The hail shall come down upon them.
Brought home
I. God is the true home of the soul. Everything the soul needs is to be found in Him: nowhere else. Here is inviolable security, and everlasting peace.
II. Christ has come to bring us home to God.
III. The eternal blessedness of all who are brought home to God by christ. This is seen in two ways.
1. By what is escaped. “The hail.” God’s judgments. We have all been solemnly warned. The voice of God cries “gather,” (Exodus 9:19). If we slight the call, our blood be upon our own heads! (Hebrews 12:25).
2. By what is enjoyed (Exodus 9:26). The security of the children of Israel in Goshen, while the storm raged so terribly all around them, touchingly represents the peace of God’s people in time and in eternity (Isaiah 32:18).
IV. The subject suggests solemn questions.
1. Where art thou? In the field, exposed, and defenceless, or, at home?
2. Dost thou fear God? (Exodus 9:20-21). True fear leads to obedience. But many are heedless of counsel and warning, and God’s judgments are put “out of sight” (Psalms 10:5).
3. What are you doing to bring others home? If we believe in “the wrath to come,” we cannot rest in inaction. (W. Forsyth, M. A.)
Lessons
1. Human faith of God’s threatenings may make men fear and tremble at God’s word. Human it may be called in respect of the principle, though the testimony on which it was grounded were Divine.
2. Such fear may make men careful to shun temporal judgments.
3. Wicked men, through fear, may flee from temporal plagues but not eternal (Exodus 9:20).
4. Among wicked men some may refuse human faith which some embrace.
5. Unbelief will not suffer men to lay any of God’s words to heart.
6. Regardless of God’s threatenings, maketh men leave them and theirs to vengeance (Exodus 9:21). (G. Hughes, B. D.)
Lessons
1. God’s warnings of judgments being not regarded, He quickly gives the word for execution.
2. To encourage faith, God calleth His servants to assist in working vengeance.
3. God makes use of signals to induce judgments sometimes by the hand of His instruments.
4. God’s word maketh such signs effectual that they may be feared.
5. God’s word creates hail for vengeance, as sometimes in mercy.
6. Man and beast, herbs and all to the utmost extent, are subjected to God’s hail at His command (Exodus 9:22). (G. Hughes, B. D.)
Salutary fears
Threatened judgments test men. Some are more susceptible to the presence of God than others.
I. These men feared God’s threatened judgment. Fear often arises from faith in God’s word. Fear is the alarum of the soul. It is often the first emotion in a new life. It often brings in love, “as the needle draws in the thread.”
II. Their fear led to appropriate action. They prepared for the coming storm. There is shelter for all in Christ, and in Him alone.
III. Their fear led to welcome safety. Obedience brought its reward. Men’s property would be safer if they had greater respect for the word of God. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
Belief of the word of God
1. Makes men tremble.
2. Makes men wise.
3. Makes men safe.
4. Makes men singular. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
Disregard of God
1. Ruinous.
2. Presumptuous.
3. Foolish.
4. Common.
5. Inexcusable. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
God’s command over the elements
I. That the material universe is gifted with numerous and contrary agencies and elements.
1. The elements of nature called into exercise by this plague were numerous. There was rain, hail, fire and thunder.
2. The elements of nature called into existence by this plague were contrary. The rain was contrary to the fire. There are very opposite elements in the great universe around us; yet all exist in harmony. One element counteracts and yet co-operates with another. The elements of nature blend in one glorious ministry for man; though sin often turns them into messengers of justice.
3. The elements of nature called into existence by this plague were emphatic. When the elements of the material universe are arrayed against man they are emphatic in their message. The thunder speaks in loud voice. It has a message to the soul. There is a moral significance in the storm.
II. That God has complete control over all the elements of the material universe.
1. So that He can commission His servants to use them according to His will.
2. So that He can make them rebuke the sin of man. He can arm the universe against a wicked soul.
3. God can prevent them from working injury to the good. The heathen imagined that divers Gods were over divers things; some ruling the air, some the fire, some the water, some the mountains, and some the plains. But God here demonstrates to the Egyptians His complete authority over the whole of nature. This truth is consoling to the good.
III. That the material prosperity of a nation is greatly dependent upon the elements of nature, and that therefore God alone can give true prosperity to a people.
1. The fields and gardens of Egypt were ruined.
2. The flax and barley of Egypt were ruined. Egypt was from early times the granary of the world (Genesis 41:57). And thus we see how the prosperity of a nation is dependent upon the natural government of God in the material world. Let rulers remember this. And let not the people forget it. Sin is a curse to any nation. National righteousness is national prosperity and elevation.
Lessons:
1. That the material universe is under the rule of God.
2. That the good are Divinely protected in danger.
3. The national prosperity is the gift of heaven. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
The plague of hail
A plague of hail, with lightning and thunder, must have been far more awful and portentous in Egypt than in any other country; for there rain was almost unknown, thunderstorms were of rare occurrence, and lightning, when it appeared, was generally of a harmless kind. Modern travellers, indeed, speak of snowstorms, and of thunder and lightning happening occasionally in lower Egypt; but such phenomena appear to have been almost unknown in earlier times. Herodotus says--“During the reign of Psammenitus, Egypt beheld a most remarkable prodigy. There was rain at the Egyptian Thebes, a circumstance which never happened before, and which, as the Thebans themselves assert, has never occurred since. In the higher parts of Egypt it never rains; but at that period it rained in distinct drops” (1. iii, c. 10). Plutarch also observes that “In Egypt no moisture of the air is ever condensed into showers” (de facie, c. 25). Pococke mentions a storm of hail followed by rain in the province of Arsinoe, which “the natives were so far from considering as a blessing, that they observed rain was productive of scarcity, and that the inundation of the Nile alone was serviceable.” The Egyptians were much given to the observance of all unusual phenomena, and looked upon them as portentous. According to Herodotus, “Whenever any unusual circumstance occurs they commit the particulars of it to writing, and mark the events which follow” (1. 2, c. 38). If “distinct drops of rain” were regarded as a prodigy worthy of being thus recorded, what must have been the effect of a storm like this, when the hail fell with sufficient violence to destroy both man and beast, and the fire also ran along the ground? “The Egyptians,” says Diodorus, denominated fire Hephaistos, esteeming it a mighty deity, which contributed largely towards the generation and ultimate perfection of to Lucian, “The Persians sacrifice to fire and the Egyptians to water” (de Jove trag. c. 24). Porphyry says--“Even to this day, at the opening of the temple of Serapis, the worship is made by fire and water, for they reverence water and fire above all the elements.” These deities now came down upon Egypt with destruction and terror; the very gods in which they trusted turned against them. (T. S. Millington.)
