died. They were gathered (maybe raked up) into heaps, and the land stank again. Compare Exo. 7:21.
The deeds of sinners often leave stinking heaps of aftereffects, even after the sins are forgiven. Past sins may leave behind weakened bodies, bad memories, broken marriages, debts, and enmity.
16.
What did Pharaoh do after the frog-plague was removed? (Exo. 8:15)
He hardened his heart, and would not let Israel go, as he had promised he would. Pharaoh was still unwilling to admit that the God of the Hebrews had outdone the gods of Egypt in a demonstration of power.
17.
How did these plagues affect most Egyptians?
The plagues caused total disruption of their usual life-patterns and much misery. When a father or a ruler sins, he brings misery on his whole family or nation. Thus Pharaoh caused others to suffer even more than he did.
The Greek historian Herodotus (about 450 B.C.) wrote about the Egyptians:
All other men pass their lives separate from animals; the Egyptians have animals always living with them. [The murrain of cattle disrupted this life-style!]
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
They are religious to excess, far beyond any other race of men, . . . . They wear linen garments [See Exo. 9:31!], which they are specially careful to have always freshly washed. . . . The priests shave their whole body every other day, that no lice or other impure thing may adhere to them when they are engaged in the service of the gods. Their dress is entirely of linen. . . . They bathe twice every day in cold water, and twice each night [What did they do when their water turned to blood?]; besides which they observe, so to speak, thousands of ceremonies.[175]
[175] Herodotus II, 36, 37, Translated by George Rawlinson (New York: Washington Square Press, 1963), pp. 8889.
18.
What warning was given before the plague of lice? (Exo. 8:16)
No warning was given before this plague. Similarly no warning was given before plagues six (boils) and nine (darkness). Aarons rod was employed before the plague of lice, as with the previous two plagues.
19.
What insects are referred to as lice?
Probably gnats. This is the translation of the Hebrew word kinnim in the R.S. V., the Catholic New American Bible, the Berkeley version, and the New American Standard Bible. Nonetheless, the meaning of the word is still uncertain. The New English Bible renders it maggots, and the Jerusalem Bible as mosquitoes. The Jewish historian Josephus translated the word as louse (Gr. phtheir), as did the Jewish Talmud; and these renderings have influenced most later translations. The Greek O.T. (LXX) rendered it as sknips (pl. skniphes), probably meaning flea. The skniphes were small insects which pierced the skin, and also set up intolerable itching and penetrated the ears and nostrils.
Gnats and other small insects are a common affliction in Egypt, but not to the disastrous degree reached in this plague.
20.
Where did the gnats (or lice) originate? (Exo. 8:17)
From the dust of the earth. ALL the dust of the earth became lice throughout all the land of Egypt. We hardly suppose that every particle of dust in Egypt became an insect on a one-to-one basis, but the expression certainly refers to limitless hosts of insects.
All in Hebrew usage sometimes means a very large portion, but not necessarily all in an absolute sense. Thus in the days of Noah All flesh had corrupted their way (Gen. 6:12); however, Noah and his family had not. Similarly all the cattle of Egypt died in plague five; but some cattle were still alive during plagues six and seven (Exo. 9:6; Exo. 9:9; Exo. 9:25).
21.
How did the lice affect Egypt? (Exo. 8:17)
They were upon both man and beast. Compare Psa. 105:31. See note 17 in the notes on this chapter.
22.
How did the magicians react to the lice? (Exo. 8:18-19)
They tried by enchantments to produce lice (gnats) but they could not. They did not give up; they were defeated! How small a thing the Lord used to put down the Egyptians! God apparently set this as the limit on the Satanic powers by which they had changed rods to crocodiles, made water blood, and produced frogs. The magicians had tried to salvage their own honor and the reputation of their gods, but their folly now became manifest (obvious) to all men (2Ti. 3:8-9). We wonder why Pharaoh and the magicians were so slow in perceiving that ALL of the plagues were the work of Gods finger.
The confession of the magicians that this was the finger of God is a thoroughly Egyptian expression. Compare 1Sa. 6:3; 1Sa. 6:9; Luk. 11:20. We would probably use the idiom the hand of God. G. L. Robinson says that the phrase finger of God occurs often in Egyptian magical texts. For example, we read of the finger of Seth (who was one of the principal gods of Egypt). Also in a condemnation of the monster-dragon Aphophis, the sun-god Re said, The finger of Thoth [the Egyptian recorder-god] is before thy eyes. [176]
[176] The Bearing of Archaeology on the Old Testament (New York: American Tract Society, 1944), p. 42.
The magicians do not imply that they are converted to Moses God; but they surely recognize that he is a God, and has some potent powers.
23.
How did Pharaoh react to the defeat of the magicians? (Exo. 8:19)
Their confession of impotence did not convince Pharaoh of the need of ceasing his resistance to the command of God. His heart was hardened. The text does not indicate whether he himself hardened it, or God, or both.
24.
Where was Moses to accost Pharaoh before the plague of flies? (Exo. 8:20)
Moses was to rise up early the next day and meet Pharaoh at the water, presumably at the brink of the Nile. Compare Exo. 7:15. Moses was to make the same demand as before (Exo. 7:16; Exo. 8:1). Pharaoh was surely getting the message by this time.
25.
What kinds of flies afflicted Egypt (Exo. 8:21)
Many kinds! Indeed swarms! The Hebrew word here translated swarms (of flies) means mixture.[177] Psa. 78:45 says (in KJV) He sent divers sorts of flies; this is an accurate rendering of the idea. The Hebrew word is similar to that used in Exo. 12:38, where it refers to the mixed multitude that left Egypt with the Israelites.
[177] The Hebrew word arob used here is employed nine times in the O.T., and is always related to this plague.
The Greek O.T. translated swarm as kunomuia, or dog-fly. Since the Greek Bible was translated in Egypt, this may be a precise description of the type of fly that attacked the Egyptians. The dog-fly (also called the stable-fly, because of its usual presence in stables) has a sharp and painful bite, which may cause inflammation. It is the species Stomoxys calcitrans.
Other translations have been made of swarms (of flies). Jerusalem Bible and Berkeley version give it as gadflies, a word referring to any of various flies, as horseflies, botflies, warble flies, that bite and annoy livestock. This seems like an excellent translation.
The Jewish commentator J. H. Hertz renders it beetles. Beetles (particularly the scarab beetle, a dung beetle) were sacred bugs in Egypt. The ichneumon fly, which was regarded as a manifestation of the god Uatchit, has been suggested. Another common view is that the swarms were swarms of various creatures, not just insects. This is a common Jewish view. Josephus (Antiquities II, xiv, 3) said they were various sorts of pestilential creatures, with their various properties, such indeed as had never come into sight of men before. Another Jewish view, that they were swarms of evening wolves, is not regarded as acceptable.
Once again we must note that most of the plagues had religious significance, and were directed against the gods of Egypt.
26.
What distinction was made during the plague of flies? (Exo. 8:22-23)
There were to be no flies in Goshen where the Israelites were. This is the first specific mention of such a distinction during the plagues, although we are by no means certain that it had not been the case during the first three plagues.
This distinction would cause Pharaoh to know that Israels god was Jehovah in the midst of the earth. It was Gods great goal in the plagues to make this truth real to Pharaoh. (Exo. 7:5; Exo. 7:17; Exo. 14:4; Exo. 14:18)
27.
What would God place between his people and the Egyptians? (Exo. 8:23)
Literally the text says, I will set a redemption (or ransom) between my people and thy people. The Hebrew word peduth is also translated redemption in Psa. 111:9; Psa. 130:7; Isa. 50:2.
However, some authors feel the word is more accurately rendered division. The Greek O.T. and Latin Vulgate render it division. So also the R.S.V.: I will put a division. . . . We still prefer the translation of redemption.[178] As Keil and Delitzsch[179] assert, the exemption from the plague of flies was essentially a redemption, or deliverance, for Israel. It was not just a division from harm, but involved deeper deliverance and blessings.
[178] The question hinges around whether peduth is from the verb padad, meaning to divide, or from a very similar verb padah, meaning to redeem. Both Davies Lexicon and Harkavys Hebrew Dictionary say it comes from padah.
[179] Op. cit., p. 485.
28.
When was the plague of flies to start? (Exo. 8:23)
The next day! The flies arrived the next day as predicted. The fulfillment of this prediction shows that the plague was a miracle.
29.
What effects did the flies have on the land? (Exo. 8:24)
The land was destroyed,[180] or ruined. Corrupted seems too weak a translation here. The Hebrew word shahat means to destroy when physical objects are referred to. Thus, a vineyard is destroyed (Jer. 12:10), a temple (Lam. 2:6), or a crop (Jdg. 6:4; Mal. 3:11).
[180] The Hebrew verb destroyed is in the imperfect, or future, tense, but it has a past significance here. Ancient Hebrew did not always distinguish carefully between the tenses. The imperfect tense here may indicate the continuation of the flies destruction of the land for some days: it was being destroyed.
Psa. 78:45 says, The flies ate them up.
The plague is said to have been grievous, meaning heavy, or massive, or abundant, or numerous. This is a form of the same word used to describe the heavy (or hardened) heart of Pharaoh. God sends heavy plagues to defeat mens heavy resistance.
30. What effect did the flies have on Pharaoh? (Exo. 8:25)
This plague brought him to Moses with a compromise offer. Pharaoh promised to let Israel go and sacrifice, but only in the land. Pharaoh had found no deliverance from the gods of Egypt, his magicians, or his own bluster; therefore, he now seeks compromise with Moses. Persecutors like Pharaoh never want Gods people to go far out of their reach and power.
This was the first of four compromise offers by Pharaoh, Any of them would have effectively prevented Israel from leaving the land permanently, and Moses turned them all down.
PHARAOHS COMPROMISE OFFERS
1.
Go sacrifice in the land of Egypt. (Exo. 8:25)
2.
Go out of the land, but do not go far. (Exo. 8:28)
3.
The men alone may go sacrifice. (Exo. 10:8; Exo. 10:11)
4.
Everyone may go, but leave flocks and herds in Egypt. (Exo. 10:24)
31.
Why couldnt Israel sacrifice in the land of Egypt? (Exo. 8:26-27)
Because the Israelites would offer sacrifices that would be an abomination (a detestable thing) to the Egyptians, so that the Egyptians would stone them. Also to sacrifice to Jehovah acceptably, they had to obey His command to go three days journey out of the land. Compare Exo. 3:18.
Moses did not specify what the Egyptians would find abominable about their sacrifices; but apparently Pharaoh sensed the truth in Moses objection. At least he offered no rebuttal.
The abomination did not involve sacrificing cattle, for the Egyptians did sacrifice and eat cattle, even though some cattle were sacred to them. See notes on Exo. 7:15. Probably the best explanation is that the abomination somehow involved the use of sheep for sacrifice. Every shepherd was an abomination to the Egyptians (Gen. 46:34).
This dialogue between Moses and Pharaoh suggests that during their stay in Egypt the Israelites had not sacrificed to their God.
32.
What second compromise offer did Pharaoh make? (Exo. 8:28)
He would let them go and sacrifice in the desert out of the land of Egypt; only they should not go far away. Pharaohs offer is a significant concession, and shows the plagues were truly having effect on him. Note Pharaohs request for Moses to Entreat for him. See notes on Exo. 8:8.
The world does not want Christians to move too far from it, or be too different from it. They want us to be in their power, and not to condemn them by the example of a life too righteous.
33.
What did Moses caution Pharaoh about doing? (Exo. 8:29)
Let not Pharaoh deal deceitfully any more. Pharaoh had done deceitfully previously when he promised during the plague of frogs to let Israel go, but refused to do so after the plague (Exo. 8:8; Exo. 8:15).
Gods servants like Moses are ready to help persecutors in misery, and to pray for them. But also they warn them about sin.
On going out to pray for Pharaoh, see Exo. 8:12.
34.
How fully were the flies removed? (Exo. 8:31)
There remained not one! How great is Gods deliverance! The flies were removed in answer to prayer. God removes swarms of judgments when his servants pray to him.
35.
How did Pharaoh fulfill his promises to Moses? (Exo. 8:32)
He hardened his heart again, and would not let them go. He broke his promise (Exo. 8:28). This also refers back to the second plague (the frogs), when he hardened his heart after promising to let them go if the frogs were removed (Exo. 8:8; Exo. 8:15).
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
VIII.
THE SECOND PLAGUE.
(1-4) It is generally allowed that the second plague was one of frogs. All the ancient versions agree in the interpretation; and the only rival renderingcrocodilesis too absurd to be argued against. We may take it, therefore, as certain that the second infliction upon Egypt was an innumerable multitude of frogs, which came up out of the river, and infested the cities, the houses, the sleeping apartments, the beds, the ovens, and the kneading troughs. There was no escaping them. They entered the royal palace no less than the peasants cottage; they penetrated to the inner chambers; they leaped upon the couches and beds; they polluted the baking utensils, and defiled the water and the food. Here, again, the infliction was double. (1) Frogs were sacred animals to the Egyptians, who regarded them as symbols of procreative power, and associated them especially with the goddess Heka (a wife of Kneph, or up), whom they represented as frog-headed. Sacred animals might not be intentionally killed; and even their involuntary slaughter was not unfrequently punished with death. To be plagued with a multitude of reptiles which might not be put to death, yet on which it was scarcely possible not to tread, and which, whenever a door was opened were crushed, was a severe trial to the religious feelings of the people, and tended to bring the religion itself into contempt. (2) The visitation was horrible to the sensesnauseous, disgusting. The frogs were hideous to the eye, grating to the ear, repulsive to the touch. Their constant presence everywhere rendered them a continual torment. If other later plagues were more injurious, the plague of frogs was perhaps of all the most loathsome. We read without surprise in Eustathius (Comment. in Hom. II., p. 35) that the people of Pseonia and Dardania on one occasion, were so plagued by a multitude of frogs, which filled the houses and the streets, infected the water, invaded the cooking utensils, and made all the food uneatable, that after a time, being unable to bear the pest any longer, they fled from that region altogether.
(1) Let my people go.The usual demand, which it was determined to reiterate until Pharaoh yielded. (See Exo. 5:1; Exo. 7:16; Exo. 8:20; Exo. 9:1-13; Exo. 10:3.)
(2) With frogs.The particular species intended is thought to be the modern dofka (Rana Mosaica), which i is a large kind, resembling our toad, which crawls more; than it leaps, and croaks perpetually.
(3) The river shall bring forth frogs.The frogs do not now come up directly out of the river, but rather out of the ponds and marshes which are left by the inundation. (See Exo. 8:5.) These, however, may be viewed as detached portions of the river. Frogs in Egypt are, even at the present day, an occasional annoyance and inconvenience.
Thy bedchamber . . . thy bed.No nation of antiquity set such a value on cleanliness as the Egyptians. Priests were required to dress entirely in linen, and to wash their entire bodies in cold water twice every day and twice every night (Herod. ii. 37). With other classes ablutions were frequent, and the utmost care was taken to avoid contact with whatever was uncleanly. It is difficult to conceive a greater annoyance to an Egyptian than frogs in the bedchamber and on the bed.
Ovens.Or, balking-pansearthenware vessels commonly heated by having a fire lighted inside them, and the dough attached by pressure after the fire had been withdrawn.
Kneading troughs.Comp. below, Exo. 12:34, which fixes the sense; and for representations of both kneading-troughs and ovens, see Rosellini, Monumenti Civili, pls. 84, 85.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
SECOND PLAGUE FROGS, Exo 8:1-15.
1. Go unto Pharaoh The going we must think of as being from Goshen to Zoan, Pharaoh’s capital . Zoan we may suppose to be the scene of these interviews between prophet and king .
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
THE TEN PLAGUES, Exo 7:8 to Exo 12:30.
Moses and Aaron now stand before Pharaoh as ministers of judgment, and the conflict opens between Jehovah and the gods of Egypt. The first contest between the messengers of Jehovah and the magicians, or enchanters, who are regarded as the servants of the false gods, given in Exo 7:8-13, is properly the opening scene of the struggle, and is therefore here included in the section with it. Several general observations on the whole subject are most conveniently introduced here for future reference.
(1.) The great and worthy object of these “signs and wonders” is throughout to be carefully held before the mind. There were several secondary purposes met, but the chief aim was, not to inflict retribution upon Egypt, although they did this as judgments, nor to give Israel independence, though they effected this by crushing the oppressor, but to teach the world the nature of God. It was a series of most solemn lessons in the fundamental truths of religion in God’s attributes and government. With perfect distinctness and reiterated emphasis is this declared from the very beginning: “ I am JEHOVAH Ye shall know the Egyptians shall know that I am JEHOVAH.” Events were to burn into the national consciousness of Israel, and into the memory of the world, the great truths revealed in the Memorial Name; and the faith of Israel, the sin of Pharaoh, and the might and splendour of Egyptian heathenism, were the divinely chosen instruments to accomplish this work. The rich Nile-land teemed with gods, and was the mother country of the idolatries that, centuries afterward, covered the Mediterranean islands and peninsulas, and filled the classic literature with such manifold forms of beauty. The gods of Greece were born in Egypt, and the Sibyls of Delphos and Cumaea descended from the sorcerers who contended with Moses. In no other land has idolatry ever reared such grand and massive structures as in Egypt. The immense ram-headed Ammun and hawk-headed Ra, the placid monumental Osiris, the colossal Rameses, sitting in granite “with his vast hands resting upon his elephantine knees,” these, and their brother gods of the age of the Pharaohs, have looked down upon the rising and falling Nile through all the centuries of European civilization. In no other land were the manifold forms and productions of nature so deified. In their pantheistic idolatry they offered worship not only to the sun, and moon, and earth, but to bulls, crocodiles, cats, hawks, asps, scorpions, and beetles. They seem to have made to themselves likenesses of almost every thing in “heaven above, in earth beneath, and in the waters under the earth.” The Apis and Mnevis bulls were stalled in magnificent palaces at Memphis and Heliopolis, and were embalmed in massive marble and granite sarcophagi, grander than enclosed the Theban kings. The sepulchres of Egyptian bulls have outlasted the sepulchres of Roman emperors. Nowhere else were kings so deified as here. Pharaoh incarnated in himself the national idolatry, and to crush the king was to crush the gods. The king made his palace a temple, and enthroned himself among the Egyptian deities. He sculptured himself colossal so vast that the Arabs to-day quarry millstones from his cheeks sitting hand in hand and arm in arm with his gods. To-day Rameses sits in the temple of Ipsambul between Ra and Ammun, his tall crown rising between the hawk head of the one and the tiara of the other, looking out from his rock-hewn shrine upon the desert, as he has sat since the Pharaohs. From Cambyses to Napoleon invasion after invasion has swept the Nile valley wave on wave yet here have sat these massive forms, the Nile coming to bathe their feet year by year, as if brothers to the mountains. They mark the graves of Egypt’s vanished gods, while the name of Him who smote these gods to death with Moses’s rod liveth forever.
(2.) But Egypt was the mother-land of philosophies as well as idolatries. Long ages after Moses, Herodotus, Pythagoras, and Plato followed the Hebrew lawgiver to the oldest university in the world. The Egyptian philosophy was inextricably entangled with its religion, and deciphered papyri show that magic and sorcery were esteemed as highly at the court of Pharaoh, as, long after, in the time of Daniel, at the court of Nebuchadnezzar. The dreamy mysticism of Plato and of Philo reveals how hopelessly most precious truths were entangled in priestly juggleries, and how deeply this black art, or illusion, or demonism, left its mark on the ancient world. The heathen idolatry had no more potent allies in the old civilizations than the soothsayers, sorcerers, and magicians, and it was needful that they too should be signally vanquished by the prophet of the true God. Hence Moses in Egypt as, a thousand years later, Daniel in Babylon, and a half thousand years later still, Paul at Salamis and Philippi discomfited the false prophets who aped God’s mighty works with their lying wonders. The sooth-saying and necromancy found in Christian lands to-day belong to the same kingdom of darkness, and can be exorcised only in that “Name which is above every name.” Moses, then, smites for mankind; Israel brings the Sacred Name through the wilderness for the world.
(3.) The weapons and tactics of this warfare were not such as to inflame the pride of the people of Israel, or to awaken in after generations a thirst for military glory, but such as to turn the tides of their faith and hope wholly away from themselves to their God. Hence the Hebrew national anthems glory in Jehovah rather than in Israel. Not the baptism of a war of national independence, but that of the Red Sea redemption, was their great national remembrance. Enthusiasm for Jehovah thus became the national passion. How appropriate was this in the training of a nation which was to teach the world true religion!
