'Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily,
therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do
evil'--ECCLES. viii. 11.
When the Pharaoh of the Exodus saw there was respite, he hardened his
heart. Abject in his fear before Moses, he was ready to promise
anything; insolent in his pride, he swallows down his promises as soon
as fear is eased, his repentance and his retractation of it combined
to add new weights about his neck. He was but a conspicuous example of
a universal fault. Every nation, I suppose, has its proverb scoffing
at the contrast between the sick man's vow and the recovered man's
sins. The bitter moralist of the Old Testament was sure not to let
such an instance of man's inconceivable levity pass unnoticed. His
settled habit of dragging to light the seamy side of human nature was
sure to fall on this illustration of it as congenial food. He has
wrapped up here in these curt, bitter words a whole theory of man's
condition, of God's providence, of its abuse, and of the end to which
it all tends.