EXPOSITION
Before proceeding to relate the last and greatest of the plagues, the author allows himself a momentary pause while he casts his eye back on the whole series of miracles hitherto wrought in Egypt, on the circumstances under which they had been wrought, their failure to move the stubborn will of Pharaoh, and the cause of that failure, the hardening of his heart, which hardening the author once more ascribes to Jehovah. With this summary he terminates the second great division of his work, that which began with Exodus 2:1-2; and which traces the history of Moses from his birth to the close of his direct dealings with Pharaoh.
And the Lord said. Rather, "had said." God had forewarned Moses that Pharaoh's heart would be hardened (Exodus 4:21; Exodus 7:3), and that, in spite of all the miracles which he was empowered to perform before him, he would not let the people go (Exodus 3:19; Exodus 4:21). It was not until God took Pharaoh's punishment altogether into his own hands, and himself came down and smote all the first-born, that the king's obstinacy was overcome, and he proceeded to "thrust the people out." That my wonders may be multiplied. Compare Exodus 3:20; Exodus 7:3. If Pharaoh had yielded at the first, or even after two or three miracles, God's greatness and power would not have been shown forth very remarkably. Neither the Egyptians nor the neighbouring nations would have been much impressed. The circumstances would soon have been forgotten. As it was, the hardness of Pharaoh's heart, while it delayed the departure of the Israelites for a year, and so added to their sufferings, was of advantage to them in various ways:—
1. It gave them time to organise them elves, and make all necessary preparations for a sudden departure.
2. It deeply impressed the Egyptians, and led them to abstain from all interference with the Israelites for above three centuries.
3. It impressed the neighbouring nations also to.some extent, and either prevented them from offering opposition to the Israelites, or made them contend with less heart, and so with less success against them.
Moses and Aaron did all these plagues before Pharaoh. Aaron's agency is not always mentioned, and seems to have been less marked in the later than in the earlier miracles, Moses gradually gaining self-reliance. In passing from the subject of the plagues wrought by the two brothers, it may be useful to give a synopsis of them, distinguishing those which came without warning from those which were announced beforehand, and noting, where possible, their actual worker, their duration, their physical source, and the hurt which they did.
Plagues.
Announced or Not.
Actual Worker.
Duration.
Physical Source.
Hurt which they did.
1. River turned into blood
announced
Aaron
7 days
water
annoyance to man and beast.
2. Frogs
do.
do.
Unknown
do
annoyance to man
3. Mosquitoes
not
do
do
[dust of the earth]
annoyance to man and beast
4. Beetles
announced
God
do
air (?)
annoyance and loss to man
5. Murrain
do
do
do
do
do
6. Boils
not
Moses
do
[ashes of the furnace]
suffering to man and beast
7. Hail
announced
do
do
air
loss to man
8. Locusts
do
do
do
east wind
do
9. Darkness
not
do
3 days
air (?)
annoyance and horror to man
HOMILETICS
Man's ill-doing but causes God's wonders to be multiplied
(Exodus 11:9). God's wonders are either such as occur in the general course of his providence, or such as are abnormal and extraordinary. It is these last of which Moses especially speaks to us in the Book of Exodus. But the same law which applies to the abnormal wonders, applies also to those which are constant and ordinary. Men's perverseness leads to their multiplication.
I. PARDON OF SIN IS MULTIPLIED THROUGH HUMAN TRANSGRESSION. Nothing is a greater marvel than God's pardon of sin. How "the High and Holy One who inhabiteth eternity"—he who "is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity"—can pardon sin, is one of those mysteries which must ever remain—in this life, at any rate—unfathomable. Man pardons his fellow-sinner without much difficulty, because he is his fellow-sinner—because he feels that he is himself so much in need of forgiveness. But for a perfect Being to pardon what is utterly alien to his own nature, what he must despise and abhor, what in his eyes is vile, base, mean, wicked, despicable, detestable—is a truth which faith may accept, but which reason is quite incompetent to understand. Yet God does pardon. St. Paul must have been pardoned his persecution of the saints, before he was called to be "a chosen vessel." God bids us ask for pardon, and he would not bid us ask for that which he could not or would not give. And the marvel of pardon is being daily augmented, heaped up, multiplied, by the ever-increasing sum of human transgression.
II. GOD THE SPIRIT'S CONDESCENSION GROWS AND INCREASES THROUGH THE SAME. God the Father declared once upon a time, "My Spirit shall not always strive with man" (Genesis 6:3). Yet near five thousand years have elapsed, and his Spirit strives still. Man turns away from his Spirit, "grieves" him, vexes him, is deaf to his pleadings, sets at nought his counsel, wills none of his reproof (Proverbs 1:25)—yet he does not withdraw himself. He "gives us the comfort of his help again"—he "will not leave us, nor forsake us." We may, no doubt, if we persist in evil courses, and set to work determinedly to drive him from us, in course of time cause him to withdraw, alienate him wholly, "quench" him. But, short of such alienation, our sins do but cause him to multiply the wonders of his love and his long-suffering, to be ever more gracious and more merciful, to plead with us more persuasively, more constantly, and save us, as it were, in spite of ourselves.
III. CHRIST'S PROTECTION OF HIS CHURCH IS SHOWN MORE AND MORE MARVELOUSLY AS ITS ASSAILANTS INCREASE IN POWER AND BOLDNESS. In prosperous times God seems to do little for his Church; but let danger come, let men rise up against it, let Gebal and Ammon and Amalek be confederate together, and raise the cry, "Down with it, down with it, even to the ground," and the wonders which he proceeds to work on its behalf are simply astounding. Arius would corrupt its doctrine with the Court at his back, and Arius is smitten in the dead of the night by a death as silent, sudden, and inscrutable as that which came in the time of Moses on all the first-born of the Egyptians. Julian would crush it by depriving its ministers of support and its members of education, and Julian is cut off in the flower of his age by the javelin of an unknown enemy. Atheism, Agnosticism, Rationalism, Materialism, and often immorality league themselves against it at the present day, and lo! from without evidences are made to rise up out of crumbling heaps of rubbish in Assyria, Babylonia, and Egypt; while from within is developed a new life, a new zeal, a new vigour and activity, which give sure promise of triumph over the coalition. Man's opposition to God provokes God to arise and show forth his might, to confound and scatter his foes. So men may be led at last to know that he, whose name is Jehovah, is truly "the Most High over all the earth" (Psalms 83:18).