The real character of these plagues, or judgment strokes, will, as a general thing, appear from an attentive study of the Egyptian geography and natural history. They arise, as can usually be seen on the face of the narrative, from natural causes supernaturally intensified and directed. In the first and ninth plagues the natural causation is less distinct. They cannot, however, be explained away as natural events; for, if the record is to be believed at all, they were supernatural (1) in their definiteness, the time of their occurrence and discontinuance being distinctly predicted; (2) in their succession; and (3) in their intensity. They were, in their power and direction, threefold: (1) against the Egyptian faith in the diviners, enchanters, and sorcerers, the prophets of a false religion. (2) Against their faith in their deities, their gods of earth, and water, and air powers of nature; and beasts, and birds, and creeping things. Thus Jehovah’s supremacy over idolatry appeared. But (3) they were also punishments for disobedience to God. There is from the beginning a gradually increasing intensity in these supernatural manifestations till the magicians are utterly discomfited, all the gods of Egypt put to shame, and Pharaoh compelled to yield reluctant obedience. At first the magicians seem to display the same power as Moses, (Exo 7:11; Exo 7:22,) then come signs beyond their power . (Exo 8:18😉 soon the prophet of Jehovah so smites them that they cannot appear at all, (Exo 9:11😉 and then they vanish altogether . So the weight of the judgments increases as with increasing light the crime of disobedience rises in magnitude beginning with simple though sore annoyances, as blood, frogs, and flies; then advancing to the destruction of food and cattle smiting first their dwelling-place and surroundings, and then themselves; till the locusts swept the earth and the darkness filled the heaven, and only the death stroke was left to fall . Thus we are taught how the consequence of sin is sin, and judgments unheeded inevitably lead on to sorer judgments, till destruction comes .
(4.) Some commentators have found a special application in each plague to some particular idolatry or idolatrous rite, but this we do not find warranted by facts. Some, following Philo, the learned and devout but fanciful Alexandrian Jew, separate the plagues into two groups of nine and one, and then the nine into three groups of three, between which groups they trace what they deem instructive contrasts and correspondences. Origen, Augustine, and others, have traced parallels between these ten judgments and the ten commandments, the succession of the judgments and of the creative days, etc. Most of these interpretations not to dwell on the extravagant conceits of the Rabbies are amusing rather than instructive, and would be appropriate rather to a sacred romance or drama than to a sober history like this. The wild fables of the Talmud, the monstrosities of the Koran, and the often romantically embellished history of Josephus, present here an instructive contrast to the sacred narrative.
(5.) Thus far the Egyptian monuments give us no distinct mention of the plagues and of the exodus. We have, however, Egyptian records of the sojourn and exodus of Israel, although confused and fragmentary, and written more than a thousand years after the events. Chief and most valuable among these is the narrative of the priest Manetho, who wrote his Egyptian history during the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus, B.C. 283-247, of which a few fragments remain. Josephus has preserved all that we have of this narrative in his work against Apion. It is, as might be expected, a very different history, being the relation of an Egyptian priest many centuries after the events; yet the points of agreement are very striking.
The Israelites appear in Manetho’s story as a nation of lepers, headed by Osarsiph, a priest of Osiris, who had been educated at Heliopolis, but abandoned his order and the Egyptian religion to take the lead of this people. He taught them to abjure idolatry, gave them laws, a constitution and ceremonial, and when he united his fortunes with theirs he changed his name to Moses. The war is described as a religious war, in which, for the time, the Egyptians were discomfited, and obliged, in compliance with prophetic warnings, to abandon the country for thirteen years, and to flee, with their king Amenophis, into Ethiopia, taking with them the bull Apis and other sacred animals, while this leprous nation, reinforced by shepherds from Jerusalem, fortified themselves in Avaris, (Zoan,) a city of Goshen, robbed the temples, insulted the gods, roasted and ate the sacred animals, and cast contempt in every way upon the Egyptian worship. Amenophis afterwards returned with a great army and chased the shepherds and lepers out of his dominions through a dry desert to Palestine. (From Ewald’s trans., Hist. of Israel, 2: 79.) Here, as Ewald shows, the great outlines of the story of the exodus are to be clearly seen; the Mosaic leadership, the war of religions, the uprising of the hostile religion in Egypt itself, the leprous affliction of the revolting people, so pointedly mentioned in the Pentateuch, the secret superstitious dread inspired by Moses, which seems to have shaken the foundations of the Egyptian religion, the confession of defeat in the struggle, and the transformation of the exodus into an expulsion from Egypt these are unmistakable traces of the same history coming down through Egyptian channels. The later Egyptian writers, Chaeremon and Lysimachus, echo the story of Manetho, mingling with it Hebrew traditions. ( Josephus Against Apion, bks. i, 2.)
(6.) The exotic of Israel from Egypt is a fact now universally admitted, whatever differences may exist in its explanation. Bunsen says, in his Egypt, that “History herself was born on that night when Moses led forth his countrymen from the land of Goshen.” That this event resulted from some heavy calamities which at that time befel the Egyptians, or, in other words, that the narrative of the plagues has a solid historical foundation, is also now maintained with unbroken unanimity by Hebrew and Egyptian scholars, even by those who decline to see in these events anything supernatural. Thus Ewald says, that this history, “on the whole, exhibits the essence of the event as it actually happened.” And Knobel says, that “in the time of Moses circumstances had transpired which made it possible for the Hebrews to go forth of themselves, and impossible for the Egyptians to hinder their undertaking or to force them to return.” In other words, they who refuse to recognise here miraculous influence do recognise miraculous coincidence. Without any war, which, had it happened, must, as Knobel says, have left some trace in the history without any invasion from abroad or insurrection from within to weaken the Egyptian power a nation, unified and vitalized by faith in the one Jehovah, went forth unhindered from the bosom of a strong and prosperous empire. This is the event to be explained. The Mosaic record alone gives an adequate cause.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
The Second Plague – The Plague of Frogs ( Exo 8:1-15 ).
This can be analysed as follows:
a Yahweh tells Moses to say, ‘let my people go and serve me’ or there will be a plague of frogs (Exo 8:1-2).
b Full description of the plague of frogs that will come (Exo 8:3-4).
c Aaron to be commanded to stretch out his staff over the waters of Egypt to cause the frogs to come up (Exo 8:5).
d Aaron does so and the plague of frogs come out and spread over Egypt (Exo 8:6).
e The magicians imitate the plague and bring up frogs on the land of Egypt (Exo 8:7)
e Pharaoh entreats that the frogs might be taken away and he will let the people go (Exo 8:8).
d Moses says that the plague will be dealt with whenever Pharaoh wants, and Pharaoh says tomorrow (Exo 8:9).
c Moses promises that the disappearance of the frogs will happen and that frogs will be in their usual place only (Exo 8:10-11).
b At Moses’ intercession the frogs die out and are gathered in heaps (Exo 8:12-14).
a Pharaoh saw that there was respite and hardened his heart and did not listen to them, just as Yahweh had said (Exo 8:15).
Note the parallels. In ‘a’ Moses is to say, ‘let my people go’, in the parallel Pharaoh hardened his heart and did not listen to them. In ‘b’ a description is given of the coming of the frogs, in the parallel the frogs die out and are gathered into heaps. In ‘c’ Aaron is commanded to stretch out his staff and the frogs come, in the parallel Moses promises that the frogs will go. In ‘d’ Aaron is obedient and the frogs come, and in the parallel Moses says that he will remove the frogs whenever Pharaoh wishes. It will be noted that all these are the actions of the terrible two. In ‘d’ we have Egypt’s reaction. The magicians manage to turn some water deep red, and Pharaoh entreats that the frogs might be taken away and he will then let the people go.
Exo 8:1-4
‘And Yahweh spoke to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh and say to him, ‘Thus says Yahweh, Let my people go that they may serve me, and if you refuse to let them go, behold I will smite all your borders with frogs. And the Nile will swarm with frogs which will go up into your house, and into your bedroom, and on your bed, and into the house of your servants, and on your people, and into your ovens, and into your kneadingtroughs. And the frogs will come up both on you, and on your people, and on all your servants.’ ”
The next approach was in Pharaoh’s palace. (Moses ‘goes in’ to him). The request was still to be able to worship Yahweh in the wilderness. The threat that follows is a plague of frogs. The Nile and its offshoots and the pools around were no longer habitable, even for frogs. And the microcosms, and dead and decaying fish added to the problem. So the frogs would seek other refuges, as Yahweh well knew. They had proliferated beyond the norm and now at Yahweh’s word they would invade the land of Egypt, getting everywhere, into bedrooms, beds, ovens, kitchens and domestic appliances. Even Pharaoh in his palace would not be able to hide from these.
The Egyptians, who had a particular regard for cleanliness, would be horrified. Even their food was being contaminated.
“Go in to Pharaoh.” Moses now had ready access, and probably privileged access, to Pharaoh as a prophet, or more than a prophet. This may have had to do with his princely status but was more likely simply due to the fact that Pharaoh recognised his status as ‘a god’ under Yahweh, and knew that he could not afford not to see him. He viewed Moses with a superstitious awe that gave Moses extreme authority and conflicted with his own view of himself as a god.
“Your servants — your people.” The distinction is constantly made between the king’s high officials (his servants) and his people.
“Ovens.” Probably portable earthenware stoves.
“Kneading troughs.” Containers where the dough was kneaded, probably shallow wooden bowls (see Exo 12:34).
Exo 8:5-6
‘And Yahweh said to Moses, “Say to Aaron, stretch out your hand with your staff over the rivers, over the canals, and over the pools and cause frogs to come up on the land of Egypt.” And Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt and the frogs came up and covered the land of Egypt.’
The assumption is now that Pharaoh has again refused to listen. So the word goes out that the next stage is to follow. Aaron stretches out his hand containing the staff of God as Yahweh had commanded, and the frogs pour out of the waters to infest the land. There is nowhere in Egypt where the waters of the Nile do not reach, for where the Nile with its offshoots does not go there is no life. So the frogs were everywhere.
“Stretch out your hand with your staff.” Aaron is again to act on behalf of Yahweh and Moses. This is the second time that he stretches out his staff.
Exo 8:7
‘And the magicians did the same with their enchantments and brought up frogs on the land of Egypt.’
It was not difficult for the magicians to imitate this (although they did not really do so. They did not produce a multitude of frogs throughout Egypt). In a land saturated with frogs, it was easy for clever conjurers to give the impression that they too could produce frogs at will. But as with the crimson Nile the plague had already taken place, and thus their efforts were simply marginal. What they could do was lessen the idea that it was all miraculous and beyond the gods of Egypt. What they could not do, however, was restore the Nile and remove the frogs.
The plague of frogs would bring to every Egyptian’s mind Heqit, the goddess of fruitfulness, whose symbol was a frog. Here she was clearly powerless to do anything, or was even perhaps on Moses’ side!
Exo 8:8
‘The Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron and said, “Entreat Yahweh that he take away the frogs from me and from my people, and I will let the people go that they may sacrifice to Yahweh.”
Pharaoh was more moved by this plague. The frogs were in his palace, in his state rooms, and in his bed. He was personally affected and wanted to be rid of the things for they were seemingly everywhere. The more the servants disposed of them the more there were. He promised that now he would let the people go into the wilderness to sacrifice to Yahweh if only the frogs were removed. He had asked, “Who is Yahweh?” and had said “I do not know Yahweh” (Exo 5:2). Now he ‘entreats Yahweh’. He both knows who He is and knows Him by experience. He ‘knows His name’.
Pharaoh’s behaviour was unforgivable in the light of the times. Moses was the mediator, the go-between. In men’s eyes he would be held liable by Yahweh if things went wrong because Pharaoh broke his word. If any of Pharaoh’s officials had behaved towards him like he was making Moses behave (making an agreement that was not fulfilled) they would have been dismissed, if not worse.
Exo 8:9-11
‘And Moses said to Pharaoh, “You may have this glory over me, at what time shall I entreat for you and for your servants, and for your people, that the frogs be destroyed from you and your houses and remain in the Nile only?” And he said, “Let it happen for tomorrow.” And he said, “It shall be according to your word that you may know that there is none like Yahweh our God. And the frogs will depart from you and from your houses, and from your servants and from your people. They will remain in the Nile only.” ’
Moses accepts Pharaoh’s word and tells him that he may choose the time when the frogs cease to be a nuisance. Then they will go. (We are not told whether he spoke through Aaron, his ‘mouth’. But he probably did).
“You may have this glory over me.” A triumphant statement. Pharaoh the god has had to admit that Moses is more glorious and powerful than he, but Moses now makes him a concession. He can be given a little ‘glory’, a little independence, in choosing the time of the departure of the frogs. He can have his wounded pride consoled.
“That you may know that there is none like Yahweh our God.” With Pharaoh choosing the timing there could be no suggestion of trickery. It revealed that Yahweh had total control over the frogs whenever He wished and could remove them at any time.
“The frogs will depart.” Moses knows that it will happen but not how it will happen. In the eventuality it was mainly through them dying (Exo 8:13-14).
“From your houses.” All Pharaoh’s palaces were affected. He had had nowhere to hide.
Exo 8:12-14
‘And Moses and Aaron went out from Pharaoh, and Moses cried out to Yahweh concerning the frogs which he had brought on Pharaoh, and Yahweh did according to the word of Moses, and the frogs died out of the houses, out of the courts and out of the fields. And they gathered them together in heaps and the land gave off a stench.’
Moses cried to Yahweh and the frogs died out. Moses ‘cried out’. The expression is strong. It was one thing to know that the frogs would go, another to have selected a particular time. And Yahweh honoured his prayer.
The narrative is practical. The frogs do not hop back into the Nile. It is probable that, unknown to anyone but Yahweh, the frogs were diseased. Their contact with the microcosms in the Nile and the dead and rotting fish had probably infected them. They may well, among other things, have had anthrax. Thus their death would be sudden. But again the main miracle lies in quantity and timing, and the latter fitting in to Pharaoh’s request.
“And they gathered them together into heaps and the land gave off a stench.” The Egyptians hated the stench, but little did they realise that these heaps were a time bomb waiting to go off.
Exo 8:15
‘But when Pharaoh saw that there was respite he hardened his heart (‘made his heart heavy’) and did not listen to them, just as Yahweh had said.’
Pharaoh’s word proved not to be reliable. Once he thought the menace was gone, and realised they were somehow managing to cope with the problems of the red Nile (although many of his subjects may have disagreed with him) he changed his mind. But the listener is assured that this was all in the plan, it was ‘just as Yahweh had said’. Little did Pharaoh realise that another menace was already building up and would come without warning.
All men have times when they are forced to turn their thoughts towards God, and when they seek God’s help. It is at such times that their destinies are determined. Either they become grateful and continually responsive to Him, or like Pharaoh they choose to forget Him as soon as the problem is behind them. Either they warm towards Him continually or their hearts are hardened. In this way they determine their own judgment and destiny, just as Pharaoh was doing now. Many of the Pharisees would later do it with Jesus. Jesus described it as being in danger of blaspheming against the Holy Spirit at work through Him. Here Pharaoh was doing the same to Yahweh in the light of His clear signs. That is why Yahweh can later harden him.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Exo 8:1-15 The Second Plague (Frogs) In Exo 8:1-15 we find the story of the second plague that the Lord brought upon Egypt, which consisted of countless frogs coming upon the land. The Nile River that the Egyptians worshipped as a source of life had become a curse bringing forth frogs.
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Israel’s Justification ( Exo 1:1 to Exo 15:21 ) The emphasis of Exo 1:1 to Exo 18:27 is Israel’s justification before God through the sacrificial atonement of the Mosaic Law. The Passover was the time when God cut a covenant with the children of Israel, and the Exodus testifies to His response of delivering His people as a part of His covenant promise of redemption. Israel’s justification was fulfilled in their deliverance from the bondages of Egypt. Heb 11:23-29 highlights these events in order to demonstrate the faith of Moses in fulfilling his divine commission. These events serve as an allegory of the Church’s covenant through the blood of Jesus Christ and our subsequent deliverance from the bondages and sins of this world.
The Exodus Out of Egypt Exo 1:1 to Exo 18:27 describes God’s judgment upon Egypt and Israel’s exodus from bondage. In comparing the two Pharaoh’s discussed in this section of the book it is important to note that the pharaoh who blessed the people of Israel during Joseph’s life was himself blessed along with his nation. In stark contrast, the Pharaoh who cursed God’s people was himself cursed with the death of his own first born, as well as his entire nation. God watches over His people and blesses those who bless them and He curses those who curse them (Gen 12:3).
Gen 12:3, “And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.”
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Exo 7:1 to Exo 12:30 The Ten Plagues Exo 7:1 to Exo 12:30 records the story of the ten plagues of Egypt. Here is a summary of the Ten Plagues:
Aaron turns rod to a serpent (Exo 7:10) Magicians copy (Exo 7:11) 1. Water turned to blood (throughout land) Magicians copy (Exo 7:22) 2. Frogs (covered land of Egypt) (Exo 7:6) Magicians copy (Exo 8:7) 3. Lice or flies (covered land) (Exo 8:17) Magicians could not (Exo 8:18) 4. Swarms (division of Goshen) (Exo 8:24; Exo 8:23) 5. Murrain (cattle disease) (Exo 9:3) 6. Boils (Exo 9:10) 7. Hail (division of Goshen) (Exo 9:23; Exo 9:26) 8. Locusts (Exo 10:13) 9. Darkness (division of Goshen) (Exo 10:22) 10.Death of first-born (Israel covered up blood) (Exo 12:29, Exo 11:7) The Ten Plagues upon Egypt were delivered by God in progressive intensity until it ended with the death of the firstborn. These plagues were a means of judgment upon the people of Egypt in order to bring them to repentance an to an acknowledgment of the God of Israel as the true and living God. This is why many of the plagues were orchestrated to demonstrate that the God of Israel was more powerful than particular gods of Egyptian mythology.
The wise men, sorcerers and magicians were able to copy the first three signs of the rod turning into a serpent (Exo 7:11), the water turning into blood (Exo 7:22), and the plague of frogs (Exo 8:7). After this, these enchanters began to see that God was working thru Moses and Aaron.
Exo 7:11, “Then Pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers: now the magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with their enchantments.”
Exo 7:22, “And the magicians of Egypt did so with their enchantments: and Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, neither did he hearken unto them; as the LORD had said.”
Exo 8:7, “And the magicians did so with their enchantments, and brought up frogs upon the land of Egypt.”
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
The Ten Plagues Exo 7:14 to Exo 11:10 records the story of the Ten Plagues that God brought upon the nation of Egypt. The swallowing of the serpents of Pharaoh’s magicians by the serpent of Moses (Exo 7:11-12) foreshadows the fact that the Ten Plagues were a power struggle between the gods of Egypt and the God of Israel. These enchantments by Pharaoh’s sorcerers symbolized the strength of their gods. Yet, the Ten Plagues demonstrated that God’s power extended beyond their gods of enchantment unto all of the gods that were worshipped in the land of Egypt, deities that were designated for every area of their lives. The Egyptians served deities of heaven and deities of the earth, deities of the weather, over their crops and those for diseases. Each deity was believed to have power over a limited aspect of one’s life. The Egyptians knew that their gods were limited in scope of influence and power. With the Ten Plagues, God proved that His power encompassed over all creation and every aspect of human life.
Throughout the Ten Plagues God demonstrated that He was God Almighty. This was God’s way of using judgment to bring men to repentance. In fact, the Scriptures indicate that a number of Egyptians were converted and followed the Israelites out in the Exodus to serve their God.
Exo 12:38, “And a mixed multitude went up also with them; and flocks, and herds, even very much cattle.”
Num 11:4, “And the mixt multitude that was among them fell a lusting: and the children of Israel also wept again, and said, Who shall give us flesh to eat?”
These converts declared that they would go with the children of Israel because God is with them, as the prophet Zechariah says would happen again later in Israel’s history (Zec 8:3); or, as Ruth clung to Naomi in order to serve her God.
Zec 8:23, “Thus saith the LORD of hosts; In those days it shall come to pass, that ten men shall take hold out of all languages of the nations, even shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We will go with you: for we have heard that God is with you .”
Rth 1:16, “And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God:”
When God judges a nation as He did Egypt during the time of Moses, He always begins by judging the object of a nation’s trust and confidence. For example, in 2001 to 2003, the Lord judged the United States in three areas. The destruction of the World Trade Center symbolized American’s trust in its wealth. The damage to the Pentagon on the same day represented American’s military might. The explosion of the U.S. Space Shuttle Columbia represented American’s technology and ingenuity. None of these three are above God Almighty. In the same way, God judged the deities of Egypt so that these people would know the true and living God, the God of Israel.
