And the LORD said unto Moses, Pharaoh's heart is hardened, he refuseth to let the people go.
Pharaoh's heart is hardened. Whatever might have been his first impressions, they were soon dispelled; and when he found his magicians making similar attempts, he concluded that Aaron's affair was a magical deception, the secret of which was not known to his wise men. The achievements of the magicians may appear surprising to us, who are not accustomed to juggling performances; but in the East it is far from uncommon to witness transformations as marvelous as those which the Egyptian sorcerers effected before Pharaoh by their enchantments.
Snake-charming, as an art, has been practiced in Egypt from the earliest times until now; and the preparatory processes by which the magicians not only render innocuous, but obtain such marvelous command over one species of venomous reptiles, without depriving them of their fangs, have baffled the inquiries of the most acute and scientific observers. It is a secret which has been transmitted from father to son for centuries. One of the principal fears of the Psylli is that of turning snakes into sticks, by making them rigid and apparently dead; and as the magicians whom Pharaoh summoned converted their sticks into snakes, the presumption is that, as they anticipated the work to be required of them, either their sticks were disguised snakes, which, when released from narcotic influences, they produced as living reptiles, or they had concealed about their persons serpents, which, by dexterous legerdemain, they substituted for their sticks. In either case the reptiles would appear as called into existence and activity by their power. It is very probable, therefore, since the work of the magicians in the presence of Pharaoh is expressly said to be the result of their enchantments, that it was analogous to, and perhaps not more remarkable than the wonders still performed by the jugglers of modern Egypt, India, and China.
But the art of those ancient magicians, who were not common jugglers, but educated men, was enlisted in support of the idolatry of Egypt; and while the light of knowledge which has, to some extent, penetrated even modern Egypt, has necessarily circumscribed the range of the magician's practice, by depriving him of many ancient resources, yet it is not difficult to imagine what immense power those professors of occult science must have wielded over the minds of men in an age of darkness, when the superstition of Egypt was in all its glory. Nay, it is the opinion of many influential writers that the magicians of Pharaoh were possessed, in some degree, of supernatural power; because as Satan must, in the course of ages, have acquired, by his superior faculties and vast opportunities for observation, an acquaintance with physical laws and operations far beyond what the most eminent men of science have hitherto attained, or perhaps can attain in this life, he may, by his invisible influence, have imparted to his servants-the priests and abettors of idolatry-a knowledge of many secrets in nature which their own unaided researches could not have furnished. This is the opinion of Augustine, Calvin, Olshausen (not, indeed, in his 'Commentary,' but in a later work on 'II. Thessalonians, ch.
ii.'), Kurtz, Delitzsch, Gerlach, Hengstenberg, Trench ('On Miracles'), etc., that the magicians in Egypt stood in relation to a spiritual kingdom as really as did Moses and Aaron.
The feats they performed, though not entitled to the name of miracles-for it cannot be supposed that God would confer upon any creature, however great or exalted, the irresponsiblc power of suspending the laws of nature for evil purposes-were mirabilia, "lying wonders" (2 Thessalonians 2:9), intended to support a Pantheism-a religion of nature-which, in its indiscriminate adoration, rendered homage to evil spirits, serpent-worship being a principal part of the system; and their power over serpents was that by which the magi principally supported the dignity of their order as a guild. An assault upon it formed an appropriate commencement of the religions contest; and though, during the continuance of it, appearances were equal, the victory proved decidedly on Aaron's side, by the remarkable phenomenon of his rod swallowing up their rods, thus destroying their badge of office, and symbolically putting an end to their order altogether.
Thus, Moses and Aaron made their demand for the release of their enslaved countrymen on an entirely new ground. When they came as petitioners, Pharaoh could reject their request, and when they appeared turbulent demagogues, he could by material force or aggravating the severity of his exactions, crush the suspected sedition. But they claimed to be agents of a Divine Being who took an interest in the Hebrews, and showed their credentials by the exhibition of a miraculous sign. The case assumed a new aspect; and in order to give it due and deliberate consideration he summoned the magi, to ascertain through them whether this was a Power which he ought to obey. It is probable that, as "they also did in like manner with their enchantments, Pharaoh was persuaded that the Hebrew commissioners belonged to the same class of wonder-workers as his own magicians; or if supernatural agency was secretly felt and acknowledged, he concluded that in this miraculous power their God surpassed the gods of Egypt, without, however, indicating either a difference of nature or a complete supremacy. By either of these processes of thought Pharaoh's heart was hardened.