The Pulpit Commentary — Exodus — Volume 1 — Section 150

~on~dence, it~d confir!Din~ him in his bo~st of superiority to ,Jehovah, was a further step m l11s hartlemng-a npenmg for destruct10n. 3. Is a fresh call for God to interfere on behalf of the oppreBBed. This new wrong, i~stead of lea<l!ng the Israelites to despair, should only have lent fresh vehemence to their prayers, for 1t gave them a new plea with which to urge their cause. "For shall not God avenge his o,rn elect, which cry to him <lay and night, though he bear long with them•· (Luke xviii. 7).-J. O. Vers. 4.--18.-Pharaoh's first response: Ms answer in deed. Pharaoh has given a. proud verbal refusal to the request of Moses: but he is not contented to stop with words. The first result, discouraging and discrediting of Moses' application, is still further to increase burdens and ha.rdships already scarcely tolerable. I. CONSIDER HOW TIIlS ADDITIONAL SEVERITY TO lBRAEL ORIGINATED-that is, how it originated as far as Pharaoh's part in it was concerned. It came through his utterly mistaken notions as to Moses and Israel. Pharaoh, as an alert politician, was bound to inquire how it was that Moses had been led to prefer this request; and he came to th& conclusion that the people had too much leisure time-did their work far too easily-and thus left an opportunity for the success of any designing demagogue, such as he judged Moses to be. And, indeed, Pharaoh's conjecture showed a very plausible appearance of shrewd insight into human nature. All such readers of this narrative as utterly dis- believe the reality of Divine intervention and supremacy in human affairs, will say that Pharaoh was not far wrong; whereas he was utterly wrong. Moses went into the presence of Pharaoh because the power of God constrained him. He would have gone any- where to escape the task, if only he could have done it with safety and self-respect. Pharaoh little knew what a profound sense of unworthiness dwelt in the breast of Moses. Other feelings might come and go, mount to flow and sink to ebb; that remained, more penetrating and subduing the more he had to do with God, and the more he had to do with Israel. Pharaoh was also utterly mistaken as to the people. The request for liberty had not come from them. They of their own accord and carnal judgment would never have thought of such a request. As soon might the helpless victim of a. raging beast of prey tum to it with a real expectation of mercy. The prisoner may devise many plans of escape: but he would reckon it a mere provocative of more painful and stringent captivity, if he addressed to his gaoler a. formal request for liberty. Pharaoh then, in his ignorance of God, proved ignorant and mistaken in the whole of his policy. Every view is mistaken, egregiously mistaken, that leaves out the thought of God as a living, intimate, ever-watchful Power. II. CONSIDER THA'r ALL THIS CRUEL TREATMENT DID NOTHING AT ALL FOR PHARAOH. If it had done anything, however little, to delay the final disaster, it would have been something to say: but it did nothing at all. He treated Moses as a mere politician, and Israel as being only in a. state of incipient insurrection. J f such had been the reality of things, then his policy, however damnable for its cruelty, would have merited at least this admission, that there was a real adaptation of means to ends. But Pharaoh was as yet utterly unconscious of his real enemy. His mind was in a state of darkness, deep as that outward darkness which later overspread his land. All his efforts, summed up and stated in the largest way, simply came to this-that he was making very bitter the temporal life of a fleeting generation. But he himself had not arrested by a single step the advance of a righteous and omnipotent God. Struggling against the visible Moses and the visible Israel, he knew nothing of how to resist the invisible God. A man may rage about, putting out all candles and lamps, leaving us for awhile in dark- ness, but he has not retardetl the sunrise by even the minutest fragment of time. This is our glory and our comfort, if we have the spirit of Christ dwelling in us, that we are eontending against one who has only carnal weapons. We are not allowed to take carnal weapons; they are of no use to us ; and never should we forget that they are of no use to those who are against us. Pharaoh did not delay God's liberating work; that work went on in all the majestic ease of its divinity, amid the smitings of the oppressor and the wailings of the oppressed. Making bricks without straw was mere child's-play compared with the enterprise on which Pharaoh was now embarked. He might as well have gone out with the sword and spear against the pestilence and the famine, as against Israel with a mere increase of oppression and cruelty. Ill. 'l.'HIS ADDITIONAL CRUELTY SHOWED THE IMPERATIVE NEED OF DIVINE INTER• VBNTION. If Pharaoh was powerless to delay the advance of God, he was very powerful 134 THE BOOK OF EXODUS. [en. v. 15-21,