The Significance of the Number “Ten” – The Hebrew phrase “ten times” ( ) is made up of two words, “ten” ( ) (H6235), and “times” ( ) (H6471). Although the literal translation is, “ten times,” John Gill understands the phrase “ten times” in Num 14:22 as an idiom to mean a rounded number, which is equivalent to “time after time,” thus “numerous times.” He says that although the Jews counted ten literal occasions when Israel tempted the Lord during the wilderness journeys, Aben Ezra gives this phrase a figurative meaning of “many times.” [34] T. E. Espin adds to the figurative meaning of Num 14:22 by saying that Israel had tempted the Lord to its fullness, so that the Lord would now pass judgment upon them, even denying them access into the Promised Land, which is clearly stated in the next verse. [35]
[34] Gill lists ten literal occasions, “twice at the sea, Exodus 14:11; twice concerning water, Exodus 15:23; twice about manna, Exodus 16:2; twice about quails, Exodus 16:12; once by the calf, Exodus 32:1; and once in the wilderness of Paran, Numbers 14:1, which last and tenth was the present temptation.” John Gill, Numbers, in John Gill’s Expositor, in e-Sword, v. 7.7.7 [CD-ROM] (Franklin, Tennessee: e-Sword, 2000-2005), comments on Numbers 14:22.
[35] E. T. Espin and J. F. Thrupp, Numbers, in The Holy Bible According to the Authorized Version (A.D. 1611), with an Explanation and Critical Commentary and a Revision of the Translation, by Bishops and Clergy of the Anglican Church, vol. 1, part 2, ed. F. C. Cook (London: John Murray, 1871), 702.
The phrase “ten times” is used as an idiom in several passages in the Scriptures to mean countless times (Gen 31:7, Num 14:22, Neh 4:12).
Gen 31:7, “And your father hath deceived me, and changed my wages ten times; but God suffered him not to hurt me.”
Num 14:22, “Because all those men which have seen my glory, and my miracles, which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have tempted me now these ten times, and have not hearkened to my voice;”
Neh 4:12, “And it came to pass, that when the Jews which dwelt by them came, they said unto us ten times , From all places whence ye shall return unto us they will be upon you.”
The NAB translates this phrase in Gen 31:7 as “time after time.”
NAB, “yet your father cheated me and changed my wages time after time . God, however, did not let him do me any harm.”
The number ten represents a counting system that is based on ten units. Thus, the number ten can be interpreted literally to represent the numerical system, or it can be given a figurative meaning to reflect the concept of multiple occurrences.
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
The Plague of the Frogs
v. 1. And the Lord spake unto Moses, Go unto Pharaoh, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord, Let My people go that they may serve Me. v. 2. And if thou refuse to let them go, behold, I will smite all thy borders, the entire country to the extremest boundaries, with frogs; v. 3. and the river, v. 4. and the frogs shall come up both on thee, and upon thy people, and upon all thy servants. v. 5. And the Lord spake unto Moses, Say unto Aaron, Stretch forth thine hand with thy rod over the streams, over the rivers, and over the ponds, almost as in the first plague, and cause frogs to come up upon the land of Egypt.
v. 6. And Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt; and the frogs came up, and covered the land of Egypt. v. 7. And the magicians did so with their enchantments, v. 8. Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron and said, Intreat the Lord that He may take away the frogs from me and from my people. v. 9. And Moses said unto Pharaoh, Glory over me, v. 10. And he said, Tomorrow, v. 11. And the frogs shall depart from thee, and from thy houses, and from thy servants, and from thy people; they shall remain in the river only. v. 12. And Moses and Aaron went out from Pharaoh; and Moses cried unto the Lord, v. 13. And the Lord did according to the word of Moses, v. 14. And they gathered them together upon heaps, v. 15. But when Pharaoh saw that there was respite,
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
EXPOSITION
THE SECOND PLAGUE. After an interval which there are no means of estimating, the second plague followed the first. Again, while the main purpose of the plague was to punish the nation by which Israel had been so long oppressed, the secondary object of throwing contempt upon their, religion was main-rained. Frogs were among the Egyptian sacred animals. One of their deities, Heka, was a frog-headed goddess; and they seem to have regarded the frog as a sacred emblem of creative power. The great multiplication of frogs, whereby they became an annoyance and a curse, was a trial and strain to the entire Egyptian religious system. The Egyptians might not kill them; yet they destroyed all their comfort, all their happiness. Their animal-worship was thus proved absurd and ridiculous. They were obliged to respect the creatures which they hatedto preserve the animals they would fain have swept from the face of the earth. It is perhaps somewhat difficult for modern Europeans to imagine the plague that frogs might be. The peculiar kind, which has the scientific name of Rana Mosaica, resembles our toad, and is a disgusting object, which crawls rather than leaps, and croaks perpetually. To have the whole country filled with these disgusting reptiles, to be unable to walk in the streets without treading on them, to find them not only occupying one’s doorstep but in possession of one’s house, in one’s bed-chamber, and upon one’s bed, to hear their dismal croak perpetually, to see nothing but their loathsome forms whithersoever one looked, to be in perpetual contact with them and feel the repulsion of their cold, rough, clammy skin, would be perhaps as severe a punishment as can well be conceived. Nations are known to have deserted their homes, and fled to a foreign land to escape from it. “In Paeonia and Dardania,”says Phoenias, a disciple of Aristotle, “there appeared once suddenly such a number of frogs, that they filled the houses and the streets. Thereforeas killing them, or shutting the doors, was of no avail; as even the vessels were full of them, the water infected, and all food uneatable; as they could scarcely set their foot upon the ground without treading on heaps of them, and as they were vexed by the smell of the great numbers which diedthey fled from that region altogether”. In Egypt, the young frogs come out of the waters in the month of September, when the inundation is beginning to subside. Even now they sometimes amount to a severe visitation.
Exo 8:1
Go unto Pharaoh. The second plague is given simply as a plague, not as a sign. It is first threatened (Exo 8:2), and then accomplished (Exo 8:6), an interval being allowed, that Pharaoh might change his mind, and escape the plague, if he chose.
Exo 8:2
Frogs. The word used for “frog,” viz. tseparda, is thought to be Egyptian, and to remain (abbreviated) in the modern dofda, which is in common use, and designates the species known to naturalists as “Rana Mosaica.”
Exo 8:3
The river shall bring forth frogs. The frogs do not often come directly out of the river. They are bred in the pools and marshes which the Nile leaves as it is retiring. These, however, may be viewed as detached fragments of the river. Thine house thy bed-chamber thy bed. The extreme cleanliness of the Egyptians (Herod. 2:37) rendered this visitation peculiarly disagreeable to them. The frogs under ordinary circumstances do not think of entering houses. Ovens in Egypt were probably baking-pans. These were heated from within by a fire of wood, which was withdrawn after a time and the dough attached by pressure to the interior of the vessels. Kneading-troughs were vessels in which the dough was prepared. Both these and ovens are represented in the Egyptian tombs. (See Rosellini,’ Mon. Civ.’ pl: 84, 85.)
Exo 8:5
Over the streams rivers ponds. See the comment on Exo 7:19.
Exo 8:6
The frogs came up. Literally, “The frog came up,” the word being used to designate the class or species.
Exo 8:7
The magicians did so and brought up frogs. Here again, as in their imitation of the first plague (Exo 7:22), sleight of hand may have been the means employed by the magicians; or possibly they may have merely claimed that their enchantments “brought up” frogs, which were in reality the consequence of Aaron’s act (Exo 8:2).
HOMILETICS
Exo 8:1-8
God can scourge men beyond endurance with a whip of straw.
A frog seems an innocent and harmless reptile enough, not pleasing nor attractive, but scarcely calculated to cause much suffering. When the Egyptians made frogs sacred, they had no notion of one day finding them an intolerable annoyance. But God can make, of the least of his creatures, a weapon to wound, a whip to scourge men. Minute microscopic fungi and entozoa destroy crops and wither up the human frame. Huge ships are utterly ruined by the working of the Teredo navalis. White ants bring down houses. And so, on this occasion, poor weak frogs made the lives of the Egyptians a burthen to them. Forced to tread on them as they walked, to feel them crawling upon their naked feet, to see them covering the floors of their chambers and the soft cushions of their beds, finding them in their ovens, their kneading-troughs, the culinary and other vessels, scarcely able to keep them out of their food, always hearing their melancholy croak, the unfortunate wretches had not a moment’s comfort or peace. Constant dropping wears out a stone. A trivial annoyance becomes intolerable by repetition and persistence. Thus, even the obdurate Pharaoh, who had borne the first plague till God chose to remove it without a symptom of yielding, is cowed by the second plague, and “calls for Moses and Aaron”(Exo 8:8).
HOMILIES BY J. ORR
Exo 8:1 -39
Three plagues-frogs, lice, flies.
On the precise character of these three plagues, see the exposition. They are to be viewed in their relation to the Egyptians.
1. As an intensification of the natural plagues of the land.
2. As a proof of the almightiness of Jehovah (see on Exo 7:17), and of the folly of further contest with him (Exo 8:10, Exo 8:22).
3. As a demonstration of the vanity of the idols. The Egyptian gods were utterly powerless to aid their worshippers. There was not the shadow of help to be derived from them. This was the more remarkable that several of the gods were worshipped as protectors from the very classes of plagues which were here brought upon the country. There were fly-gods, to protect against flies, deities to protect against frogs, etc. And the defeat of the idols was remarkable from this other fact, that several of the agents employed as scourges of Egypt were themselves ranked as deities. This was the case with the river, and with many of the creatures, e.g. the beetle, probably included under “flies.”
4. The removal of the plagues when Pharaoh showed signs of submission, was a proof of God’s mercy, and a token to the monarch of his sincerity in his dealings with him generally. Taken in connection with Pharaoh’s behaviour under them, the three plagues read us valuable lessons. They teach
I. THE SUPREMACY OF GOD in THE KINGDOM OF NATURE. All creatures, all agencies, are under his control. They come and go, march and countermarch, act in separation or combination, at his pleasure. He sent the hornets before the Israelites to drive out the Amorites from their strong castles (Exo 22:28). He frequently punished Israel by sending armies of locusts to devour the produce of the fields (Joe 1:1-20, Joe 2:1-32; Amo 4:1-13.). Jehovah was at the head of these armies (Joe 2:11), and so was he at the head of the armies of frogs, gnats, flies, and other noxious insects that drove the Egyptians to a state of desperation. This is a striking thought, in as full accordance with a sound philosophy and with the facts presented to us in nature, as with the teaching of Christ, who bids us see the Father’s hand even in the fall of a sparrow. What account can be given, e.g; of the minatory instincts of birds, save that suggested by this thought of Jehovah’s rule, regulating their motions, and guiding them in their long and perilous journeys (Jer 8:7). He rules. He alone rules. “An idol is nothing”(1Co 8:4).
II. THE IMPOTENCE OF MAN IN THE HANDS OF JEHOVAH.
1. God‘s entire control of all things in creation gives him command of exhaustless resources for the punishment of his enemies. When the river was healed at the end of seven days, Pharaoh may have thought that his trouble had blown pastthat the plagues were at an end. But lo! a new plague is brought upon him, of which he had never dreamed, a plague of “frogs,” also from the river. Then in swift successive strokes came the plagues of gnats, of mixed insects, of murrain of beasts, of boils, etc; each breaking out from some new and totally unexpected quarter. If ever the Egyptians thought, Surely the arrows in the quiver of this mighty god are at length all spent, they were speedily undeceived by the breaking forth upon them of some fresh plague. The Almighty’s quiver is not thus easily exhausted. There is at every stage in his chastisements an infinite reserve of power to chastise us further, and in new forms.
2. Natural agents are a frequent means by which God chastises the rebellious. It is really a truer philosophy which sees God behind all action of natural force, and all movements of the irrational creatures, than that which sees only second causes, only laws and instincts, and refuses to recognise the Supreme Orderer in their movements and combinations. There need be no scruple in acknowledging second causes, or even, in a sense, a reign of unvarying law; but the “laws” of nature are one thing, and the “course” of nature another, and this latter the Theist believes to be no more of chance than the former, while the Christian is taught to trace a Divine purpose and end in its minutest ramifications. Hail, snow, fire, and vapour; stormy wind; rain and thunder; insect and reptile life; plague and famine; disease in its myriad formsall are weapons in the hands of God by which he can fulfil his. righteous will to punish.
3. The minutest forms of life are used by God as his sorest scourges. Thomas Scott acutely remarks that the plagues would have been easier to bear, and would not have been felt to be so humiliating, had the agents in them been lions and tigers, or other animals of the nobler sort; or perhaps foreign enemies. There would at least have been dignity in succumbing to the attacks of hordes of powerful foes. But how intolerably humiliating to be conquered by shoals of frogs or by insignificant and contemptible creatures like lice and flies! Yet Pharaoh could more easily have contended with the former classes of enemies than with these latter. One army can charge another with at least some chance of success; and protection is possible against enemies that are of a size which admits of their being shot, hunted, trapped, or kept out by walls and defences; but nothing of this kind is possible with the minuter creatures. It was impossible to erect defences against locusts; and to this hour, man is helpless against their ravages. A stray Colorado beetle may be put to death; but if that form of life were developed to but a small extent among us, it would be impossible to shield ourselves effectually from its destructive operations. Numbers of diseases have now been traced to the presence of germs in the atmosphere and in our food and drink, and it is the very minuteness of these germstheir microscopic and infinitesimal characterwhich makes them so deadly and so difficult to cope with. When the potato disease appeared in 1846, nothing could be done to check its spread, and little can be done yet to guard against its assaults! The fungus is of a kind which eludes our efforts to deal with it. Plague and pestilence (Plague of London, Black Death, Cholera, etc.), while depending to a very large extent on material conditions for their development, yet seem connected in their origin with similar organic germs. In this whole wide region, accordingly, God has under his control potent invisible agencies, which ordinarily his providence keeps in check, but which at any hour might be converted into most terrific scourges. He has at command a literally exhaustless array of weapons with which to assail us, if we provoke his chastisements; armies countless in numbers, invisible in form, unseen in their modes of attack, and against which no weapons can be forged likely to secure safety. As knowledge advances, means are discovered for partially protecting ourselves against this or that disorder (sanitary science, vaccination, etc.); but just as, perhaps, we are beginning to think with the Egyptians that the evil day is past, some new plague develops itself (e.g. the potato murrain) of which formerly we had no conception. We are still in God’s hands and as helpless as ever. The “last days” will probably be marked by a singular intensification of natural plagues (Luk 21:25; Rev 16:1-12).
III. THE POSSIBILITIES OF RESISTANCE TO GOD THAT LIE IN HUMAN NATURE. It might have been judged impossible that, after being convinced, as Pharaoh at an early stage in these proceedings must have been, of the reality and power of the Being with whom he was contendingthat he was indeed Jehovah, the God of the whole earththe monarch should still have persevered in his mad resistance. Twice, in the course of this chapter, he is brought to the point of acknowledging the futility of further opposition; yet, immediately on the plague being removed, he reverts to the policy of non-submission. He must have known that he had nothing to gain by it. If he was infatuated enough at first to think that the Almighty, having removed one plague, could not, or would not, send another, he must have been speedily disabused of that impression. It was no longer a question of self-interest with him, for the loss and pain caused by these successive plagues more than counterbalanced any gain he could hope to derive from the retention of the Israelites. Neither had he on his side, in opposition to this command of the Hebrews’ God, the least shadow of right or reason, with which to sustain himself. Yet without one conceivable motive save that furnished by his own pride and obstinacy, and by hatred of the Being who was thus coercing him, Pharaoh continued to resist. Conquered for the moment, he returned to his defiant attitude the instant pressure was removed. And this defiant attitude he maintained, with increasing hardness of heart till the very end. Here then we see the possibility of a being finally resisting grace. It appals us to think of the possibilities of resistance to the Almighty thus tying in the constitution of our wills, but the fact is not to be ignored. It is a proof of our original greatness. It reveals to us our immortality. It shows us the possibility of a final loss of the soul. If it be thought that Gospel influences are certain to accomplish that which could not be expected by terrors and judgments, and that changes may be wrought in eternity, which cannot be wrought in time, we have to remember that an even worse hardening is possible under the dispensation of the Son and Spirit than was possible to Pharaoh, and that human nature in the future state is essentially the same as human nature now. No good reason can be shown why a will which resists all that God can do to subdue it here may not from the same motives resist all gracious influences brought to bear on it hereafter. No one, at least, looking to the possibilities of resistance manifested on earth, could guarantee that it will not do so. The tendency to a fixed state of the will in evil as in good, renders the possibility of an ultimate recovery of those who habitually resist light here extremely problematical, even on the grounds of philosophy. If we turn to Scripture, it is difficult to see what warrant we have to expect it. The dream of a future dispensation of grace, and of universal restoration, must find support somewhere else than in its statements. ]f we accept the plain teaching of Christ and the Apostles, there are those who will finally resist, and their number will not be few. The gift of will is a great, but it is also an infinitely perilous one. Even Dr. Farrar says, “I cannot tell whether some souls may not resist God for ever, and therefore may not be for ever shut out from his presence”.
IV. GOD‘S READINESS TO BE ENTREATED OF THE SINNER. Though Pharaoh had hardened himself so obstinately, yet, on the first signs of his relenting, mercy was shown to him (verse 9). There was on God’s part, even a hastening to be gracious. Pharaoh was taken at his word. He was trusted. No guarantees were taken from him that he would fulfil his word, save his simple promise. God might have delayed the removal of the plague till the actual order for Israel’s departure from the land had been given. But the plague was removed at once, that Pharaoh might be left to his freedom, and that his heart might be won by the exhibition of the divine goodness to him. And this was done, not merely on the first, but on the second occasion of his entreaty, and after his first promise had been broken (verse 29). So willing is God to do the sinner every justice, and to grant him every opportunity, which may result in his salvation, lie does not wait for complete conversion, but welcomes in man the first signs of a disposition to return to Him. He is as plenteous in mercy as tie is severe in judgment, if mercy is despised.
V. THE EFFECT OF CONTINUED IMPENITENCE IN PRODUCING INCREASED HARDNESS OF HEART. It is obvious from this chapter that Pharaoh was making rapid progress in hardening himself. Going back a stage or two, we can trace that progress in very marked degrees. We find him hardening himself
1. Against a miracle which was plainly from God, but which he tried to persuade himself was only a work of magicthe conversion of the rod into a serpent.
2. Against a miracle which he knew to be from God, but against the influence of which his obstinacy enabled him to hold outthe turning of the Nile into blood.
3. Against a miracle which he not only knew to be from God, but which convinced him of the hopelessness of further resistance, and which was removed from him at his own requestthe plague of frogs.
4. Against his own promise to release the Israelites.
5. Against a miracle which even his magicians failed to imitate, and declared to be the finger of God, (verse 19)the plague of lice. Having broken his promise, Pharaoh now felt, probably, that he must brave it out.
6. Against a miracle which showed yet more distinctly that the work was God’s by the difference which was put between the Egyptians and the Israelites dwelling in Goshenthe plague of flies (verses 22, 23). This seems to have produced a powerful impression upon the king, and he again besought the removal of the plague.
7. Against a second solemn promise, and after being expressly warned against deceitful dealing (verse 29). As the result of all, Pharaoh was acquiring facility in hardening himself, was rapidly losing his susceptibility to truth, was becoming infatuated in his obstinacy, and was strengthening his will in the habit of resistance. Thus fatally does hardening make progress!J.O.
Exo 8:1-16
The plague of frogs.
Observe on this plague, in addition to what has been said above.
I. PHARAOH‘S HARDNESS UNDER THE FIRST PLAGUE WROUGHT NO ESCAPE, EITHER FROM THE DIVINE COMMAND OR FROM THE DIVINE POWER (Exo 8:1). He probably thought, now that the river was healed, that he had done with Jehovah’s demand, and perhaps congratulated himself that he had succeeded in holding out. But divine commands are not thus to be got rid of. They are not to be got rid of by resistance. They are not to be got rid of even by braving out the penalty. They come back and back to us, and always with the old alternative, obey, or incur new punishment. Our most furious opposition cannot rid us of the obligation of rendering to Jesus in the Gospel “the obedience of faith,” nor shall we escape judgment if we refuse.
