'And the Lord said unto Moses, Yet will I bring one
plague more upon Pharaoh, and upon Egypt; afterwards
he will let you go hence: when he shall let you go, he
shall surely thrust you out hence altogether. 2. Speak
now in the ears of the people, and let every man borrow
of his neighbour, and every woman of her neighbour,
jewels of silver, and jewels of gold. 3. And the Lord
gave the people favour in the sight of the Egyptians.
Moreover, the man Moses was very great in the land of
Egypt, in the sight of Pharaoh's servants, and in the
sight of the people. 4. And Moses said, Thus saith the
Lord, About midnight will I go out into the midst of
Egypt; 5. And all the first-born in the land of Egypt
shall die, from the first-born of Pharaoh that sitteth
upon his throne, even unto the first-born of the
maid-servant that is behind the mill; and all the
first-born of beasts. 6. And there shall be a great cry
throughout all the land of Egypt, such as there was none
like it, nor shall be like it any more. 7. But against
any of the children of Israel shall not a dog move his
tongue, against man or beast: that ye may know how that
the Lord doth put a difference between the Egyptians and
Israel. 8. And all these thy servants shall come down
unto Me, and bow themselves unto Me, saying, Get Thee
out, and all the people that follow Thee: and after that
I will go out. And he went out from Pharaoh in a great
anger. 9. And the Lord said unto Moses, Pharaoh shall
not hearken unto you; that My wonders may be multiplied
in the land of Egypt. 10. And Moses and Aaron did all
these wonders before Pharaoh: and the Lord hardened
Pharaoh's heart, so that he would not let the children
of Israel go out of his land.'--EXODUS xi. 1-10.
The first point to be noted in this passage is that it interposes a
solemn pause between the preceding ineffectual plagues and the last
effectual one. There is an awful lull in the storm before the last
crashing hurricane which lays every obstacle flat. 'There is silence in
heaven' before the final peal of thunder. Verses 1 to 3 seem, at first
sight, out of place, as interrupting the narrative, since Moses'
denunciation and prophecy in verses 4 to 8 must have been spoken at the
interview with Pharaoh which we find going on at the end of the
preceding chapter. But it is legitimate to suppose that, at the very
moment when Pharaoh was blustering and threatening, and Moses was
bearding him, giving back scorn for scorn, the latter heard with the
inward ear the voice which made Pharaoh's words empty wind, and gave
him the assurances and commands contained in verses 1 to 3, and that
thus it was given him in that hour what he should speak; namely, the
prediction that follows in verses 4 to 8. Such a view of the sequence
of the passage makes it much more vivid, dramatic, and natural, than to
suppose that the first verses are either interpolation or an awkward
break referring to a revelation at some indefinite previous moment.
When a Pharaoh or a Herod or an Agrippa threatens, God speaks to the
heart of a Moses or a Paul, and makes His servant's face 'strong
against their faces.'
The same purpose of parting off the preceding plagues from the past
ones explains the introduction of verses 9 and 10, which stand as a
summary of the whole account of these, and, as it were, draw a line
across the page, before beginning the story of that eventful day and
night of Israel's deliverance.
Moses' conviction, which he knew to be not his own thought but God's
revelation of His purpose, pointed first to the final blow which was to
finish Pharaoh's resistance. He had been vacillating between compliance
and refusal, like an elastic ball which yields to compression and
starts back to its swelling rotundity as soon as the pressure is taken
off. But at last he will collapse altogether, like the same ball when a
slit is cut in it, and it shrivels into a shapeless lump. Weak people's
obstinate fits end like that. He will be as extreme in his eagerness to
get rid of the Israelites as he had been in his determination to keep
them. The sail that is filled one moment tumbles in a heap the next,
when the halyards are cut. It is a poor affair when a man's actions are
shaped mainly by fear of consequences. Fright always drives to
extremes. 'When he shall let you go, he shall surely thrust you out
hence altogether.' Many a stout, God-opposing will collapses altogether
when God's finger touches it. 'Can thy heart endure in the days that I
shall deal with thee?'
