The Pulpit Commentary — Exodus — Volume 1 — Section 140

(2 These. ii. 4)-not e.n uncommon phe.se of pride. But the presumptuously wicked will do well to remember that, if Pharaoh thus exalted himself, it was to hie own destruction. His very pride was a challenge to Jehovah to destroy him.--J. 0. Yers. 1-5. - GorI's demand and Pharaoh's answer. - I. THE DEMAND. 1. Its modesty. They merely ask liberty to depart on a three days' journey into the wilderness. 2. It ,vas asked in good faith; it was not a cover for escapo. God would gi,e deliverance; but that was left in God's hand; and meanwhile they asked only for liberty to worship him. 3. Its reasonableness: they could not sacrifice the sacred animals of the Egyptians before their faces. 4. Its necessity. Pharaoh might not know Jehovah, but they knew him, and must ser.e him, "lest he fall upon us with the pestilence or the sword." The demand of the Church still is liberty to serve God in his own appointed way. It must be had. Luther's "God help me; I co.n do no other!" "\Ve ought to oLey God rather than men" (Acts v. 29). • II. THE REFUSAL. 1. Its presumption. He did not know Jehovah, and therefore the message was a lie! Unbelief makes the bounds of its knowledo-e the bounds o( truth and possibility. The pretensions of modern agnosticism. 2. It was a refusal of justice; it was a resolve to continue oppression. Unbelief is the brother and helper of wrong-doing. 3. It was made with reproach and insult. They were encouraging idleness and sedition: "Get ye to your burdens." "These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also." 4. The rage of the wicked is often the best commendation of God's servants. It is a testimony to their faithfulness.-U. Ver. 2.-Pliaraoh'sfirst response: his answer in word. Moses and .Aaron, somehow or other, have found their way into Pharaoh's presence. All things, so far, have hap- pened as God said they would happen. The very brevity and compactness of the record e.t the end of eh. iv. is an instructive comment on the way in which Moses had mistaken comparative shadows for substantial difficulties. The actual meeting of Moses with Israel is dismissed in a few satisfactory and significant words ; as much as to say that enough space had already been occupied in detailing the difficulties started by Moses in his ignorance and alarm. It is when Moses and Pharaoh meet that the tug of war really begins. Moses addresses to Pharaoh the commanded request, and is met, as was to be expected, with a prompt and contemptuous defiance. Observe- . I. l'HAB.AoII, IN HIS REJOTh"DER TO MosEB, PUTS A QUESTION WHICH Gon ALONE OAN PROPERLY ANSWER. "Wbo is the Lord that I should obey his voice to let Israel go?" This was evidently in Pharaoh's opinion a question which needed no answer at all. It had nothing interrogative about it, except the form. Taking the form of a question, it ser.ed to express more forcibly Pharaoh's defiant spirit. There was, in his opinion, really no need to consider or confer at all " Am I not the great Pharaoh, successor to many great Pharaohs before me? Is not my power accepted and undisputed far and wide? " He could not so much as comprehend any danger unless it took the form of physical force; and not only so, but a form pla.inly visible-near, threatening, over- whelming. If only some great king had been approaching-strong with the strength of a large and victorious army-to demand the liberatron of Israel, Pharaoh would not so have spoken. To him the invisible was as the unreal Pharaoh listens to Moses, and what does he bear ?-a claim that seems to dispute his supremacy, from this new deity, whose image he has never seen. whose name mayhap hiJI priests have told him is not that of any deity worshipped in Canaan of which they have ever heard. Certainly it looks a large claim upon the first presentation of it, small as it is in comparison with what is to follow. This, then. is what he hears, and the audacity and presumption of it are not diminished by what he sees. There stand Moses and Aaron. completely devoid in person and surroundings of anything to impress the king with the peril of refusing their request. Surely if the men who say they are sent look so contemptible, the unseen being from whom they say they come may be safely neglected. Such is the reasoning, silently powerful, if not openly expressed. c,f those who despiJle and reject the claims of God. Christ is judged of, net as he is in himself, but by the superficial aspect of Christians. BecaUBe they are often low in station, or inconsistent in life, or lacking in disposition and ability to make much outward show, the world thin.kB that there is little or nothing behind them. It is the folly of only too many to take Pharaoh's stand. For the right reception of the things of God we need all possible humility and open, ou. v.1-G.] 'rIIE BOOK OF EXODU8. 123