II. THE SECOND PLAGUE INDUCED A SUBMISSION WHICH THE FIRST FAILED TO EXTORT (Exo 8:8). It was submission under compulsion, but it testified to a remarkable change in the king’s views about Moses and Jehovah. It was not long since he had been erecting himself in his pride in supreme defiance of both. Moses and Aaron he had treated as base-born slaves, and had ordered them back to their burdens (Exo 5:4). He had scorned the message of their God, and had shown his contempt for it by heaping new insults on Jehovah’s worshippers. So impressed was even Moses by his lordly greatness, that he had shrunk from exposing himself to the proud king’s despite, lie thought it was useless for him to attempt to go to Pharaoh. Very different were Pharaoh’s ideas about Moses and Jehovah now he had been smitten by the invisible hand of this God with these two reeling blows, and already he was on his knees asking for deliverance. The vaunting sinner will change his views of the living God when once he falls into His hands.
III. THE SECOND PLAGUE REVERSED THE RELATIONS OF MOSES AND PHARAOH, MAKING PHARAOH THE SUITOR, AND MOSES THE PERSON SUED TO (Exo 8:8). What a humiliation to this haughty monarch! How much better for himself had he yielded at first, and with a good grace, to the righteous demand made upon him! Nothing is gained by resistance to God, but ultimate pain and humiliation. As Pharaoh was humbled, so Moses was exalted, lie began to be “a god” to Pharaoh. Like reversals of the positions of the great ones of the world and despised servants of God have frequently been witnessed. Compare Paul and Felix (Act 24:25); Paul and the centurion, in the shipwreck at Malta (Act 28:1-31.).
IV. THE SECOND PLAGUE RAISED MOSES TO NEW HONOURS BY MAKING HIS INTERCESSION THE MEDIUM OF DELIVERANCE (Exo 8:9-12). God might have removed the plague at Pharaoh’s simple request, conveyed to him by Moses. In point of fact, he made the intercession of Moses the condition and medium of it. The same thing is seen in the history of Elijah (1Ki 18:41-46). This,
1. Put honour upon Moses.
2. Taught the value of “the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man”( Gen 18:23-33; Jas 1:15-18).
3. Gave Moses himself a deeper interest in the event.
4. Trained him for the higher function of mediation on behalf of Israel. It would give him confidence in intercession, would enable him to realise the reality of his power with God, would help in developing the faculty of earnest and sustained prayer.
5. It shadowed forth the higher mediation. Pharaoh was so abandoned in evil, so insincere even in his repentance, that his request, as it were, could only become prevailing when taken up by a holier nature and presented as its own. This is the key to all spiritual intercession, and involves the principle which reaches its full expression in the mediation of our Saviour.
V. THE REMOVAL OF THE PLAGUE RESULTED IN PHARAOH‘S BREAKING OF HIS PROMISE, AND IN HIS FURTHER HARDENING. The severity of the plague had for the moment unmanned him. His power of further resistance had broken down. But the will to resist was not in the least altered, and when the plague was removed, his obstinate disposition reasserted itself, and produced new rebellion. Rage and pride must at this crisis have overpowered reason, as well as conscience, for Pharaoh could hardly doubt but that his breach of promise would bring new trouble upon him. He did, however, return to his contumacy, and by the act cut down another of the bridges which might have conducted him back to peace with God, and to safety and honour in his kingdom. Terror of any kind, the approach, perhaps, of death, or of what seems to threaten death, often produces quakings of soul, and transient repentances. If these are not followed up on recoveryif recovery or escape is grantedthey react to induce a very special hardening. A heart seldom gets the better of vows made in a season of deep sorrow, and afterwards, with the return of health and prosperity, renounced.
VI. MINOR LESSONS.
1. God’s visitations are not vague and general. They will find us out in every sphere and department of our lives. His stroke will be felt in everything (Exo 8:3, Exo 8:4).
2. The power of God’s servants (Exo 8:5, Exo 8:6 : 12, 13). The stretching out of the rod brought frogs on Egypt. The intercession of Moses removed them. The prayers of a good man are both to be feared and to be desired. Feared, if they are against us; desired, if they are for us. It is lawful to pray, not for the ruin of our enemies’ souls, but for the discomfiture of their projects, and the overthrow of their ungodly schemes (Rev 11:5, Rev 11:6).
3. The duty of courtesy, and of returning good for evil (Exo 8:9, Exo 8:10). Moses, at the very time of his triumph over Pharaoh, treated him with studious respect, and was ready to pray, at his request, for the removal of the plague.
4. The power of life and death as vested in God (Exo 8:13, Exo 8:14).
5. Man’s abuse of God’s kindness (Exo 8:15). A respite granted; therefore Pharaoh hardened himself (cf. Rom 2:4).J.O.
HOMILIES BY D. YOUNG
Exo 8:1-15
The seared plague: the frogs.
In intimating the first plague, Moses made no forms! demand upon Pharaoh to liberate Israel, though of course the demand was really contained in the intimation. But now as the second plague approaches, the formal demand once again is heard. Pharaoh is left for no long time without a distinct appeal which he must face either with consent or refusal. And so now Moses addresses him in the same words as on his first visit: “Let my people go.” It is a challenge to the man who holds by violence and brute force that which is not his own. It is not a mere combat between potentate and potentate. “That they may serve me,”awful is the wickedness of hindering God’s people from serving him.
I. NOTICE THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THIS SECOND PLAGUE. Hitherto there has been something evidently sublime in God’s treatment of Pharaoh. God’s treatment is of course always sublime; but up to this point even Pharaoh must have felt that he was being treated as a king ought to be treated. The messengers of Jehovah were only mean men in appearance, but the first plague itself was certainly an impressive one. We may imagine that Pharaoh would even say to himself with a sort of proud satisfaction, “How great my power must be when all the waters of my land are turned to blood in order to coerce me.” He would feel flattered by what we may call the dignity of the attack upon him. But now observe how God changes his mode of working, and proceeds to use little things to humiliate Pharaoh. As he uses those who are reckoned the feeble and contemptible among men, so he uses the feeble and contemptible among the lower creation. He sends out frogs all over the land of Egypt. If only it had been an incursion of lions from the desert, roaring through the streets of the city and tearing down the people, or if it had been a host of mighty beasts trampling down his fields, then Pharaoh would have felt there was dignity in such a mode of attack;but frogs! frogs followed by gnats, and gnats by flies! A plague to be made out of frogs seems almost too absurd to think of; and yet we see from the event that these despised little creatures forced Pharaoh to an appeal which not all the evident sublimity of the first plague could extort. More curses could come out of the river than the conversion of it into blood. This plague of the frogs we may judge to have been felt as inconvenient and irritating rather than dangerous. How ridiculous it must have been to have these agile little animals, millions of them, finding their way everywhere. No place safe from them, not even the well-guarded chambers of Pharaoh himself. Here was a plague that did not wait for the people to make acquaintance with it, as when they went to the streams and pools and found them blood. It forced itself upon them by day and by night, as they sat at their meals and as they lay in their beds. The thing that is constantly inconvenient and troublesome, may bring a man to his knees sooner even than a peril which more closely concerns his life.
II. THUS WE COME TO OBSERVE PHARAOH‘S FIRST SIGN OF YIELDING. Notice that as to what will actually have power to produce a certain result, God is a far better judge than we can be. We should have said, “put the frogs first and the blood afterwards; Pharaoh will yield to the blood what he will not yield to the frogs.” But when it comes to a trial, it is quite the contrary. The frogs are so tormenting that they must be got rid of, even at a cost of a humiliating promise. Not even the success of the magicians in bringing up frogs, makes the torment more endurable; and so, perhaps somewhat to the astonishment of Moses, who might hardly expect such a sudden change, Pharaoh makes a promise in the most general terms to let the people forth for sacrifice. But mark, the moment Moses begins to press him and fix for a day, he procrastinates. The moment there is any relaxation of pressure upon him, he takes advantage of it. Already he begins to show that he will yield as little as he can. Give him a chance of fixing his time, and he naturally says “to-morrow.” Unpleasant things are always put off until to-morrow, either on a supposition that the unpleasantness may be diminished, or on a chance that it may be escaped altogether. And then when to-morrow comes, “to-morrow” is again the cry. Notice that Moses complies with Pharaoh‘s wish for this slight delay. One day is nothing so far as Israel is concerned. They can easily wait, if only the granting of this one day will make Pharaoh’s yielding more agreeable to himself. God never humiliates for the sake of humiliating. He chooses the humiliation of his enemiesas when he sends a plague of frogs,because it is the most effectual means to his own ends. But the moment there is a profession of repentance, the humiliation stops, and opportunity is given to make the profession a reality.Y.
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
Exo 8:1. The Lord spake unto Moses, Go unto Pharaoh To render Pharaoh wholly inexcusable, sufficient warning was always given him of every approaching punishment. This plague of frogs, as well as the former, was excellently adapted to subvert the superstitions of Egypt, and to demonstrate the over-ruling power of Jehovah; for as the bank of the river Nile was the grand scene of the magical operations of the Egyptians, in which blood and frogs made a principal part of the apparatus; so, by commanding that river to produce such an infinite multitude of these creatures to annoy them, Jehovah, with wonderful propriety, suited their chastisement to the nature of their crimes: for frogs were not only the instruments of their abominations, but likewise the emblems of those impure demons, whom they invoked by their incantations. Rev 16:13-14. See Owen on the Old Testament Miracles.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
B.The frogs
Exodus 7:268:11 [in the English Bible, Exo 8:1-15]
26 [Exo 8:1]And Jehovah spake [said] unto Moses, Go unto Pharaoh, and say unto him, 27 [2]Thus saith Jehovah, Let my people go, that they may serve me. And if thou 28 [3]refuse to let them go, behold, I will smite all thy borders7 with frogs. And the river shall bring forth frogs abundantly [swarm with frogs], which [and they] shall go up and come into thy house, and into thy bedchamber, and upon thy bed, and into the houses of thy servants, and upon thy people, and into thine 29 [4]ovens, and into thy kneading-troughs: And the frogs shall come up both on thee, and upon thy people, and upon all thy servants.8
Chap. Exo 8:1 [Exo 8:5].And Jehovah spake [said] unto Moses, Say unto Aaron, Stretch forth thine [thy] hand with thy rod over the streams, and over the rivers [canals], and over the ponds, and cause frogs [the frogs] to come up upon the land 2 [6]of Egypt. And Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt, and 3 [7]the frogs came up, and covered the land of Egypt. And the magicians did so with their enchantments [secret arts], and brought up frogs [the frogs] upon 4 [8]the land of Egypt. Then [And] Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron, and said, Intreat Jehovah, that he may take away the frogs from me and from my people; and I will let the people go, that they may do sacrifice [may sacrifice] 5 [9]unto Jehovah. And Moses said unto Pharaoh, Glory [Have thou honor] over me:9 when [against what time] shall I intreat for thee, and for thy servants, and for thy people to destroy the frogs from thee and thy houses, that 6 [10]they may remain in the river only? And he said, To-morrow [Against tomorrow]. And he said, Be it according to thy word; that thou mayest know 7 [11]that there is none like unto Jehovah our God. And the frogs shall depart from thee, and from thy houses, and from thy servants, and from thy people; 8 [12]they shall remain in the river only. And Moses and Aaron went out from Pharaoh, and Moses cried unto Jehovah because of the frogs which he had 9 [13]brought against Pharaoh. And Jehovah did according to the word of Moses: and the frogs died out of the hoses, out of the villages [courts], and out of 10 [14]the fields. And they gathered them together upon heaps [piled them up in heaps]: 11 [15]and the land stank. But when Pharaoh saw that there was respite,10 he hardened11 his heart, and hearkened not unto them, as Jehovah had said.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
[Exodus 7:27 (Exo 8:2). here, as often, has a wider meaning than border; it is equivalent to our territory.Tr.].
[Exodus 7:29 (Exo 8:4). This sounds more pleonastic than the original, where the order of the words is reversed: Upon thee, and upon thy people, shall the frogs come up.Tr.].
[Exo 8:5 (Exo 8:9). is variously rendered. Gesenius and Frst assume a root distinct from the one the Hithp. of which means to boast, and render it prescribe, declare. Prescribe for me when I shall intreat, etc. The LXX. and Vulg. give it the same meaning. Others understand the meaning to be: Take to thyself honor; for when shall I intreat etc. i.e., I will give thee the honor of fixing the time when the plague shall cease. These two explanations yield nearly the same sense. Others have been resorted to (e.g., Give glory over me, i.e., I will run the risk of a failure, by allowing thee to fix the time), but are less plausible.Tr.].
[Exo 8:11 (Exo 8:15). has the article, and the sentence reads, saw that the respite (literally, breathing-space) came, i.e., the hoped for respite.Tr.].
[Exo 8:11 (Exo 8:15). And he made heavy. Comp. note on Gen 7:14. The Inf. Abs. is used for the finite verb.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Exodus 7:26 [Exo 8:1] sqq. The second plague; the frogs. They come up out of the mire of the Nile when the water falls, especially from the marshes of the Nile. On the small Nile-frog called rana Mosaica or Nilotica by Seetzen, see Keil.12 How did the natural event become a miracle? (1) By the announcement of the extraordinary enhancement of it to the extent of making it a plague; vid. Exo 8:28-29 [Exo 8:3-4]; (2) by the equally confident promise of the sudden death of the frogs. The imitation of this miracle by the sorcerers may here too have consisted in their seeming, during the continuance of the plague, to have increased it by their incantations.
Exo 8:10 [Exo 8:14]. , the largest dry measure of the Hebrews.
Footnotes:
[7][Exodus 7:27 (Exo 8:2). here, as often, has a wider meaning than border; it is equivalent to our territory.Tr.].
[8][Exodus 7:29 (Exo 8:4). This sounds more pleonastic than the original, where the order of the words is reversed: Upon thee, and upon thy people, shall the frogs come up.Tr.].
[9][Exo 8:5 (Exo 8:9). is variously rendered. Gesenius and Frst assume a root distinct from the one the Hithp. of which means to boast, and render it prescribe, declare. Prescribe for me when I shall intreat, etc. The LXX. and Vulg. give it the same meaning. Others understand the meaning to be: Take to thyself honor; for when shall I intreat etc. i.e., I will give thee the honor of fixing the time when the plague shall cease. These two explanations yield nearly the same sense. Others have been resorted to (e.g., Give glory over me, i.e., I will run the risk of a failure, by allowing thee to fix the time), but are less plausible.Tr.].
[10][Exo 8:11 (Exo 8:15). has the article, and the sentence reads, saw that the respite (literally, breathing-space) came, i.e., the hoped for respite.Tr.].
[11][Exo 8:11 (Exo 8:15). And he made heavy. Comp. note on Exo 7:14. The Inf. Abs. is used for the finite verb.
[12][Keil gives no information except by referring to Seetzen. Seetzen distinguishes the rana Nilotica from the rana Mosaica, the latter being the most abundant. Frogs of this kind creep rather than jump, and are called toads by Seetzen, though they are found in water until after the inundation (which continues three months, beginning about June 25). The Egyptian name for this frog is defda.Tr.].
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
CONTENTS
Moses the minister of God is represented in this Chapter, as prosecuting his great commission in the chastisement of the King of Egypt and his servants, for the deliverance of Israel from bondage. Under the command and by the authority of God, Moses calls for three successive plagues, in the swarms of frogs, and lice, and flies, which cover the land of Egypt. But the result of these visitations, like the former, is, as the Lord had said; though at the voice of Moses the plagues are severally removed, yet the heart of Pharaoh remains hardened.
Exo 8:1 ; Psa 119:4-6
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Exo 8:1
And so the world went its way, controlled by no dread of retribution; and on the tomb frescoes you can see legions of slaves under the lash dragging from the quarries the blocks of granite which were to form the eternal monuments of the Pharaoh’s tyranny; and you read in the earliest authentic history that when there was a fear that the slave-races should multiply so fast as to be dangerous their babies were flung to the crocodiles.
One of these slave-races rose at last in revolt. Noticeably it did not rise against oppression as such, or directly in consequence of oppression. We hear of no massacre of slave-drivers, no burning of towns or villages, none of the usual accompaniments of peasant insurrections. If Egypt was plagued, it was not by mutinous mobs or incendiaries. Half a million men simply rose up and declared that they could endure no longer the mendacity, the hypocrisy, the vile and incredible rubbish which was offered to them in the sacred name of religion. ‘Let us go,’ they said, ‘into the wilderness, go out of these soft water-meadows and cornfields, forsake our leeks and our flesh-pots, and take in exchange a life of hardship and wandering, that we may worship the God of our fathers.’ Their leader had been trained in the wisdom of the Egyptians, and among the rocks of Sinai had learnt that it was wind and vanity. The half-obscured traditions of his ancestors awoke to life again, and were rekindled by him in his people. They would bear with lies no longer. They shook the dust of Egypt from their feet, and the prate and falsehood of it from their souls, and they withdrew with all belonging to them, into the Arabian desert, that they might no longer serve cats and dogs and bulls and beetles, but the Eternal Spirit Who had been pleased to make His existence known to them. They sung no paeans of liberty. They were delivered from the house of bondage, but it was the bondage of mendacity, and they left it only to assume another service. The Eternal had taken pity on them. In revealing His true nature to them, He had taken them for His children. They were not their own, but His, and they laid their lives under commandments which were as close a copy as, with the knowledge which they possessed, they could make, to the moral laws of the Maker of the Universe.
Froude, Short Studies, vol. 11.
Reference. VIII. 1. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. vi. No. 322.
Exo 8:15
I expected every wave would have swallowed us up, and that every time the ship fell down, as I thought, in the trough or hollow of the sea, we should never rise more; and in this agony of mind I made many vows and resolutions, that if it would please God here to spare my life this one voyage, if ever I got once my foot upon dry land again, I would go directly home to my father, and never set it into a ship again while I lived…. These wise and sober thoughts continued all the while the storm continued, and indeed some time after; but the next day the wind was abated and the sea calmer, and I began to be a little inured to it…. In a word, as the sea was returned to its smoothness of surface and settled calmness by the abatement of that storm, so the hurry of my thoughts being over, my fears and apprehensions of being swallowed up by the sea being forgotten, and the current of my former desires returned, I entirely forgot the vows and promises that I made in my distress.
Defoe, Robinson Crusoe (chap. I.)
References. VIII. 25. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxi. No. 1830. VIII. 28. Ibid., vol. xxxi. No. 1830. IX. 1. Stopford A. Brooke, The Old Testament and Modern Life, p. 129. See also Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlv. 1894, p. 214. IX. 7 J. J. Tetley, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lx. 1901, p. 94.
Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson
VI
THE TEN PLAGUES, OR THE GREAT DUEL
Exodus 5:18-13:36
The present chapter will be upon the great duel (as Dr. Sampey is pleased to call it) between Moses and Pharaoh, or in other words, the ten plagues. I have mapped out, as usual, some important questions.
What is the scope of the lesson? From Exo 5:15-12:37 . What is the theme of the lesson? The ten plagues, or God’s answer to Pharaoh’s question: “Who is the Lord?” What is the central text? Exo 12:12 : “Against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment.” What was the purpose of these plagues? Generally, as expressed in Exo 9:16 : “That my name may be declared throughout all the earth,” i.e., to show that Jehovah was the one and only God. The second object was to show to Israel that Jehovah was a covenant keeping God. The first object touched outsiders. As it touched Moses it was to show that God would fully accredit him as the leader. How was Moses accredited? By the power to work miracles. Let the reader understand, if you never knew it before, that Moses is the first man mentioned in the Bible who worked a miracle, though God had worked some miracles directly before this. But Moses was God’s first agent to work miracles, duly commissioned to bear a message to other men.
On the general subject of miracles, I wish to offer the remark, that there are three great groups of miracles, viz.: The Plagues of Egypt, the miracles wrought by Elijah and Elisha, and the miracles wrought by Christ and the apostles. And from the time of Moses, every now and then to the time of Christ, some prophet was enabled to work a miracle. These are the groups. But what is a miracle? When we come to the New Testament we find four words employed, all expressed in Greek. One word expresses the effect of the miracle on the beholder, a “wonder.” Another expresses the purpose, a “sign.” Another expresses the energy, or “power,” while still another expresses the “work”‘, i.e., “wonders, signs, powers, works.”