Verses 2 and 3 appear irrelevant here, but the command to collect from
the Egyptians jewels, which might be bartered for necessaries, may well
have been given to Moses simultaneously with the assurance that he
would lead forth the people after the next plague, and the particulars
of the people's favour and of Moses' influence in the eyes of the
native inhabitants, come in anticipatively to explain why the request
for such contributions was granted when made.
With the new divine command swelling in his heart, Moses speaks his
last word to Pharaoh, towering above him in righteous wrath, and
dwindling his empty threats into nothingness. What a contrast between
the impotent rage of the despot, with his vain threat, 'Thou shalt
die,' and the unblenching boldness of the man with God at his back! One
cannot but note in Moses' prediction of the last plague the solemn
enlargement on the details of the widespread calamity, which is not
unfeeling gloating over an oppressor's misery, but a yearning to save
from hideous misery by timely and plain depicting of it. There is a
flash of national triumph in the further contrast between the universal
wailing in Egypt and the untouched security of the children of Israel,
but that feeling merges at once into the higher one of 'the Lord's'
gracious action in establishing the 'difference' between them and their
oppressors. It is not safe to dwell on superiority over others, either
as to condition or character, unless we print in very large letters
that it is 'the Lord' who has made it. There is a flash, too, of
natural triumph in the picture of the proud courtiers brought down to
prostrate themselves before the shepherd from Horeb, and to pray him to
do what their master and they had so long fought against his doing. And
there is a most natural assertion of non-dependence on their leave in
that emphatic 'After that _I will_ go out.' He is not asserting himself
against God, but against the cowering courtiers. 'Hot anger' was
excusable, but it was not the best mood in which to leave Pharaoh.
Better if he had gone out unmoved, or moved only to 'great heaviness
and sorrow of heart' at the sight of men setting themselves against
God, and rushing on the 'thick bosses of the Almighty's buckler' to
their own ruin. Moses' anger we naturally sympathise with, Christ's
meekness we should try to copy.
The closing verses, as we have already noticed, are a kind of
summing-up of the whole narrative of the plagues and their effects on
Pharaoh. They open two difficult questions, as to how and why it was
that the effect of the successive strokes was so slight and transient.
They give the 'how' very emphatically as being that 'Jehovah hardened
Pharaoh's heart.' Does that not free Pharaoh from guilt? And does it
not suggest an unworthy conception of God? It must be remembered that
the preceding narrative employs not only the phrase that 'Jehovah
hardened Pharaoh's heart,' but also the expression that Pharaoh
hardened his own heart. And it is further to be noted that the latter
expression is employed in the accounts of the earlier plagues, and that
the former one appears only towards the close of the series. So then,
even if we are to suppose that it means that there was a direct
hardening action by God on the man's heart, such action was not first,
but subsequent to obstinate hardening by himself. God hardens no man's
heart who has not first hardened it himself. But we do not need to
conclude that any inward action on the will is meant. Was not the
accumulation of plagues, intended, as they were, to soften, a cause of
hardening? Does not the Gospel, if rejected, harden, making consciences
and wills less susceptible? Is it not a 'savour of death unto death,'
as our fathers recognised in speaking of 'gospel-hardened sinners'? The
same fire softens wax and hardens clay. Whosoever is not brought near
is driven farther off, by the influences which God brings to bear on us.
The 'why' is stated in terms which may suggest difficulties,--'that my
wonders may be multiplied in the land of Egypt.' But we have to
remember that the Old Testament writers are not wont to distinguish so
sharply as more logical Westerns do between the actual result of an
event and its purpose. With their deep faith in the all-ruling power of
God, whatever had come to pass was what He had meant to come to pass.
In fact, Pharaoh's obstinacy had not thwarted the divine purpose, but
had been the dark background against which the blaze of God's
irresistible might had shone the brighter. He makes the wrath of man to
praise Him, and turns opposition into the occasion of more
conspicuously putting forth His omnipotence.