off, and only very gradually draws near and close to their deepest lifo anrl acutest feeling. So here he touches first the river-then comfort (frogs, lice, flics)-then cattls-then the skin of the peopls-then food (hail and locusts)-then threatens lifo by the suffocating effects of the fifty days' sand-storm darknei;s-at last life itself. "l will sing of mercy" as well as "of judgment," etc. Ill. Hrs wonne. Fine homiletic use may be made of the verbal controversy which Wllnt on between Moses and Pharaoh all the time of these visitations, and which increased in tmgic vehemence as blow after blow descended. Note Pha.raoh's wavcrings, rolentings, and anon persistence; and also the occasional passionate entreaties of th.c hardened sinner on behalf of the awestruck and repentant people. But "whom tho gods purpose to destroy they first of all madden." IV. EFFECTS. 1. On the Egyptwns. Leading some finally to attach themselves to the redeemed of the Lord. 2. On Moses. Called to a stupendouR work. Timid. Trained to confidence in God, and obedience to his slightest word. Note !-So God is ever training his servants. 3. On Israel, through Moses. V. LEBBONS. The main ones of this great controversy. 1. The obJect of God in dealing with men. To beat down the idolatries of the human heart-to reveal himself -his law-his salvation-to reconcile men with himself. 2. The inevitable conflict, i.e. until God's purpose be accomplished. Show the reality of this conflict in the case of evory sinner. Message after message, mercy after mercy, judgment after judgment. If men will not be reconciled, then there must be antagonism; to that antagonism there c:m be but one end. It is in tliis sense that Amos challenges Israel-" Prepare to meet thy God, 0 Israel." This is the word of the Lord as"!\ man of war." 3. The/utility of the repentance of fear. Case of Pharaoh. Case of every sinner. Fear, however, has its n:ission-to awaken to concern. But no repentance is solid, lasting in its effect, but that which takes place in view of the love of our Father as seen in the cross of Jesus Christ our Lord.-R. Chaps. vii.-x.-" The Lord, he is the God." Egypt was a pleasant land-" the garden of the Lord" (Gen. xiii. 10). The river, the source of its fertility, was fenced off from desert on either side by cliff ranges-canopied from morning to evening by the ever blue, bright sky. No wonder that the inhabitants should think much of such a land, that they should come to say of river, land, sky, "These be thy gods, 0 Egypt!" 'l'he veil of nature, which should reveal-as by shadow cast on sheet-may hide, the unseen God : cf. Rom. i. 20. The struggle with Pharaoh shows us God asserting himself-proving himself " God of gods " as well as " Lord of lords." Regarding the river as the source of fertility ; the land as the sphere for fertility; the sky as the guardian of fertility-see how God openly manifests the dependence of each and all on him. I. THE RIVER. " The beneficent Nile, the very life of the state and of the people " (Stanley). (1) Middle of June-season of annual overflow. To all appearance more than ever divins-Pharaoh (eh. vii. 15) probably openly acknowledging its divinity. Suddenly turned into blood-loathsome; no longer a source of fertility, but a source of corruption and death-at the command of Jehovah, the unrecognised invisible Source whence the fertilising power had been derived. (2) Later. Subsidence of the water. The river mud seems to breed frogs. Compelled at the Divine command to fructify not grain but reptiles. (3) Later. Even the dust of the sun-dried mud turned by Jehovah into a tormenting pest. " The river is mine, and the soil which it deposits is mine; even the very dust whieh it leaves is mine. Have not I, the Lord, made all these things?" II. THE LAND, So far the river has been made to plague the land; but Jehovah needs no intermediary. He has direct power over the land also. (1) Chap. viii. 21, 22. Swarms of flies (gnats) coming up as it were out of the ground. Yet land severed from land-Goshen spared, "so that thou mayest know that I am Jehovah in the midst of the land." (2) Chap. ix. 3. Murrain in the cattle-the creatures most nearly connected with the land; identified with its prosperity; deified as its representatives-at a set time, within appointed limits. (3) Chap. ix. 9. Pestilence on man and beast. The furnace-ash strewed heavenwards. The land as modified by human agency turned into a plague upon the men who used it. "The land is mine, and the cattle are mine, the N 2 180 THE BOOK OF EXODUS. LCH, VIII, 1-7,
vcr.v fnnrnce-asb which ye might almost clnim as self-made is mine, Have not I, the Lord, made all these tliings?" Ill. 'l'HE SKY. 'l'he previous plague ( chap. ix. 13) " toWl\rd the heaven," seems to chal- lenge the sky di,·inities. Now they also are to be proved subject. 1. Chap. ix. 22. At the word 0f Jehovah the protector becomes the devastator. Clouds gather and pour out water. Pharaoh and Egypt, too, shall know that the earth belongs to no sky di,-inity, but to Jehovah: chap. v. 29. 2. Chap. x. 13. 'l'he winds, compelled into Jehovah's service, become charioteers for his locust armies, 3, Chap. x. 21. 'l'ho ,mn, source of light, chief of the gods-ven he is draped in darkness at the word of Jehovah. "'l'he sky is mine with its clouds and \\inds, even the sun in all his glory. Ha,·e not I, the Lord, made all these things?" Application :-People still forget God-still, practically, deify his gifts, and so plant them as to hide the Giver of them. The world, our respectable every-day world, not unlike Egypt. Health (life, {r.,q), the river that fertilises it. Circumstances (life, ~lor) the land fertilised. Thought, intelligence, wisdom, the sky which seems to canopy and protect both. Deify them and forget the God above them, and God will yet manifest himself by strange plagues on your divinities. Your river shall be turned into blood and your sun into darkness [ cf. 'l'ennysou, " Palace of Art."] 'l'hese things, too--healt~ happiness, intelligence-he wi.11 surely show that he and no other has made them a.11,-G.