As we have come to miracles for the first time, it would be a good thing for every reader to read the introductory part of Trench, or some other author Trench is the best. We come back to our question, What is a miracle? Take this for a definition: (1) “An extraordinary event.” That is the first idea. If it is an ordinary event you cannot call it wonderful. It is not a miracle that the sun should rise in the east. It would be a miracle for it to be seen rising in the west. (2) This extraordinary event is discernible to the senses. (3) It apparently violates natural laws and probabilities. I say, “apparently,” because we do not know that it actually does. (4) It is inexplicable by natural laws alone. (5) It is produced by the agency of God, and is sometimes produced immediately. (6) For religious purposes; usually to accredit a messenger or attest God’s revelation to him.
I am going to call your attention to some definitions that are either imperfect or altogether wrong. Thomas Aquinas, a learned doctor of the Middle Ages, says that miracles are events wrought by divine power apart from the order generally observed in nature. That is simply an imperfect definition; good as far as it goes. Hume and Spinoza, a Jew, say, “A miracle is a violation of a natural law; therefore,” says Spinoza, “impossible”; “therefore,” says Hume, “incredible.” It is not necessarily a violation of natural laws: for instance, if I turn a knife loose, the law of gravitation would make it fall, but if a wind should come in between, stronger than the law, of gravitation, and this natural law should hold the knife up, it would not be a violation of the natural law; simply one
natural law overcoming another. Therefore, it is wrong to say that a miracle is a violation of natural law. Jean Paul, a noted critical skeptic, says, “Miracles of earth are the laws of heaven.” Renan says: “Miracles are the inexplicable.” Schleiermacher says, “Miracles are relative, that is, the worker of them only anticipates later knowledge.” Dr. Paulus says, “The account of miracles is historical, but the history must signify simply the natural means.” Wolsey says, “The text that tells us about miracles is authentic, but the miracles are allegories, not facts.” Now, I have given you what I conceive to be a correct definition of a miracle and some definitions that are either imperfect or altogether faulty.
When may miracles be naturally expected? When God makes new revelations; as, in the three epochs of miracles.
To what classes of people are miracles incredible? Atheists, pantheists, and deists. Deists recognize a God of physical order. Pantheists make no distinction between spirit and matter. Atheists deny God altogether.
What are counterfeit miracles? We are going to strike some soon, and we have to put an explanation on them. In 2Th 2 they are said to be “lying wonders,” or deeds. They are called “lying” not because they are lies, but because their object is to teach a lie, or accredit a lie. Unquestionably, Satan has the power to do supernatural things, so far as we understand the laws of nature, and when the antichrist comes he is to be endowed with power to work miracles that will deceive everybody in the world but the elect. It is not worth while, therefore, to take the position that the devil and his agents cannot, by permission of God, work miracles. When may we naturally expect counterfeit miracles? When the real miracles are produced the counterfeit will appear as an offset. Whenever a religious imposture of any kind is attempted, or any false doctrine is preached, they will claim that they can attest it. For example, on the streets of our cities are those, whatever you call them, who claim that Mar 16 is fulfilled in our midst today. What then, does the counterfeit miracle prove? The reality and necessity of the true. Thieves do not counterfeit the money of a “busted” bank. How may you usually detect counterfeit miracles? This is important: (1) By the immoral character of the producer. That is not altogether satisfactory, but it is presumptive evidence. (2) If the doctrine it supports or teaches is contradictory to truth already revealed and established. (3) The evil motive or the end in view. God would not work a lot of miracles just for show. When Herod said to Christ, “Work me a miracle,” Christ refused. Miracles are not to gratify curiosity. (4) Its eternal characteristic of emptiness or extravagance. (5) Its lack of substantial evidence. In the spirit-rapping miracles they need too many conditions put out the light, join hands, etc. It is one of the rules of composition as old as the classics, never to introduce a god unless there be a necessity for a god; and when one is introduced, let what he says and does correspond to the dignity and nature of a god. If that is a rule of composition in dealing with miracles it shows that God, as being wise, would not intervene foolishly.
Now, is a miracle a greater manifestation of God’s power than is ordinarily displayed by the Lord? No. He shows just as much power in producing an almond tree from a germ, and that almond tree in the course of nature producing buds and blossoms, by regulating the order of things, as he does to turn rods to serpents. But while the power is no greater, the impression is more vivid, and that is the object of a miracle.
There are, certainly, distinctions in miracles, and you will need to know the distinction when you discuss the miracles wrought by Moses more than any other set of miracles in the Bible. There are two kinds of miracles, the absolute and the providential, or circumstantial, e.g., the conversion of water into blood is an absolute miracle; the bringing of frogs out of the water is a providential or circumstantial miracle. Keep that distinction in your mind. The plague of darkness and the death of the firstborn are also absolute miracles. The providential or circumstantial miracles get their miraculous nature from their intensity, their connection with the word of Moses, the trial of Pharaoh and the Egyptian gods, with the deliverance of Israel, and their being so timely as to strengthen the faith of God’s people, and to overcome the skepticism of God’s enemies.
I will give a further idea about a providential miracle. Suppose I were to say that on a certain day at one o’clock the sun would be veiled. If that is the time for an eclipse there is nothing miraculous in it. But suppose a dense cloud should shut off the light of the sun, there is a miraculous element because there is no way of calculating clouds as you would calculate eclipses. Now, the orderly workings of nature, “The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth his handiwork,” reveal the glory of God to a mind in harmony with God, and they hide the glory from the eyes of an alienated man who will not see God in the sun, moon, and stars. They will turn away from the glory of God in these regular events and worship the creature more than the creator.
Does a miracle considered by itself prove the truth of the doctrine or the divine mission’ of him who produces it? Not absolutely. The Egyptians imitated the first two miracles. Other things must be considered. The doctrine must commend itself to the conscience as being good. All revelation presupposes in a man power to recognize the truth, arising from the fact that man is made in the image of God, and has a conscience, and that “Jesus Christ lighteth every man coming into the world.” The powers of darkness are permitted to perform wonders of a startling nature. The character of the performer, the end in view, the doctrine to be attested in itself, BS related to previously revealed truth, must all be considered. In Deu 13:1-5 , the people are expressly warned against the acceptance of any sign or wonder, wrought by any prophet or dreamer, used to attest a falsehood. In Mat 24:24 , the Saviour expressly forewarns that antichrists and false prophets shall come with lying signs and wonders, and Paul says so in several passages.
How are miracles helpful, since the simple, unlearned are exposed to the danger of accepting the false and rejecting the true? This difficulty is more apparent than real. The unlearned and poor are exposed to no more danger than the intellectual. Those who love previously revealed truth and have no pleasure in unrighteousness are able to discriminate, whether they are wise folks or simple folks. The trouble of investigation is no greater here than in any other moral problem. Therefore, the apostle John says, “Beloved, try every spirit.” A man comes to you and says he is baptized of the Holy Spirit. John says, “Try him, because there are many false prophets,” and “Every spirit that refuses to confess that God was manifested in the flesh,” turn him down at once. Once Waco was swept away by the Spiritualists. I preached a series of sermons on Spiritualism. Once in making calls I came upon some strangers, and happened to meet a Spiritualist lady who came up to me and said, “I am so glad to meet you. We belong to the same crowd. We are both a spiritual people. Let me see your hand.” I held it out and she commenced talking on it. She says, “I believe the Bible as much as you do.” I said, “No, you don’t. I can make you abuse the Bible in two minutes.” “Well, I would like to see you try.” I read that passage in Isaiah where a woe is pronounced upon those who are necromancers and magicians. “Yes, and I despise any such statements,” she said. “Of course,” I replied; “that is what I expected you to say.”
The conflict in Egypt was between Jehovah on the one hand and the gods of Egypt, representing the powers of darkness, on the other. Note these scriptures: Exo 12:12 ; Exo 15:11 ; Num 33:4 . The devil is the author of idolatry in all its forms The battle was between God and the devil, the latter
working through Pharaoh and his hosts, and God working through Moses.
Water turned into blood. I want to look at the first miracle A question that every reader should note is: State in order the ten miracles. First, the conversion of the waters of the Nile into blood. Egypt is the child of the Nile. If you were up in a balloon and looked down upon that land you would see a long green ribbon, the Nile Valley and its fertile banks. Therefore they worship the Nile. There has been a great deal written to show that at certain seasons of the year the waters of the Nile are filled with insect life of the animalcule order, so infinitesimal in form as to be invisible, even with a microscope, yet so multitudinous in number that they make the water look like blood. It would be perfectly natural if it only came that way. I will tell you why I do not think it came that way. This miracle applied to the water which had already been drawn up) and was in the water buckets in their homes. That makes it a genuine miracle.
The second miracle was the miracle of the frogs. I quote something about that miracle from the Epic of Moses , by Dr. W. G. Wilkinson:
Then Aaron, at his brother’s bidding, raised His rod and with it smote the river. Straight .Forth from the water at that pregnant stroke Innumerably teeming issued frogs, Prodigious progeny I in number such As if each vesicle of blood in all The volume of the flood that rolled between The banks of Nile and overfilled his bound And overflowed, had quickened to a frog, And the midsummer tide poured endless down, Not water and not blood, but now instead One mass of monstrous and colluctant life! The streams irriguous over all the realm, A vast reticulation of canals Drawn from the river like the river, these Also were smitten with that potent rod, And they were choked with tangled struggling frogs. Each several frog was full of lusty youth, And each, according to his nature, wished More room wherein to stretch himself, and leap, Amphibious, if he might not swim. So all Made for the shore and occupied the land. Rank following rank, in serried order, they Resistless by their multitude and urged, Each rank advancing, by each rank behind An insupportable invasion, fed With reinforcement inexhaustible From the great river rolling down in frogs I Spread everywhere and blotted out the earth. As when the shouldering billows of the sea, Drawn by the tide and by the tempest driven, Importunately press against the shore Intent to find each inlet to the land, So now this infestation foul explored The coasts of Egypt seeking place and space.
With impudent intrusion, leap by leap Advancing, those amphibious cohorts pushed Into the houses of the people, found Entrance into the chambers where they slept, And took possession of their very beds. The kneading-troughs wherein their bread was made, The subterranean ovens where were baked The loaves, the Egyptians with despair beheld Become the haunts of this loathed tenantry. The palace, nay, the person, of the king Was not exempt. His stately halls he saw Furnished to overflowing with strange guests Unbidden whose quaint manners lacked the grace Of well-instructed courtliness; who moved About the rooms with unconventional ease And freedom, in incalculable starts Of movement and direction that surprised. They leaped upon the couches and divans; They settled on the tops of statutes; pumped Their breathing organs on each jutting edge Of frieze or cornice round about the walls; In thronging councils on the tables sat; From unimaginable perches leered. The summit of procacity, they made The sacred person of the king himself, He sitting or reclining as might chance, The target of their saltatory aim, And place of poise and pause for purposed rest.
Nor yet has been set forth the worst; the plague Was also a dire plague of noise. The night Incessantly resounded with the croaks, In replication multitudinous, Of frogs on every side, whether in mass Crowded together in the open field, Or single and recluse within the house. The dismal ululation, every night And all night long, assaulted every ear; Nor did the blatant clamour so forsake The day, that from some unfrequented place Might not be heard a loud, lugubrious, Reiterant chorus from batrachian throats. Epic of Moses I think that is one of the finest descriptions I ever read. They worshiped frogs. Now they were surfeited with their gods. I have space only to refer to the next plague of lice. I give Dr. Wilkinson’s description of it: They were like immigrants and pioneers Looking for habitations in new lands; They camped and colonized upon a man And made him quarry for their meat and drink. They ranged about his person, still in search Of better, even better, settlement; Each man was to each insect parasite A new-found continent to be explored. Which was the closer torment, those small fangs Infixed, and steady suction from the blood, Or the continuous crawl of tiny feet Banging the conscious and resentful skin In choice of where to sink a shaft for food Which of these two distresses sorer was, Were question; save that evermore The one that moment pressing sorer seemed.
Epic of Moses
What was the power of that plague? The Egyptians more than any other people that ever lived upon the earth believed in ceremonial cleanliness, particularly for their priesthood. They were not only spotless white, but defilement by an unclean thing was to them like a dip into hell itself.
QUESTIONS
1. What the scope of the next great topic in Exodus?
2. The theme?
3. The central text?
4. Purpose of the plagues?
5. How was Moses accredited?
6. What three great groups of miracles in the Bible?
7. In the New Testament what four words describe miracles? Give both Greek and English words, showing signification of each.
8. What, then, is a miracle?
9. Cite some faulty definitions.
10 When may they be naturally expected?
11. What are counterfeit or lying miracles, and may they be real miracles in the sense of being wrought by superhuman power, and whose in such case is the power, and what the purpose of its exercise?
12. To what classes of people are miracles incredible, and why?
13. Cite Satan’s first miracle, its purpose and result. Answer: (1) Accrediting the serpent with the power of speech; (2) To get Eve to receive him as an angel of light; (3) That Eve did thus receive him, and was beguiled.
14. On this point what says the Mew Testament about the last manifestation of the antichrist?
15. When may counterfeit miracles be expected?
16. Admitting many impostures to be explained naturally, could such impostures as idolatries, Mohammedanism, Mormonism, Spiritualism, witchcraft, necromancy, etc., obtain permanent hold on the minds of many peoples without some superhuman power?
17. What do counterfeit miracles prove?
18. How may they be detected?
19. What says a great poet about the priority of introducing a god into a story, who was he and where may the classic be found? Answer: (1) See chapter; (2) Horace; (3) In Horace’s Ars Poetica .
20. Distinguish between the ordinary powers of God working in nature and a miracle, e.g., the budding of Aaron’s rod and the budding of an almond tree.
21. What two kinds of miracles? Cite one of each kind from the ten plagues.
22. Of which kind are most of the ten plagues?
23. Does a miracle in itself prove the truth of the doctrine it is wrought to attest? If not, what things are to be considered?
24. Cite both Old Testament and New Testament proof that some doctrines attested by miracles are to be rejected.
25. If Satan works some miracles, and if the doctrines attested by some miracles are to be rejected, how are miracles helpful, especially to the ignorant, without powers of discrimination?
26. Who were the real antagonists in this great Egyptian duel?
27. Give substance and result of the first interview between Pharaoh and Moses?
28. Name in their order of occurrence the ten plagues.
29. First Plague: State the significance of this plague.
30. How have some sought to account for it naturally, and your reasons for the inadequacy of this explanation?
31. Second Plague: Recite Dr. Wilkinson’s fine description of the plague in his Epic of Moses.
32. The significance of the plague?
33. Third Plague: His description of the third plague and its significance.
VII
THE TEN PLAGUES, OR THE GREAT DUEL (Continued)
Every plague was intended to strike in some way at some deity worship in Egypt. I begin this chapter by quoting from Dr. Wilkinson’s Epic of Moses language which he puts in the mouth of Pharaoh’s daughter, the reputed mother of Moses, who is trying to persuade the king to let the people go: We blindly worship as a god the Nile; The true God turns his water into blood. Therein the fishes and the crocodiles, Fondly held sacred, welter till they die. Then the god Heki is invoked in vain To save us from the frogs supposed his care. The fly-god is condemned to mockery, Unable to deliver us from flies. Epic of Moses
We have discussed three of the plagues, and in Exo 8:20-32 , we consider the plague of flies. Flies, or rather beetles, were also sacred. In multitudes of forms their images were worn as ornaments, amulets, and charms. But at a word from Moses these annoying pests swarmed by millions until every sacred image was made hateful by the living realities.
The plague of Murrain, Exo 9:1-7 . Cattle were sacred animals with the Egyptians. Cows were sacred to Isis. Their chief god, Apis, was a bull, stalled in a place, fed on perfumed oats, served on golden plates to the sound of music. But at a word from Moses the murrain seized the stock. Apis himself died. Think of a god dying with the murrain I
Boils, Exo 9:8-12 . Egyptian priests were physicians. Religious ceremonies were medicines. But when Moses sprinkled ashes toward heaven grievous and incurable boils broke out on
the bodies of the Egyptians. King, priests, and magicians were specially afflicted; could not even stand before Moses.
Hail, Exo 9:13-35 . The control of rain and hail was vested in feminine deities Isis, Sate, and Neith. But at Moses’ word rain and hail out of season and in horrible intensity swept over Egypt, beating down their barley and the miserable remnant of their stock, and beating down exposed men, women, and children. In vain they might cry, “O Isis, O Sate, O Neith, help us! We perish; call off this blinding, choking rain! Rebuke this hurtling, pitiless storm of hail I” But the Sphinx was not more deaf and silent than Egypt’s goddesses.
Locusts, Exo 10:1-20 . The Egyptians worshiped many deities whose charge was to mature and protect vegetables. But at Moses’ word locusts came in interminable clouds, with strident swishing wings and devouring teeth. Before them a garden, behind them a desert. See in prophetic imagery the description of their terrible power, Joe 2:2 ; Rev 9:2-11 .
Darkness, Exodus 10-11:3. Ra, the male correlative of Isis, was the Egyptian god of light. A triune god, Amun Ra, the father of divine life, Kheeper Ra, of animal life, Kneph Ra, of human life. But at Moses’ word came seventy-two consecutive hours of solid, palpable darkness. In that inky plutonian blackness where was Ra? He could not flush the horizon with dawn, nor silver the Sphinx with moonbeams, nor even twinkle as a little star. Even the pyramids were invisible. That ocean of supernatural darkness was peopled by but one inhabitant, one unspoken, one throbbing conviction: “Jehovah, he is God.”
Death of the First-born, Exo 11:4-8 ; Exo 12:29-35 . This crowning and convincing miracle struck down at one time every god in Egypt, as lightning gores a black cloud or rives an oak, or a cyclone prostrates a forest. See the effect of this last miracle. The victory was complete. Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron by night, and said, “Rise up, and get you forth, from among my people, both ye and the children of Israel; and go, serve Jehovah, as ye have said. Also take your flocks and your herds, as ye have said, and be gone; and bless me also. And the Egyptians were urgent upon the people that they might send them out of the land in haste; for they said, We be all dead men. And against the children of Israel not a dog moved his tongue against man or beast; so the Lord put a difference between the Egyptians and Israel” (Exo 11:7 ; Exo 12:31-35 ).
Give the names of the magicians who withstood Moses and Aaron and what New Testament lesson is derived from their resistance? Paul warns Timothy of perilous times in the last days, in which men having the form of godliness but denying the power thereof were ever learning but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth, and thus concludes, “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 men, as theirs also was.” That is the time which I have so frequently emphasized when Paul’s man of sin shall appear and be like Jannes and Jambres, who withstood Moses and Aaron.
Give in their order the methods of Pharaoh’s oppositions to God’s people: (1) Persecution; (2) Imitation of their miracles; (3) Propositions of compromise. State what miracles they imitated. They changed their rods to serpents and imitated to some extent the first two plagues. But the rod of Aaron swallowed up theirs and they could not remove any plague nor imitate the last eight. State the several propositions of compromise; show the danger of each, and give the reply of Moses. I am more anxious that you should remember these compromises than the plagues.
COMPROMISES PROPOSED “Sacrifice in the land of Egypt,” i.e., do not separate from us, Exo 8:25 . This stratagem was to place Jehovah on a mere level with the gods of Egypt, thus recognizing the equality of the two religions. Moses showed the impracticableness of this, since the Hebrews sacrificed to their God animals numbered among the Egyptian divinities, which would be to them an abomination.
“I will let you go only not very far away” (Exo 8:28 ), that is, if you will separate let it be only a little separation. If you will draw a line of demarcation, let it be a dim one. Or, if you will so put it that your religion is light and ours darkness, do not make the distinction so sharp and invidious; be content with twilight, neither night nor day. This compromise catches many simple ones today. Cf. 2Pe 2:18-22 .
“I will let you men go, but leave with us your wives and children” (Exo 10:11 ). This compromise when translated simply means, “You may separate from us, but leave your hearts behind.” It is an old dodge of the devil. Serve whom ye will, but let us educate your children. Before the flood the stratagem succeeded: “Be sons of God if you will, but let your wives be daughters of men.” The mothers will carry the children with them. In modern days it says, “Let grown people go to church if they must, but do not worry the children with Sunday schools.”
“Go ye, serve the Lord; let your little ones go with you; only let your flocks and herds be stayed”; i.e., acknowledge God’s authority over your persons; but not over your property. This compromise suits all the stingy, avaricious professors who try to serve both God and mammon; their proverb is: “Religion is religion, but business is business.” Which means that God shall not rule over the maxims and methods of trade, nor in their counting houses, nor over their purses, nor over the six workdays, but simply be their God on Sunday at church. Well did Moses reply, “Our cattle shall go with us; there shall not an hoof be left behind.”