Folly of disregarding warning
Foolhardiness is not bravery! it is wicked waste of life. At one of the naval engagements between the Federal and Confederate forces, the officer in charge kept ordering the men at the ship’s guns to “Look out!” and when a shot came bursting near them to “Lie down!” Most of them obeyed; but some, either from a spirit of bravado or a belief in the doctrine of fatalism, disregarded, saying it was useless to dodge a cannon-ball, and they would chance the risks. By and by a shot came, glanced on the gun, taking off the gunner’s cap and the heads of three of the young men who defied the order. It came with a hissing sound, three sharp spats and a heavy report told their sad fate. (H. O. Mackey.)
A warning disregarded
A gentleman was travelling in Italy in the summer months. As he left Rome he was warned of the danger of sleeping at Baccano. He was told to travel all night rather than stop at that place, as a malignant fever prevailed there. He arrived there about bed-time. The air was balmy and the accommodation inviting. He concluded to stop for the night. Those whose interests would be promoted by his doing so told him there was no danger. He rose in the morning and proceeded on his journey. Some days after he had reached Florence the fever developed itself, and he was soon in his grave. Sinners are warned of the consequences of sinful acts. They are persuaded to disregard the warning. They sin, and the threatened consequences do not immediately appear. They think they shall escape; but ere long God’s immutable law overtakes them, and they perish. “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.”
Safe amidst danger
A walk along our New York streets has an occasional surprise for the man who keeps his eyes open. Not often, however, does he meet one so pleasant as that which greeted the eye of a pedestrian hurrying along a block near the North River. A brilliant scarlet spot in the cobble stone pavement constantly trodden by horses’ feet, and worn by wheels of ice waggons, ash carts and heavy business trucks, drew the passer to a nearer look; and, behold, there, from the scorching sand of a crevice in the pavement had sprung up a thin stem of the portulaca; a single flower had opened its scarlet petals, and was lifting its orange tinted stamens to the sun. There seemed not one chance in a million that the tender plant could have escaped the crushing hoofs and wheels and the tools of the workmen at that moment repairing the pavement; yet there was the lovely blossom, and there at sunset it folded its tiny wings to sleep. Could one fail to learn a lesson of implicit trust in an ever-watchful Father above?
God’s regard for His own
Miss Gordon Cumming tells the following thrilling story of a Chinese convert at Oiong, whose piety had obtained for him the sobriquet of “Praise the Lord.” Miss Cumming says: “A fire broke out in one of the streets of the town, and at first it was not expected to reach as far as where ‘Praise the Lord’ lived. As it spread, however, it neared the street where his house stood, and it was evident to the onlookers that all the buildings were doomed. His heathen neighbours hastily collected all their idols, and placed them as a barricade against the approaching flames. The zealous old Christian, seizing his mattock, and swinging it round him, soon reduced the gods of wood and clay to a mass of fragments. Then, having denounced the folly which could trust in senseless images, he lifted up his hands to heaven, and in the hearing of the already wildly excited mob he called upon the great Creator, the true God, his heavenly Father, to save the homes of himself and his neighbours from the threatening fire. It was not the first time that he had proved the promise, ‘While they are yet speaking I will hear,’ and now he looked for an immediate answer, which would show to the heathen that the God who could stay the fire was the true God. Nor was he disappointed; almost before they could note any physical reason for the change the flames seemed blown back upon themselves--the wind had suddenly veered round, and though many of the houses close by had been scorched, those of the old man and his neighbours escaped unharmed, and the marvelling crowd saw the conflagration recede as swiftly as it had approached.”
The flax and barley of Egypt
Herodotus says--“The manufacture of linen is peculiar to the Colchians and the Egyptians. The linen which comes from Colchis, the Greeks call Sardonian; the linen of Egypt, Egyptian” (1. 2, c. 105). Pliny’s account of it is--“The flax of Egypt, though the least strong of all as a tissue, is that from which the greatest profits are derived. There is no tissue known that is superior to those made from the thread of the Egyptian xylon, either for whiteness and softness, or dressing; the most esteemed vestments worn by the priests of Egypt are made by it” (Hist. Nat. 1. 19, c. 2). Pliny mentions four varieties of flax, and first among them the Tanaitic, growing in the lower district of Egypt, Zoan, which was the seat of Pharaoh’s government. The destruction of the flax deprived the people of the material for their chief manufacture, and put a stop to the trade which they carried on with neighbouring nations, who sent their treasure into the country to pay for it. The ruin of the barley was equally injurious. Egypt appears to have been from a very early period the granary of the world. Thither Abraham went down to sojourn when the land in which he dwelt was visited with famine; and thither the sons of Jacob, under similar necessity, naturally turned for help. (T. S. Millington.)