These compromises mean anything in the world rather than a man should put himself and his wife and his children and his property, his everything on earth, on the altar of God. Was it proper for the representatives of the Christian religion to unite in the Chicago World’s Fair Parliament of Religions, including this very Egyptian religion rebuked by the ten plagues? All these religions came together and published a book setting forth the world’s religions comparatively.
My answer is that it was a disgraceful and treasonable surrender of all the advantages gained by Moses, Elijah, Jesus Christ, and Paul. “If Baal be God, follow him; but if Jehovah be God, follow him.” If neither be God, follow neither. Jesus Christ refused a welcome among the gods of Greece and Rome. The Romans would have been very glad to make Jesus a deity. But he would have no niche in the Pantheon. That Chicago meeting was also a Pantheon. The doctrine of Christ expresses: “Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers; for what fellowship have righteousness and iniquity? or what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what portion hath a believer with an unbeliever? And what agreement hath a temple of God with idols? for we are a temple of the living God; even as God said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come ye out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be to you a Father, and ye shall be to me sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty” (2Co 6:14-18 ). “But I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons, and not to God; and I would not that ye should have communion with demons. We cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of demons; ye cannot partake of the table of the Lord, and the table of demons. Or do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? are we stronger than he?” (1Co 10:20-22 ).
The supreme fight made in Egypt was to show that Jehovah alone is God. He was not fighting for a place among the deities of the world, but he was claiming absolute supremacy. When we come to the giving of the law we find: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me,” and “you shall make no graven image, even of me, to bow down to worship it.” It took from the days of Moses to the days of the Babylonian captivity to establish in the Jewish mind the unity of God. All the time they were lapsing into idolatry. The prophets fought over the same battles that Moses fought. But when God was through with those people they were forever settled in this conviction, viz.: There is no other God but Jehovah. From that day till this no man has been able to find a Jewish idolater. Now then it takes from the birth of Christ to the beginning of the millennium to establish in the Jewish mind that Jesus of Nazareth is that Jehovah. Some Jews accept it of course, but the majority of them do not. When the Jews are converted that introduces the millennium, as Peter said to those who had crucified the Lord of glory, “Repent ye: in order that he may send back Jesus whom the heavens must retain until the time of the restitution of all things.”
One matter has been deferred for separate discussion until this time. I will be sure to call for twenty passages on the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart. Paul has an explanation of them in Rom 9:17-23 , and our good Methodist commentator, Adam Clarke, devotes a great deal of space in his commentary to weakening what Paul said. There are two kinds of hardening: (1) According to a natural law when a good influence is not acted upon, it has less force next time, and ultimately no force. A certain lady wanted to get up each morning at exactly six o’clock, so she bought an alarm clock, and the first morning when the alarm turned loose it nearly made her jump out of bed. So she got up and dressed on time. But after awhile when she heard the alarm she would not go to sleep, but she just lay there a little while. (Sometimes you see a boy stop still in putting on his left sock and sit there before the fire). The next time this lady heard the alarm clock the result was that it did not sound so horrible, and she kept lingering until finally she went to sleep. Later the alarm would no longer awaken her. There is a very tender, susceptible hardening of a young person under religious impressions that brings a tear to the eye. How easy it is to follow that first impression, but you put it off and say no, and after awhile the sound of warning becomes to you like the beat of the little drummer’s drumstick when Napoleon was crossing the Alps. The little fellow slipped and fell into a crevasse filled with snow, but the brave boy kept beating his drum and they could hear it fainter and fainter, until it was an echo and then it died away.
(2) The other kind of hardening is what is called judicial hardening, where God deals with a man and he resists, adopting this or that substitute until God says, “Now you have shut your eyes to the truth; I will make you judicially blind and send you a delusion that you may believe a lie and be damned.” Paul says, “Blindness in part hath happened unto Israel because they turned away from Jesus; because they would not hear his voice, nor the voice of their own prophets; because they persecuted those who believed in Jesus. There is a veil over their eyes when they read the scripture which cannot be taken away until they turn to the Lord and say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.”
Now the last thought: When the first three plagues were sent they fell on all Egypt alike. After that, in order to intensify the miracle and make it more evidently a miracle, in the rest of the plagues God put a difference between Egypt and Goshen, where the Israelites lived. The line of demarcation was drawn in the fourth plague. In the fifth plague it fell on Egypt, not Goshen; the most stupendous distinction was when the darkness came, just as if an ocean of palpable blackness had in it an oasis of the most brilliant light, and that darkness stood up like a wall at the border line between Egypt and Goshen, bringing out that sharp difference that God put between Egypt and Israel.
I will close with the last reference to the difference in the night of that darkness, a difference of blood sprinkled upon the portals of every Jewish house. The houses might be just alike, but no Egyptian house had the blood upon its portals. Wherever the angel of death saw the blood he passed over the house and the mother held her babe safe in her arms. But in Egypt all the first-born died.
When I was a young preacher and a little fervid, I was preaching a sermon to sinners on the necessity of having the blood of sprinkling, which speaketh better things than the blood of Abel, and in my fancy I drew this picture: A father, gathering all his family around him, says: “The angel of death is going to pass over tonight. Wife and Children, death is coming tonight; death is coming tonight.” “Well, Husband,” says the wife, “is there no way of escaping death?” “There is this: if we take a lamb and sprinkle its blood on the portals, the angel will see that blood and we will escape.” Then the children said, “Oh, Father, go and get the lamb; and be sure to get the right kind. Don’t make a mistake. Carry out every detail; let it be without blemish; kill exactly at the time God said; catch the blood in a basin, dip the bush in the blood and sprinkle the blood on the door that the angel of death may not enter our house.” Then I applied that to the unconverted, showing the necessity of getting under the shadow of the blood of the Lamb. I was a young preacher then, but I do not know that, being old, I have improved on the thought.
QUESTIONS
1. Name the ten plagues in the order of their occurrence.
2. Show in each case the blow against some one or more gods of Egypt.
3. What is the most plausible explanation of the first six in their relation to each other?
4. How explain the hail and locusts?
5. What modern poet in matchless English and in true interpretation gives an account of these plagues?
6. How does he state the natural explanation?
7. How does he express the several strokes at Egypt’s gods?
8. What of the differentiating circumstances of these plagues?
9. State the progress of the case as it affected the magicians.
10. State the progress of the case as it affected the people.
11. State the progress of the case as it affected Pharaoh himself.
12. Give in order Pharaoh’s methods of opposition.
13. State in order Pharaoh’s proposed compromises and the replies of Moses.
14. State some of the evils of religious compromise.
15. What about the World’s Fair Parliament of Religions?
l6. What about the Inter-Denominational Laymen’s Movement? And the money of the rich for colleges?
17. Show how each miracle after the third was intensified by putting a difference between Egypt and Israel, as in the case of the last plague, and illustrate.
18. Explain the two kinds of hardening, and cite the twenty uses of the word in Pharaoh’s case.
19. How does Paul use Exo 9:16 , in Rom 9 and how do you reply to Adam Clarke’s explanation of it?
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
Exo 8:1 And the LORD spake unto Moses, Go unto Pharaoh, and say unto him, Thus saith the LORD, Let my people go, that they may serve me.
Ver. 1. That they may serve me. ] Eventus platarum est alius per accidens, ut simulata emendatio Pharaonis; alius per se, ut dimissio populi. a
a Alsted.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
the LORD (Hebrew. Jehovah. spake. See note on Exo 6:10, and compare note on Exo 3:7.
the LORD = Hebrew. Jehovah. App-4.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Chapter 8
The Lord spake unto Moses, Go unto Pharaoh, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord, Let my people go, that they may serve me. [So the third demand now, actually the fourth demand.] And if you refuse to let them go, behold, I will smite all of your borders with frogs ( Exo 8:1-2 ):
Now of course the Egyptians worshiped the snakes; and thus, when his rod turned into a serpent, they couldn’t kill it because they worshiped snakes. They also worshiped the Nile river as one of their gods, because of it’s life sustaining forces. When it turned to blood, God is really striking out at another one of their gods. But another thing they worshiped were frogs, and they couldn’t kill them because they were held to be sacred. “So you like frogs? You want to worship frogs? All right, we’ll give you frogs.”
And the river shall bring forth frogs abundantly, which shall go up and come into your houses, and into your bedchambers, in your bedrooms, and upon your bed, and into the house of your servants, and upon thy people, and into your ovens, and into your kneadingtroughs: And the frogs shall come up both on thee, and upon thy people, and upon all of your servants. And the Lord spake unto Moses, Say unto Aaron, Stretch forth your hand with thy rod over all the streams, over all the rivers, and over all the ponds, and cause frogs to come upon the land of Egypt ( Exo 8:3-6 ).
So in all the ponds, rivers and all, just invaded the land at the drawing and the impulses that God sent out to them.
Now God’s control over nature is to me always a very interesting thing to observe. Nature itself is so fascinating, so many imponderables of nature. I just love to study the capacities of God’s little created beings. Last month, I think it was in National Geographic, what a fascinating article on the birds, upon the homing instinct that are built into birds. And they really don’t know exactly how they are able to fly thousands of miles over oceans and all. They feel that maybe they are able to tune in on the magnetic forces for guidance systems. They really don’t know exactly how they can navigate so accurately.
The little golden plover, it spends its winters in Hawaii and its summers in Alaska. Now that’s not so dumb. It goes up to Alaska in the spring to have its young. Then in the fall before the big storms, it takes off and flies back to Hawaii, several thousand miles non-stop losing about a quarter of its weight in flight. Eats a lot of food before it goes, stores it up, and then takes off. How can it find the Hawaiian Islands, that little dot out in the Pacific? An amazing thing.
You can’t say, “Well it just remembered the way it came” because you don’t really have any real things to watch. But the interesting thing is that come fall, the parents take off and fly back to Hawaii until the little ones are big enough to fly that far. But in a couple of weeks as they store up their food and get a lot of exercise, two weeks after the parents have left, the kids take off and they fly directly to Hawaii, and they’ve never been there before. Now tell me how.
So God has homing instincts that He can put in animals, and He has something in a frog. He called all the frogs out of the rivers. Ladies kneading their dough and frogs jumping in, get folded in it. They can’t kill them; they’re little gods.
“And Aaron stretched out his hand over Egypt; and the frogs came out, and they covered the land of Egypt.”
And the magicians did so [About then, I’d kill em’] with their enchantments, and they brought up frogs upon the land of Egypt. Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron, and said, Entreat the Lord, [“Who is the Lord, I don’t know him.” Now Pharaoh’s changing his tune. “Entreat the Lord”] that he may take away the frogs from me, and from my people; and I will let the people go, that they may do sacrifice unto the Lord. Moses said unto Pharaoh, Glory over me: when shall I entreat for thee, [In other words, “You tell me when you want the frogs gone, so that when they’re gone at that time, you will know that God did it. You won’t just say, Oh well they decided to go back to the river. You tell me when you want them gone.”] and I will entreat for you, and for your servants, and for your people, and I will destroy the frogs from thee and from thy houses, that they remain in the river only? And he said, Tomorrow. So he said, All right be it according to your word: that you may know that there [Who is Jehovah? “That you may know that there”] is none like unto Jehovah our God. And the frogs shall depart from thee, and from thy houses, and from they servants, and from thy people; and they shall remain in the river only. And Moses and Aaron went out from the Pharoah: and Moses cried unto the Lord because of the frogs which he had brought against Pharaoh. And the Lord did according to the word of Moses; and the frogs died out of the houses, [He didn’t send them back to the river, He just let them die.] out of the villages, and out of the fields. And they gathered them together in heaps: and the land stank ( Exo 8:7-14 ).
Stinking gods, God just really rubbing their noses in their gods, really. Just saying, “You want to serve these gods? You don’t know who I am? Then here you are.”
So when Pharaoh saw that there was respite, he hardened [Now the word completely different, “kabed”, he stiffened, or heavied his heart,] against God, and hearkened not [heavied is the literal translation, “and hearkened not”,] to them as the Lord had said. The Lord said unto Moses, Say to Aaron, Stretch out your rod, [Now He didn’t go to Pharaoh this time, He’s just gonna bring one on him without any warning, so said to Aaron, “Stretch out your rod”,] and smite the dust of the land, that it might become lice throughout all the land of Egypt ( Exo 8:15-16 ).
Now it’s either lice or mosquitoes. We don’t seem to know which. It’s a word that’s only used twice here. In Psalms this plague is referred to; so there are some in the translation of the Greek, in the “Septuagint”, seems to be the mosquitoes, really doesn’t make any difference, either one would be miserable.
And they did so; for Aaron stretched out his hand with his rod, and smote the dust of the earth, and it became lice in men, and in beast; and all the dust of the land became lice throughout all the land of Egypt. And the magicians did so with their enchantments to bring forth lice, but they couldn’t ( Exo 8:17-18 ).
So here the Egyptians came to an end, that is the magicians. They weren’t able to duplicate this. Now in this there’s sort of a creation of life. This was their limit. They could draw frogs out of the water. They could change the water to blood. They could make serpents out of their rods, but at this point they can’t follow it any further. Their powers have been more than matched by now.
So the magicians said to Pharaoh, This is the finger of God: and Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he hearkened not to them; as the Lord had said. The Lord said unto Moses, Rise up early in the morning, and stand before Pharaoh; lo, he is coming forth to the water; and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord, Let my people go, that they may serve me. [So the next demand-actually it’s the fifth demand that was made upon the Pharaoh.] Else if you will not let my people go, behold, I will send swarms of flies upon thee, and upon thy servants, and upon thy people, and in thy houses: and the houses of the Egyptians they’ll be full of the swarms, and also the ground where they are. And I will sever in that day the land of Goshen ( Exo 8:19-22 ),
In other words from this point on, God is gonna make a distinction between the Egyptians and the children of Israel. The plagues are gonna come upon the Egyptians, but the children of Israel are going to be spared. So God is going to make a division now.
that no swarms of flies shall be there; to the end that you may know that I am the Lord in the midst of the eaRuth ( Exo 8:22 ).
Again, “Who is the Lord? I don’t know the Lord,” the Pharaoh’s remark. So God says, “All right, that you might know who I am.” God is introducing Himself to Pharaoh.
And I will put a division between thy people and thy people: tomorrow shall this sign be. And the Lord did so; and there came a grievous swarm into the house of Pharaoh, and into his servants; houses, and into the land of Egypt: and the land was corrupted by reason of the swarms. And Pharaoh called for Moses and for Aaron, and he said, Go ye, sacrifice to your God in the land. And Moses said, It is not meet so to do; [or it isn’t right to do this] 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 will go three days’ journey into the wilderness, and sacrifice to the Lord our God, as he has commanded us ( Exo 8:23-27 ).
So here the Pharaoh now is offering the first of the compromises. It is interesting to me that Satan so often offers us compromises. When you’ve determined to commit your life to Jesus Christ and Satan sees that’s what you’ve determined to do, then he begins his compromising. “Okay, if you’re gonna have to make a nut of yourself, but don’t get-don’t get really religious. You know, don’t go too far. Oh yeah, go but don’t get involved too deeply. You don’t want to become a religious nut.” So, “Yeah, go to church, you know, once a week, once every other week. Don’t get carried away with this thing.” Satan offers the compromises. As Satan said, “Hey go, but sacrifice in the land. Don’t go very far, stay in the land.”
Now Moses knew that if they sacrificed in the land, because the Egyptians worshiped the animals, for them to kill the animals would cause the ire of the Egyptians to be lifted against them, and they would’ve stoned them. Because the sacrifices unto God were going to involve the sacrificing of animals, Moses wisely said, “No way. We need to go three-days journey out of the land, lest the Egyptians see us sacrificing, will stone us.”
So Pharaoh said, I will let you go, that you may sacrifice to the Lord your God in the wilderness; only ye shall not go very far away: now ask God to get rid of these flies ( Exo 8:28 ).
So the second compromise. First of all, “Go in the land, now don’t go very far.”
And Moses said, I go out from thee, and I will pray to the Lord that the swarms may depart from Pharaoh, from his servants, and from his people, tomorrow: but let not Pharaoh deal deceitful any more in not letting the people go to sacrifice to the Lord. And Moses went out from before the Pharaoh, and he entreated the Lord. And the Lord did according to the word of Moses; and he removed the swarms from the Pharaoh, and from his servants, and from his people; and there remained not one. And Pharaoh hardened [kabed] his heart at this time also, neither would he let the people go ( Exo 8:29-32 ). “
Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary
Before the second plague Pharaoh received an opportunity to repent. He was warned of the approach of the plague. The warning had no effect. In the first plague magicians had produced apparently like results and it was so also with this second one. This was their last success. Pharaoh relented and asked for a respite. This was granted and for a reason clearly declared, “That thou mayest how that there is none like unto Jehovah our God.” At any sign of turning by Pharaoh the divine mercy turned toward him. Here again Pharaoh hardened, that is, calloused his own heart. Note this was his own act and not God’s.
In the coming of the third plague there was a change of method. No warning was given. Pharaoh had broken faith. In the presence of this visitation the magicians confessed their recognition of some power superior to any they knew. Their incompetence and testimony constituted a still further warning to Pharaoh. Nevertheless, again he refused to relent.
Therefore the judgment of God went forward and we have the first of the second cycle of plagues. A new method of impressing the heart of the king was taken by the information that Israel was to be immune. At this point Pharaoh commenced a policy of attempted compromise. He suggested that they should sacrifice in the land. This Moses absolutely refused, declaring it was necessary to separate from Egypt in order to worship. Pharaoh then seemed to give way as he declared his willingness to let them go, but not far. Once again, by his own act, Pharaoh made stubborn his heart and refused to submit.
Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible
the Plague of Frogs and its Removal
Exo 8:1-15
Probably the plagues followed in rapid succession, so that the impression of one had not passed away before another succeeded. The whole conflict was probably comprehended in nine or ten months. The frog was a goddess, hence the plague was aggravated, as it was unlawful to destroy one. This stroke elicited the first symptom of surrender. Though the magicians counterfeited the coming of the frogs they failed to remove them, and the king did not hope for such help from them. Pharaoh implored the intercession of the great Hebrew brethren, who, to make the power of God and the efficacy of prayer more manifest, asked the king to fix the time. They who know God and obey Him absolutely can reckon on Him with perfect certainty and confidence. Our God delights in the faith that dares to pledge His willingness and power, and He will not fail the soul that ventures wholly on His all-sufficiency.
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
Exo 8:1
I. Perfect freedom is not the thing demanded of Pharaoh, nor is this the prize of their high calling held out before the eyes of the Israelites. To serve God is the perfect freedom held out: to change masters, to be rid of him who had no claim to their allegiance, and to be permitted without hindrance to serve Kim who was indeed their Lord and their God. This was the boon offered to the children of Israel, and demanded on their account by Moses as the ambassador of God.
II. This feature in the deliverance of the Israelites is worthy of special notice, when we regard it as typical of the deliverance from sin and the bondage of the devil, which our heavenly Father is willing to effect for each one of us. “Let My people go,”-not that they may be free from a master, but that they may serve; let them go, because they have been redeemed by Christ, and are not their own, but His. The deliverance from sin which God works for His people is, in fact, a change from one service to another: a change from service to sin, which is perfect bondage, to service to God, which is perfect freedom.
III. The blessedness of the service of God is not estimated as it ought to be; men in these days are too like the children of Israel, who seemed to think that they had conferred a favour on Moses by following his guidance, and that the least reverse would be a sufficient excuse to justify them in going back again to Egypt. There is nothing in their conduct more strange or more blameable than in the conduct of men calling themselves Christians, who do not perceive that in the earnest discharge of God’s service is their highest happiness as well as their principal duty and most blessed privilege.
Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Parish Sermons, series iv., p. 179.
References: Exo 8:7.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. vi., No. 322. Exo 7:2.-Parker, vol. ii., p. 311. Exo 8:19.-Parker, vol. ii., p. 312; J. N. Norton, The King’s Ferry Boat, p. 174. Exo 8:20.-Parker, vol. ii., p. 312. Exo 8:25.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxi., No. 1830. Exo 8:28.-Spurgeon, Morning by Morning, p. 179; Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxi., No. 1830; Parker, vol. ii., p. 313. Exo 9:1-35.-Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. iv., p. 144. Exo 9:7.-C. Kingsley, National Sermons, p. 325. Exo 9:13, Exo 9:14.-C. Kingsley, Gospel of the Pentateuch, pp. 148, 164. Exo 12:12.-I. Williams, Characters of the Old Testament, p. 103.
Fuente: The Sermon Bible
CHAPTER 8 The Second, Third, and Fourth Plagues
1. The demand and the plague of frogs announced (Exo 8:1-4)
2. The plague executed (Exo 8:5-7)
3. The request of Pharaoh and the frogs removed (Exo 8:8-15)
4. The divine command for the third plague (Exo 8:16)
5. The plague executed (Exo 8:17)
6. The confession of the magicians (Exo 8:18-19)
7. The renewed demand and the plague of the flies announced (Exo 8:20-23)
8. The plague executed (Exo 8:24)
9. Pharaohs promise and his refusal (Exo 8:25-32)
The different demands made of Pharaoh to let Gods people go and Pharaohs objections are of much interest. In Jehovahs demands to let His people go we have Gods purpose that His people must be completely brought out of Egypt (the world) and be separated unto Him. Before they could worship and serve Him they had to be delivered from Egypt . It is so with us. Pharaoh is the type of Satan, the god of this age. He made his objections, as Satan makes his opposition to a full and complete deliverance of Gods people. Study Pharaohs objections: In Exo 8:25, he says, Go ye, sacrifice to your God in the land. Then in Exo 8:28 he makes a compromise, but they must not go far away. In Exo 10:9-11 he desired the men to go, but the rest and their belongings were to stay behind. The final compromise is in Exo 10:24. In these objections and compromises we read Satans attempt to keep Gods people ensnared with the world and thus hold them under his control and power. How well he has succeeded in Christendom.
If we connect the last verse of the previous chapter it seems it was on the seventh day, the day of rest, the Sabbath, which Israel must have completely forgotten, when the Lord again spoke to Moses and announced the second plague. This consisted of frogs, which proceeded from the worshipped, sacred Nile . The rationalistic higher critics have tried to explain this plague also as a natural occurrence. But they do not explain how it is that they came as soon as Aaron stretched his hand over the waters of Egypt and that they died by the millions after Moses prayer. Surely Pharaoh was better than the modern day critics, for he acknowledged at least that it was a miracle of Jehovah (Exo 6:8). Frogs were also connected with Egyptian idolatry. One Egyptian goddess called Hekt appears with the head of a frog. Frogs stand for unclean things. See Rev 16:13. The magicians enabled by Satans power also imitated this miracle. But with this their power in counterfeiting ceased.
The third plague consisted in lice, or rather gnats. It came like the sixth and ninth plague, without any previous warning. They smote the dust and divine power for judgment brought out of the dust these tormenting insects. The very soil of Egypt now was turned into a curse. God now restrained the demoniacal powers of imitation and the wicked magicians had to confess, not for the glory of Jehovah, but for their own protection, this is the finger of God.
The fourth plague was still more disastrous and significant. The appeal was made in the morning (Jer 25:4; Jer 26:5; Jer 29:19). Swarms of flies covered all Egypt . These were not the common house flies, but a more powerful insect, the bite of which was exceedingly painful. There were different kinds of them. He sent divers sorts of flies among them, which devoured them (Psa 78:45). They fastened themselves upon men and tormented them. It was another blow against the idols of Egypt . The beetle was reverenced as the symbol of creative power and the Egyptian Sun-god had a beetles head. This plague did not touch Israel . Jehovah showed that Israel is His people. All the terrible punitive judgments did not touch His people. And this was a sign. The word division in Exo 8:23 means redemption. Jehovah is here clearly revealed as the author of the plague judgments. His supreme authority stands out prominently. After the removal of this plague, Pharaoh hardened his heart anew.
Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)
Go: Jer 1:17-19, Jer 15:19-21, Eze 2:6, Eze 2:7
Let my: Exo 3:12, Exo 3:18, Exo 5:1, Exo 7:16
Reciprocal: Exo 8:20 – Let my Exo 9:1 – General
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
LET MY PEOPLE GO!
And the Lord spake unto Moses, Go unto Pharaoh, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord, Let My, people go, that they may serve Me.
Exo 8:1
I. Perfect freedom is not the thing demanded of Pharaoh, nor is this the prize of their high calling held out before the eyes of the Israelites. To serve God is the perfect freedom held out: to change masters, to be rid of him who had no claim to their allegiance, and to be permitted without hindrance to serve Him who was indeed their Lord and their God. This was the boon offered to the children of Israel, and demanded on their account by Moses as the ambassador of God.
II. This feature in the deliverance of the Israelites is worthy of special notice, when we regard it as typical of the deliverance from sin and the bondage of the devil, which our heavenly Father is willing to effect for each one of us. Let My people go,not that they may be free from a master, but that they may serve; let them go, because they have been redeemed by Christ, and are not their own, but His. The deliverance from sin which God works for His people is, in fact, a change from one service to another: a change from service to sin, which is perfect bondage, to service to God, which is perfect freedom.
III. The blessedness of the service of God is not estimated as it ought to be; men in these days are too like the children of Israel, who seemed to think that they had conferred a favour on Moses by following his guidance, and that the least reverse would be a sufficient excuse to justify them in going back again to Egypt. There is nothing in their conduct more strange or more blameable than in the conduct of men calling themselves Christians, who do not perceive that in the earnest discharge of Gods service is their highest happiness as well as their principal duty and most blessed privilege.
Bishop Harvey Goodwin.
Illustration
(1) Once more did the object of worship prove their curse. Is there not a great law here? Our idols ever tend to grow into tyrants and cruel despots. We have only to give to the creature, no matter how fair and good, that trust, and service, and love that belong to God, and it will become a bane, perhaps the bane of life.
(2) This plague of frogs was a natural and ordinary occurrence intensified. Every year high Nile brings them in vast numbers. The supernaturalness lay in their extraordinary number and troublesomeness, and in their appearance and disappearance at the bidding of Moses. This reminds us that God deals with us, teaching and correcting, guiding and protecting, as far as possible through the natural. He hides Himself in the natural; to see Him we need purged eyes. (Glory over me, etc. is equal to Thine be the honour to appoint the time when I shall entreat for thee and thy servants.)
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
Faith as Exemplified in Moses
Selections from Exo 3:1-22; Exo 6:1-30; Exo 7:1-25; Exo 8:1-32; Exo 14:1-31; Exo 15:1-27
INTRODUCTORY WORDS
The Children of Israel had been captive in Egypt for several hundred years. During that time another Pharaoh had arisen who knew not Joseph. As the sons of Jacob multiplied, the king of Egypt became more and more afraid of their possible ascendancy in his empire. Therefore, moved with fear, he began to persecute them, and to force them to work as common slaves. Thus, God heard the groanings of His people under the iron hand of Pharaoh.
1. The birth of a deliverer. Finally an edict of Pharaoh was given forth that every male child should be killed. There were two, however, who were not afraid of the king’s commandment, and when a goodly child was born unto them, they hid him in an ark of bulrushes at the river’s brink, where the daughter of Pharaoh came to bathe. This little child was rescued by royalty and nursed by his own mother. Thus it was that God Himself brought up the deliverer in the home of the persecutor. A child who was under a sentence of death, became the giver of life to the people of God.
2. The deliverer’s attempt in the flesh. When the baby Moses had grown into a man of forty years of age, he spurned everything that the pleasures and the wealth of Egypt could give him. He turned his back on Pharaoh’s palace, and, with a heart aching because of the straits of his own people, he went down, bent upon delivering them, but forty years passed before God undertook to deliver Israel through Moses.
3. Hiding away. During the forty years that Moses was in Midian he married the daughter of Jethro, the priest of Midian. At the end of the forty years God came to Moses and spoke to him.
During the years that Moses was hid away with God he could meditate and think upon the glory of Jehovah.
4. A wonderful sight. God appeared unto Moses in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. Moses stopped and looked, and, “behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed.” Immediately he said, “I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt.” It was at that moment that the Lord called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, “Moses, Moses.” And he said, “Here am I.” God told Moses to put off his shoes from off his feet, because the place on which he stood was holy ground.
Then it was that he said, “I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Immediately God told Moses that He had surely seen the affliction of His people in Egypt; that He had heard their cry, and that He would send forth Moses to their deliverance.
5. A complaining, doubting spirit. We are amazed when we think of the man whom God had called to deliver His people, saying to the Lord, “Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the Children of Israel out of Egypt?” The Lord, however, gave him promises that He would be with him.
The story is familiar to all of us: we remember how the Lord gave him His Name, saying, “I Am that I Am.” When Moses still demurred, God wrought the miracle of the turning of a rod which Moses held in his hand into a serpent.
God furthermore commanded Moses to put his hand into bis bosom, and when he took it out, it was as leprous as snow. Then He told Moses to put his hand back into his bosom. This time, when he took it out, it was turned again as his other flesh.
Moses still demurred, and said, “I am not eloquent.” This time, God took away from him a wonderful privilege and gave it unto Aaron, the brother of Moses, telling him that he should be the spokesman of Moses, and that he should be to Moses instead of a mouth, and that Moses should be to him instead of God.
6. A few conclusions. As we think of what we have just set before you, let us weigh our own experience in its light. Have we not had a call from God? Have we not often warred in the flesh? Have we not often demurred, and hesitated to undertake the work to which we are called? Perhaps God has even given us a vision of His mighty power and work. Before we complain about Moses, and condemn him, let us ask if we have been faithful, and ready to launch out the moment that some Divine order came to us; perhaps Moses far outshines us in our obedience. Let us be careful, lest we miss God’s very best in service and spiritual attainments.
I. FAITH IN TRAINING (Exo 3:12-14)
When we feel that our faith is weak, we know of no better way to strengthen it than to study the dealings of the God in whom we are asked to believe, with men in the past. Listen to some of the things that God said to Moses:
1.In Exo 3:8 He said, “I am come down to deliver.”
2.In Exo 3:10 He said, “I will send thee unto Pharaoh.”
3.In Exo 3:12 He said, “Certainly I will be with thee.”
4.In Exo 3:14 He said, “I AM hath sent me unto you.”
5.In Exo 3:17 He said, “I will bring you up.”
6.In Exo 3:20 He said, “I will stretch out My hand.”
7.In Exo 3:21 He said, “I will give this people favour in the sight of the Egyptians.”
When we look at the seven statements above, we see, in every instance, a definite promise from the Almighty. Why should Moses be afraid when God kept saying, “I will, I will; and I will”? When God promises to do it, it will surely be done. What God undertakes He is able to accomplish; if we are sent by Him; we are panoplied by Him.
If He is with us, we are armed with all power in Heaven and upon earth. If He is going to bring us through, we need not fear the terrors by the way; if He has said, “I will stretch out My hand,” we need not care how weak our hands may be.
There was one other thing that God did to encourage Moses. He said, “I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, * * of Isaac, and * * of Jacob.” In other words, He said to Moses, “You are familiar with the wonderful dealings I had with your forefathers; and I was their God, and now I will be thine.” If the Lord comes with us, are we afraid to go? Do the silver and the gold not belong to Him? Does He not have all authority, in every realm?
Suppose Jesus Christ stood by us today, telling us to go; and then He said, “I have met the powers of Satan and have vanquished them; I was dead, and I am alive again, and I hold in My hand the keys of death and of hell; I have ascended up through principalities and powers, and am seated on the right hand of God, clothed with all authority.” When Christ says such things to us, shall we be weak in faith and afraid to obey His voice?
II. FAITH WARNED (Exo 3:19)
We often speak of the faith of Moses, and indeed it was a remarkable faith. Let none of us criticize him in his faith until we can do the things he did; let none of us enlarge upon his unbelief until our unbelief is less than his.
1. The warning. Exo 3:19 says, God speaking: “And I am sure that the king of Egypt will not let you go, no, not by a mighty hand.” The Lord never promises us that which we are not to receive; He never encourages us in giving us a false hope; He never tries to increase our faith by belittling the obstacles which will beset us by the way.
God very plainly and positively assured Moses that the Children of Israel would resist him, and that Pharaoh would not let the people go. However, God went on to tell him that He would do His wonders in Egypt, and “after that he will let you go.” He even told Moses that the Children of Israel should not go out empty, but they should go out with their hands filled with jewels of silver and gold and raiment, and with the spoil of the Egyptians.
2. The refusal. In the 5th chapter, and 1st verse, Moses said unto Pharaoh, “Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Let My people go, that they may hold a feast unto Me in the wilderness.” Pharaoh did not hesitate a moment to reply, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I know not the Lord, neither will I let Israel go.”
A man of little faith would certainly have stumbled here. To be sure, God had told him that Pharaoh would not let Israel go; however, it was not easy for Moses and Aaron to be repulsed with such terrific onslaughts of unbelief.
Sometimes as we go forth in the service of God everything seems to fail which we had hoped would come to pass. Our prayers seem unanswered, our attempts seem futile, and our service seems in-vain.
We should remember that it is not always that our God delivers instantly. If we get our victories too easily, we might begin to think that our own hand had gotten us the victory, and that we had accomplished things by our own efforts and prowess.
3. The direct results. In the 4th verse of the 5th chapter, the king of Egypt said unto Moses and Aaron, “Wherefore do ye, Moses and Aaron, let the people from their works? get you unto your burdens.” That same day the king commanded the taskmasters to cease giving straw to the Children of Israel. They were to get their own straw, and yet the same quantity of brick was required from them daily.
This caused a tremendous bitterness in the Children of Israel. They complained, and when they met Moses and Aaron as they came forth from Pharaoh, they said, “Ye have made our savour to be abhorred in the eyes of Pharaoh, and in the eyes of his servants, to put a sword in their hand to slay us.”
This was about all that Moses could bear, and he cried unto the Lord, “Why is it that Thou hast sent me?” He also said, “Neither hast Thou delivered Thy people at all.” When the enemy seems to have every advantage, and is pressing us on every side, do we sometimes murmur and complain at the Lord? It is not easy to be condemned by the populace; it is not easy to see our leadership seemingly broken.
III. FAITH ASSURED (Exo 6:1-6)
When Moses talked with God, the Lord told him several things.
1. “Now shalt thou see what I will do to Pharaoh.” Defeat does not disturb the Almighty-He can see the end from the beginning. He knew that Pharaoh would rebel again and again, but God also knew that Pharaoh would be willing-yea, more than willing: he would be glad to have Israel go, before God had finished His judgments upon him.
2. Other things God said unto Moses.
1.”I am the Lord: and I appeared unto Abraham * * by the Name of God Almighty.”
2.”I have also established My Covenant with them.”
3.”I have remembered My Covenant.”
4.”I will bring you out * * I will rid you out of their bondage.”
5.”I will redeem you with a stretched out arm.”
6.”I will take you to Me * * I will be to you a God.”
7.”I will bring you in unto the land.”
Three times in this passage, concluding at Exo 6:8, the Lord says, “I am the Lord.” Let every one of us write over every power of darkness the same word-“I am the Lord.” If God be for us, who can be against us?
3. Moses’ plea. It must have been a wonderful thing to have the privilege of speaking to the Lord face to face, as did Moses, God addressing him as we would an intimate friend. Moses said, “Behold, the children of Israel have not hearkened unto Me; how then shall Pharaoh hear me?” He meant, If my own people, Thine own children, have not heard me, how shall I expect Pharaoh to hear me?
Sometimes we, too, get to the place where we want to give up. We hasten to belittle our successes and the possibility of our efforts. Beloved, we need, today, to get a fresh hold on God.
IV. Faith Encouraged (Exo 7:1-6)
The skies are brightening as far as Moses is concerned. While so far he has met nothing but rebuff and setback and disappointment; yet he has been learning, step by step to trust God. Now the Lord is speaking unto Moses, and He tells him one thing that, so far as we know, has never been repeated.
1. “I have made thee a God to Pharaoh.” In other words, God is saying unto Moses that he should go before Him in the power and might of Deity Himself. He was to speak everything that God commanded him; he was to do mighty works, even the works that only God could do.
God still warned Moses that Pharaoh would harden his heart, but He said that He would multiply His signs and wonders in the land of Egypt. The fact of the business was that every time Pharaoh refused Moses, it gave God an opportunity to magnify His own Name and power in the midst of the Egyptians, and to prove that God was Lord; and that the Children of Israel were His people.
2. “And Moses and Aaron did as the Lord commanded them.” They went forth and faced Pharaoh time and time again; with Pharaoh’s every refusal they were spurred to further attacks against the cruel king of the Egyptians. They both obeyed the voice of God implicitly; they obeyed, no matter what happened, how dark the skies, how rugged the way, how steep the road. They were learning that God is able to bring down every high thing, and every proud thing that exalts itself against the Lord. They were learning that the weapons of their warfare were mighty, through God, to the breaking down of strongholds.
V. FAITH WORKING (Exo 8:1-4)
The story of the ten plagues which were brought upon Egypt by the words of Moses, is nothing less than the story of faith at work.
1. The first three plagues. As Moses threw down his rod it became a serpent. How was it then, if this was a miracle, that the magicians threw down their rods, and they became serpents? The second great miracle of Moses was the turning of the water of Egypt into blood; this the magicians of Egypt also did.
The third was the miracle of the frogs; once again the magicians of Egypt did the same with their enchantments.
Moses, perhaps, was dumfounded when he saw that the magicians could duplicate, thus far, whatever he did. However, they could not get rid of the frogs; they could bring the curse, but could not relieve it. Perhaps God Himself permitted all of this, to make Moses lean the harder upon Him; and also to bring a deeper curse upon Pharaoh, because of his rebellion. One thing we know, that step by step, Moses was “as God” in moving God and nature to obey his voice.
2. Is the day of miracles past? My God is a God that still works miracles. If He did not, how could I trust Him in the many places where He commands me to travel and to labor? I have seen with mine own eyes the Lord our God doing the impossible.
When we think of the Apostles, and of Paul, we think of men who knew how to believe God, and to do things which could not be accounted for on any natural lines. In these days, when the modernist is seeking to discount every miracle that God has ever wrought, it is absolutely necessary for us to prove that our God is still the God who wrought the miracles of the Old Testament. We must do the same things as were done then.
VI. THE FINAL TRIUMPH (Exo 14:13-16)
We are passing very rapidly over many remarkable things that occurred, and now we come to the final great test.
1. Hemmed in on every side. When Moses led the Children of Israel out of Egypt, he led them as he was directed, down by the way of the Red Sea. The news was taken to Pharaoh that Moses with his million and one half of people were entangled in the wilderness; then Pharaoh immediately started out to pursue them.
When the Children of Israel saw the hosts of the Egyptians approaching, they were filled with fear, and they said unto Moses, “Because there were no graves in Egypt, hast thou taken us away to die in the wilderness?” Here was a real trial to faith.
Moses, however, did not waver: he said, “Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which He will shew to you today: for the Egyptians whom ye have seen today, ye shall see them again no more for ever.” He added, “The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace.”
After Moses had told this unto the people, he sought the face of his God, and cried unto Him. Then the Lord said to him, “Wherefore criest thou unto Me? speak unto the Children of Israel, that they go forward.” How could they go forward?
They certainly could not go back; they certainly could not go to the left, or to the right, for, on the one hand were the fastnesses of the mountains and the hills, and on the other hand Pharaoh’s hosts. Before them was the impassable sea. It was under such circumstances that God said, “Go forward,” and forward they went.
Moses lifted up his rod, and God opened before them sufficient dry land that they might march in through the midst of the sea, and straight across to the other side.
VII. FAITH REJOICING (Exo 15:1-6)
1. The thrill of victory. It must have been a wonderful thing to the Children of Israel, as they marched up on the other side of the sea. Surely they knew that there was a God in Israel! If their joy, for the moment, was darkened by the approach of the hosts of the Egyptians who were marching upon the same path through the sea which God had prepared for them, their fear was quickly allayed when they saw that the armies of Pharaoh were having great trouble in passing, because their chariot wheels would come off, and because they were blinded in their route by a cloud of darkness.
Then, after the last one of Israel had passed over, how they must have rejoiced when Moses stretched forth his rod over the sea, and the waters returned to their strength, overthrowing the Egyptians in the midst thereof! Pharaoh’s army and chariots and horsemen were altogether overthrown, and there remained not so much as one.
2. The song of victory. Chapter 15 says, “Then sang Moses and the Children of Israel this song.” Have you ever accomplished something by faith which caused you to sing? You have read of faith’s miracles: Have you ever wrought them? You have heard of Daniel in the lions’ den: have you ever had any experience that even shadowed that? You have heard of the experience of the three Hebrew children in the burning fiery furnace: have you ever done or seen anything like that in your life?
Yes, every day there are things just as marvelous, but how few there are who know them, or see them, or believe them! Now when there is victory, there is song. After Moses had finished his rejoicing with the Children of Israel, then Miriam, the sister of Moses and Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand, and all the women went out after her, with timbrels and dances.
3. Experiences in the wilderness. After this wonderful miracle one would have thought that the Children of Israel would never again doubt God. They had seen everything that God had wrought by the hand of Moses; all of the miraculous plagues, all of their wonderful deliverances, and yet they were scarcely over the Red Sea and in the wilderness, until, as they journeyed, they struck a place where there was no water. Then they began to chide with Moses. One of the crowning acts of faith in the life of Moses was when he went out and struck the rock at the command of God. There is no water in a rock, and yet the smitten rock sent forth a stream. Beloved, let us never doubt God again, but rather let us believe that it will be even as He has spoken.
AN ILLUSTRATION
“Ask ye of the Lord rain” (Zec 10:1).
In the following lines we wish to relate something of the Lord’s goodness as suggested by the above text.
There had been many months of drought, very dry and hot weather. The previous N.E. monsoon had failed, resulting in only half the normal rainfall. Tanks and ponds had been dry for weeks. Many wells had failed in their supply of water. Droves of cattle were being driven miles to obtain a drink of water. Men and women, on returning late in the evening from work, had to go off in search of water before attempting to cook the food. One evening, two messengers, one following the other, came along to say our well was empty. We knew of only one resource at such a time. There were some clouds above. “Ask ye of the Lord rain.” Two of us knelt that evening and asked our Heavenly Father to command the clouds and to send the rain. We retired, believing our God would care for us. On rising next morning we looked but to see “floods on the dry ground.” Two and a quarter inches of rain had fallen!
“O give thanks unto the Lord; for He is good: for His mercy endureth for ever.”
Fuente: Neighbour’s Wells of Living Water
Exo 8:3. The river shall bring forth frogs. The season was now approaching for the frogs to leave the pools, lakes, and river. God preserved and strengthened the young, or tadpoles of this amphibious creature, and by the same providence caused them to die in answer to prayer.
Exo 8:9. Glory over me. That is, according to the next verse, set me a time when I shall entreat the Lord to remove this plague, and glory over me if it be not removed when I shall entreat.
Exo 8:17. Lice; Kinnim. The frogs had already invaded their houses; now the vermin attacked their bodies.
Exo 8:21. Swarms of flies. The readings here are various, All sorts of flies; gnats, hornets, wasps, &c. This would seem, from Psa 78:45, to be the true sense of the text; yet others contend that serpents and scorpions are implied. Some have said that lions, leopards, and wolves were superadded; but Exo 8:31 restricts the plague to insects.
Exo 8:26. The abomination of the Egyptians; that is, the victims we shall sacrifice would be to them an abomination, because they adored some of the animals which other nations burned on their altars. The Egyptians worshipped a ram under the name of Jove, and a calf or bull under the name of Apis, called Epaphus by the Greeks. Herodotus, who travelled in Egypt 200 years before Christ, states that when Cambyses was returned with the remains of his half-perished army from the deserts of Numidia, whither he had led them as a fool without guides and provisions, he found the people of Memphis dressed in their best clothes, and celebrating a feast. This he thought was a festival of joy at the complete failure of his expedition. When they told him that the feast was on account of their god, who rarely discovered himself, having appeared to them; he replied that they told him falsehoods, and began to kill them. He then commanded the priests to appear before him, and they made him the same answer, He replied, that if their god was so condescending as to show himself to the people, he would not hide himself from the king; and commanded them to lead him immediately into the presence of their god. This Apis, according to the priests, was the first calf of a cow, which was not allowed to have a second; it was engendered by a thunderbolt of Jupiter. The calf was black all over the body, except a square white mark on the forehead. On its back was placed an eagle, and the hair of the tail divided into two tresses. As soon as Cambyses saw the calf, he burst out into a fit of laughter, exclaiming, Oh wicked priests, are the gods then made of flesh and blood? Do they feel a cut of the sword? Truly this god is worthy of the Egyptians. On saying these words, he gave their god a long cut on the skin, and made the wound so deep that the animal bled to death. Christian reader, this idol, however now abominable in its figure and rites, had once a sacred origin. Like the fable of Seml, mother of Bacchus, begotten by Jupiter, and twice born by divine and human geniture, it represented the incarnation of the Word or Wisdom of God. See Rom 1:20. Satan had thus perverted the mysteries of godliness into mysteries of iniquity, and drawn as far as he could, the worship of mankind to himself.
REFLECTIONS.
We are here led to trace the hand of heaven in its farther visitations of judgment on the impenitent oppressors of his people. The Lord having once commenced a controversy with a nation, or a sinner, will not retire from the contest till victory shall attend his counsel. In like manner shall the christian ministry be crowned with success in the salvation or the destruction of those who hear. God has clothed his word with more awful characters of judgment, that those who despise mercy may tremble at his severity.
Wicked men we see are not averse to the prayers of the righteous, provided they solicit the removal of their afflictions: Entreat the Lord, said Pharaoh, to take away the frogs. But inquiry should first be made, whether those afflictions have been sanctified, and whether there are appearances that henceforth they will serve God in newness of life.
Whenever the punishment of sin is removed, the sinner, like Pharaoh, is apt to harden his heart, and resume his former course. This is especially true respecting unlawful gains, or some favourite vice and sensual indulgence.
Pharaoh having despised the Lord and the greatness of his power, was afflicted, and his whole kingdom which had joined in the sin, with the meanest of insects. Yes, the insects which they had been accustomed to consider as mean, when commissioned from heaven became formidable, and menaced the whole land with destruction. It is wise for man not to despise the smallest afflictions which the Lord is pleased to send, for in the issue they may be of serious moment to our health and happiness.
Pharaoh was cautioned by Moses not to deal deceitfully any more. This faithful language ministers should still enforce, whenever they find men to have failed in paying their vows to the Lord. If a sinner has been repeatedly spared, been raised up from the bed of affliction, or delivered from sore troubles, and should after all resume, like the Egyptian monarch, his former habits of life, the day will surely come when the Lord will no more be entreated, neither shall his hand spare.
We learn lastly, that although the Lords people may, for their greater purification, suffer for a while the common lot of affliction; yet in the issue a difference shall be made. Israel till now had suffered in part with their oppressors, but henceforth the Lord distinguished his own from his enemies. The land of Goshen was marked as the sacred asylum of a praying people. Let the saints therefore at all times rejoice, even in the most awful times of public calamity, for the judgments of God are inflicted by a wise and discriminating hand.
Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
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.
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.
Fuente: Mackintosh’s Notes on the Pentateuch
Exo 7:14 to Exo 12:36. The Ten Plagues.How deeply this series of events imprinted itself on the mind and heart of the nation is shown by the fulness with which the three sources report them.
J124578910
E178910
P123610
1, river turned to blood; 2, frogs; 3, fice (gnats); 4, flies; 5, murrain; 6, boils; 7, hail; 8, locusts; 9, darkness; 10, death of firstborn.
A sound historical judgment will conclude, both from this fact and from the nature of the occurrences mentioned, as well as from the need for some such group of causes to account for the escape of the tribes, that the traditions have a firm foothold in real events. But since not less than four centuries intervened between the events and the earliest of our sources, it is not to be expected that the details of the narratives can all be equally correct. And there are not only literary distinctions between the sources, but differing, and in some points contradictory, representations of matters of fact. The Great European War illustrates the difficulty of weighing even contemporary testimony. But it is important to observe that even such a legend as that a force of Russians was brought through England, though it stated what was incorrect, yet would have conveyed to posterity a true reflection of two fundamental features in the European situation of 1914, viz. that Russia was allied with England, and that powerful reinforcements were needed to meet an enemy across the English Channel. So the general situation in Egypt in 1220 B.C., and the contrasted characters of Pharaoh and Moses, may reasonably be taken as rightly given, while the order, details, and precise nature of the events in which they were concerned may have been more or less distorted by tradition. One of the marks of the shaping power of the reporting process is that each source can still be seen to have had its own uniform skeleton of narration in this section. This phenomenon may be concisely exhibited. It should be contrasted with the form of narratives (such as those in 2 S.) which are more nearly contemporary with the events they relate.
a. JEP: and Yahweh said unto Moses,
b. J: Go unto Pharaoh, and say unto him, Thus saith Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews, Let my people go that they may serve me. And if thou refuse to let them go, behold I will . . .
E: Stretch forth thy (i.e. Mosess) hand (with thy rod toward . . . that there may be . . .
P: Say unto Aaron, Stretch out thy rod, and there shall be . . .
c. J: And Yahweh did so, and there came . . . (or and he sent)
E: And Moses stretched forth his hand (or his rod) toward . . . and there was . . .
P: And these did so: and Aaron stretched out his rod, and there was . . .
d. P: And the magicians did so (or, could not do so) with their secret arts . . .
e. J: And Pharaoh called for Moses, and said unto him, Entreat for me, that . . . And Yahweh did so, and removed . . .
f. J: But Pharaoh made his heart heavy.
E: But Yahweh made Pharaohs heart hard.
P: But Yahwehs heart was hardened.
g. J: And he did not let the people go.
E: And he did not let the children of Israel go.
P: and he hearkened not unto them as Yahweh had spoken.
The reader who will mark with letters in the margin of the text the parts assigned to J, E, and P will discern for himself, more fully by the help of the RV references, the points of contrast and resemblance, or he can consult the larger commentaries. In any case he should note that J is fullest and most graphic, and describes the plagues as natural events providentially ordered, Yahweh bringing them after the prophets mere announcement; that E is briefer, has not been so fully preserved by the editor, heightens the miraculous colouring, and makes Moses bring on the plagues with a motion of his wonder-working rod, or a gesture of his hand; and that P makes Aaron the spokesman and wielder of the rod, and introduces the magicians, the supernatural element transcending the historical throughout. Another feature is that in J the Israelites are apart in Goshen, but in E are mixed up with the Egyptians in Egypt. Each source has its own word for plague (Exo 9:14 J, Exo 11:1 E, Exo 12:13 P); and three other words (signs and wonderstwo Heb. words) are also employed. It will appear that the plagues were miraculously intensified forms of the diseases or other natural occurrences to which Egypt is more or less liable (Driver).
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
LAGUE NO.2 — FROGS
(vs.1-15)
Again God gives the opportunity to Pharaoh to respond to His demand to let Israel go (v.1). But Moses was to accompany this with the warnings that, if Pharaoh refused, their land would be inundated with a plague of frogs which would not remain outside, but would come into their homes, into their bedrooms and beds, into their food and kitchen utensils (vs.2-3).
Since Pharaoh did not heed the warning, the Lord gave the order to Moses that Aaron was to stretch out his hand with his rod over the streams, rivers and ponds, with the result that frogs came up to cover the land of Egypt. The first plague taught the serious lesson of death, now the second signifies uncleanness (Rev 16:13-14). It is a picture of the far more revolting moral and spiritual pollution that infects all levels of society when the Word of God is refused. Unclean spirits take advantage of this refusal, and God allows them to work their evil designs, just as today every area of life is badly affected and corrupted by the uncleanness that people choose in preference to the Word of God. The magicians too could introduce such uncleanness, but could not reverse it. God had done this in discipline toward Egypt, to expose to them the actual condition of moral uncleanness that permeated their nation. The magicians did it to show off their magic skills, but they only increased the scourge, just as cunning impostors, trying to imitate spiritual power, only add their own uncleanness to the wickedness in the world. Pharaoh may have seen through this, for he did not appeal to the magicians to take the frogs away.
He did call for Moses and Aaron and asked them to entreat the Lord that the frogs should be taken away, and promised to let the Israelites go in return for this favor. Moses responded by asking Pharaoh to decide for him what time he should ask that the frogs should be banished (v.9). Pharaoh told him, “Tomorrow.” (Perhaps he thought that God could not be expected to do it so quickly as “today”!) Moses let him know immediately that his prayer will be answered at the precise time so that Pharaoh may have the clear evidence that there is no other like the Lord God of Israel (v.10).
As it was declared, in answer to Moses’ prayer, the Lord reduced the frogs to nothing. They died and were gathered in heaps so that their stench only remained, a reminder of the bad odor of Egypt’s uncleanness. But when Pharaoh was relieved of this scourge, he only hardened his heart in determination to keep Israel in captivity (v.15).
PLAGUE NO.3 — DUST TURNED TO LICE
(vs.16-19)
Aaron was told by Moses to stretch out his rod and strike the dust of the land, so that it might become lice throughout all the land of Egypt. The lice however did not remain on the ground, but in accordance with the character of dust, it settled on people and animals. This was a personal contamination that would be virtually intolerable. The magicians attempted to imitate this with their enchantments, but could not do so. They had to admit that “this is the finger of God” (v.19). They had before brought up frogs, but the frogs were already there to bring up. Now when dust was actually turned to lice, they recognize that this was bringing life from a lifeless source. They could not do this, even in the case of the lowest form of life. But in spite of this, Pharaoh blindly hardened his heart, as so many do today in spite of being faced with God’s clear testimony to the gospel of His Son.
PLAGUE NO.4 — FLIES
(vs.20-32)
On this occasion Moses is to again give warning to Pharaoh. He repeats God’s previous command to let His people go, and warns that otherwise God will send swarms of flies to fill the houses of the Egyptians and to plague the people themselves, as well as covering the ground. The word “swarms” is evidently properly translated “a mixture ,” indicating a mixture of small insects. In this case it is announced that the Israelites would be entirely free from the plague: only Egypt would suffer (vs.22-23).
The warning again meant nothing to Pharaoh, so the land was devastated by the swarms of insects. Then Pharaoh was worried enough to call Moses and Aaron, telling them they could go and sacrifice to God, but within Egypt (v.25). But Moses could not accept this. God’s order was that they should go three days’ journey before sacrificing. More than that, the Egyptians considered the sacrifice of sheep and oxen as an abomination, and would respond violently if done in Egypt (v.26). The world does not understand the true worship of the people of God, and it is not to be mixed with worldly principles. The three days’ journey is typical of the fact that true Christian worship is on the ground of the death and resurrection of Christ.
Pharaoh agrees that he will let them go, but with some reservation, saying they should not go very far, and asking that they supplicate the Lord to take away this scourge. Moses was plainly skeptical of Pharaoh’s sincerity, but told him nevertheless that he would pray for this release, which he did (vs.29-30). The answer was given immediately, but Pharaoh deceitfully returned to his state of stubborn resistance (vs.31-32).
Fuente: Grant’s Commentary on the Bible
Frogs (the second plague) 8:1-15
Before the second plague, Moses gave Pharaoh a warning, for the first time, and for the first time the plague touched Pharaoh’s person.
"The god Hapi controlled the alluvial deposits and the waters that made the land fertile and guaranteed the harvest of the coming season. These associations caused the Egyptians to deify the frog and make the theophany of the goddess Heqt a frog. Heqt was the wife of the great god Khnum. She was the symbol of resurrection and the emblem of fertility. It was also believed that Heqt assisted women in childbirth. . . . The frog was one of a number of sacred animals that might not be intentionally killed, and even their involuntary slaughter was often punished with death." [Note: Davis, p. 100.]
The goddess Heqt ". . . who is depicted in the form of a woman with a frog’s head, was held to blow the breath of life into the nostrils of the bodies that her husband fashioned on the potter’s wheel from the dust of the earth . . . ." [Note: Cassuto, p. 101.]
"This second plague was not completely unrelated to the first, for the Nile and the appearance of the frogs were very much associated. The presence of the frogs normally would have been something pleasant and desirable, but on this occasion quite the opposite was true. The frogs came out of the rivers in great abundance and moved across the land into the houses, the bedchambers, the beds, and even moved upon the people themselves (Exo 8:3). One can only imagine the frustration brought by such a multiplication of these creatures. They were probably everywhere underfoot bringing distress to the housewives who attempted to clear the house of them only to find that they made their way into the kneading troughs and even into the beds. It must have been a unique experience indeed to come home from a long day’s work, slip into bed only to find that it has already been occupied by slimy, cold frogs! Whatever popularity the goddess Heqt must have enjoyed prior to this time would have been greatly diminished with the multiplication of these creatures who at this point must have tormented her devotees to no end." [Note: Davis, pp. 100-101.]
"Since the frog or toad was deified as the Egyptian goddess Heqt, who was believed to assist women in childbirth, there may be a touch of irony in the statement that large numbers of frogs would invade the Pharaoh’s bedroom and even jump on his bed (Exo 8:3)." [Note: Youngblood, p. 54.]
The Egyptian magicians were able to bring up frogs, too (Exo 8:7), but they seem to have lacked the ability to make them go away since Pharaoh asked Moses to get rid of them (Exo 8:8). Satanic power does not generally work for the welfare of humanity but is basically destructive.
To impress upon Pharaoh that a personal God was performing these miracles (Exo 8:10) Moses asked the king to set the time when the frogs should depart (Exo 8:9). Yahweh was in charge of the very territory over which Pharaoh regarded himself as sovereign.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
CHAPTER VIII.
THE SECOND PLAGUE.
Exo 8:1-15.
Although Pharaoh had warning of the first plague, no appeal was made to him to avert it by submission. But before the plague of frogs he was distinctly commanded, “Let My people go.” It is an advancing lesson. He has felt the power of Jehovah: now he is to connect, even more closely, his suffering with his disobedience; and when this is accomplished, the third plague will break upon him unannounced–a loud challenge to his conscience to become itself his judge.
The plague of frogs was far greater than our experience helps us to imagine. At least two cases are on record of a people being driven to abandon their settlements because they had become intolerable; “as even the vessels were full of them, the water infested and the food uneatable, as they could scarcely set their feet on the ground without treading on heaps of them, and as they were vexed by the smell of the great multitude that died, they fled from that region.”
The Egyptian species known to science as the Rana Mosaica, and still called by the uncommon epithet here employed, is peculiarly repulsive, and peculiarly noisy too. The superstition which adored a frog as the “Queen of the two Worlds,” and placed it upon the sacred lotus-leaf, would make it impossible for an Egyptian to adopt even such forlorn measures of self-defence as might suggest themselves. It was an unclean pest against which he was entirely helpless, and it extended the power of his enemy from the river to the land. The range of the grievance is dwelt upon in the warning: “they shall come up and enter into thine house, and into thy bedchamber, and upon thy bed … and into thine ovens, and into thy kneading-troughs” (Exo 8:3). The most sequestered and the dryest spots alike would swarm with them, thrust forward into the most unsuitable places by the multitude behind.
Thus Pharaoh himself had to share, far more than in the first plague, the misery of his humblest subjects; and, although again his magicians imitated Aaron upon some small prepared plot, and amid circumstances which made it easier to exhibit frogs than to exclude them, yet there was no comfort in such puerile emulation, and they offered no hope of relieving him. From the gods that were only vanities, he turned to Jehovah, and abased himself to ask the intercession of Moses: “Intreat Jehovah that He take away the frogs from me and from my people; and I will let the people go.”
The assurance would have been a hopeful one, if only the sense of inconvenience were the same as the sense of sin. But when we wonder at the relapses of men who were penitent upon sick-beds or in adversity, as soon as their trouble is at an end, we are blind to this distinction. Pain is sometimes obviously due to ourselves, and it is natural to blame the conduct which led to it. But if we blame it only for being disastrous, we cannot hope that the fruits of the Spirit will result from a sensation of the flesh. It was so with Pharaoh, as doubtless Moses expected, since God had not yet exhausted His predicted works of retribution. This anticipated fraud is much the simplest explanation of the difficult phrase, “Have thou this glory over me.”
It is sometimes explained as an expression of courtesy–“I obey thee as a superior”; which does not occur elsewhere, because it is not Hebrew but Egyptian. But this suavity is quite alien to the spirit of the narrative, in which Moses, however courteous, represents an offended God. It is more natural to take it as an open declaration that he was being imposed upon, yet would grant to the king whatever advantage the fraud implied. And to make the coming relief more clearly the action of the Lord, to shut out every possibility that magician or priest should claim the honour, he bade the king name an hour at which the plague should cease.
If the frogs passed away at once, the relief might chance to be a natural one; and Pharaoh doubtless conceived that elaborate and long protracted intercessions were necessary for his deliverance. Accordingly he fixed a future period, yet as near as he perhaps thought possible; and Moses, without any express authority, promised him that it should be so. Therefore he “cried unto the Lord,” and the frogs did not retreat into the river, but suddenly died where they were, and filled the unhappy land with a new horror in their decay.
But “when Pharaoh saw that there was respite, he made his heart heavy and hearkened not unto them.” It is a graphic sentence: it implies rather than affirms their indignant remonstrances, and the sullen, dull, spiritless obstinacy with which he held his base and unkingly purpose.