The Pulpit Commentary — Exodus — Volume 1 — Section 198

poaitio~s of the great ones of the world _and clespis~ servants of QQd have frequently been witnessed. Compare Paul and Felix (Acts xx1v. 25); Paul and the centuriQn, in the shipwreck nt Malta (Acts xxviii.). IV. 'fHE SECOND PLAGUE RAISED MoaEB TO NF,W HONOURS BY MAKING HIS l"llTF.R- CEBBION THE MEDIUM OF DELIVERANCE (vers. 9-12). God might have remover\ the plague at Phnraoh's simple request, conveyed to him by Moses. Jn point of fact, be maclo the intercession of Moses the condition and medium of it. The same thing is seen in the history of Elijah (1 Kings xviii. 41--46). This, 1. Put honour upon Moses 2. 'l'aught the value of "the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man" (Gen. xvii1. 23-33; Jas. i. 15-18). 3. Gave Moses himself a deeper interest in the event. 4. Trained him for the higher function of mediation on behalf of Israel. It would give him confidence in intercession, would enable him to realise the reality of his power with God, would help in developing the faculty of earnest and sustained prayer. 5. It shadowed forth the higher mediation. Pharaoh was so abandoned in evil, so insincere even in his repentance, that his request, as it were, could only become prevailing when taken up by a holier nature and presented as its own. This is th8 key to all spiritual intercession, and involves the principle which reaches its full expression in the mediation of our Saviour. V. THE REMOVAL OF THE PLAGUE RESULTED IN PHARAOII's BREAKIXG OF ms PROMISE, AND IN HIS FURTHER HARDENING. The severity of the plague had for the moment unmanned him. His power of further resistance had broken down. But the will to resist was not in the least altered, and when the plague was removed, his obstinate disposition reasserted itself, and produced new rebellion. Rage and pride must at this crisis have overpowered reason, as well as conscience, for Pharaoh could hll.l'dly doubt but that his breach of promise would bring new trouble upon him. He did, however, return to his contumacy, and by the act cut down another of the bridges which might have conducted him back to peace with God, and to safety and honour in his kingdom. Terror of any kind, the approach, perhaps, of death, or of what seems to threaten death, often produces quakings of soul, and transient repentances. If these are not followed up on recovery-if recovery or escape is granted-they react to induce a very special hardening. A heart seldom gets the better of vows made in a season of deep sorrow, and afterwards, with the return of health and prosperity, renounced. VJ. MINOR LESSONS. 1. God's visitations are not vague and general. They will find us out in every sphere and department of our lives. His stroke will be felt in everything (vers. 3, 4). 2. The power of God's servants (vers. 5, 6: 12, 13). The stretching out of the rod brought frogs on Egypt. The intercession of Moses removed them. The prayers of a good man are both to be feared and to be desired. Feared, if they are against us; desired, if they are for us. It is lawful to pray, not for the ruin of our enemies' souls, but for the discomfiture of their projects, and the overthrow of their un- godly schemes (Rev. xi. 5, 6). 3. The duty of courtesy, and of returning good for evil (vers. 9, 10). Moses, at the very time of his triumph over Pharaoh, treated him with studious respect, and was ready to pray, at his request, for the removal of the plague. 4. The power of life and death as vested in God (vers. 13, 14). 5. Man's abuse of God's kindness (ver. 15). A respite granted; therefore Pharaoh hardened himself (cf Rom. ii. 4).-J. 0. Vers. 1-15. The second plague: the frogs. In intimatiLg the first plague, Moses made no formal demand upon Pharaoh to liberate Israel, though of course the demand was really contained in the intimation. But now as the second pla_,,,CT1.1e approaches, the formal demand once again is heard. Pharaoh is left for no long time without a distinct appeal which he must face either with consent or refusal. And so now Moses addresses him in the same words as on his first visit: "Let my people go." It is a challenge to the man who holds by violence and brute force that which is not his own. It is not a mere combat between potentate and potentate. "That they may serve me,"-a.wful is the wickedness of hindering God's people from serving him. I. NO'l'IOE THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THIS SECOND PLAGUE. Hitherto there has been something evidently sublime in God's treatment of Pharaoh. God's treatment is of course always sublime; but up to this point even Pharaoh must have felt th:'\t he was being treated 115 a king ought to be treated. The messengers of Jehovah were only  186 THE BOOK OF EXODUS. len. vm. 8-lb, m~an men in appearance, but the first pla,,oUe itself was certainly an impressive one, "e may imagine that Pharaoh would even say to himself with a sort of proud satisfac- t.ion, " How great my power must be when all the waters of my land are turned to blood in order to coerce me." He would feel flattered by what we may call the dimity of the attack upon him. But now observe how G-od changes his mode of working: and proceeds to use little things to humiliate Pharaoh. As he uses those who are reckoned the feeble and contemptible among men, so he uses the feeble and contemptible among the lower creation. He sends out frogs all over the land of Egypt. If only it had been an incursion of lions from the desert, roaring through the streets of the city.and tearino- down the people, or if it had been a host of mighty beasts trampling down his fiel~ then Pharaoh would have felt there was dignity in such a mode of attack ;-but frogs I frogs followed by gnats, and gnats by flies! A pla,,oUe to be made out of frogs seems almost too absurd to think of; and yet we see from the event that these despised little creatures forced Pharaoh to an appeal which not all the evident sublimity of the first plague could extort. More curses could come out of the river than the conversion of it into blood. This plague of the frogs we may judge to have been felt as inconvenient and irritating rather than dangerous. How ridicuious it must have been to have these agile little animals, millions of them, finding their way everywhere. No place safe from them, not even the well-guarded chambers of Pharaoh himself. Here was a pla,,oUe that did not wait for the people to make acquaintance with it, as when they went to the streams and pools and found them blood. It forced itself upon them by day and by night, as they sat at their meals and as they lay in their beds. The thing that is constantly inconvenient and troublesome, may bring a man to his knees sooner even than a peril which more closely concerns his life. II. THUS 'WE COME TO OBSERVE PHARAOH'S FlBST SIGN OF YIELDING. Notice that as to what will actually have power to produce a certain result, God is a far better J°udgo than we can be. We should have said, " put the frogs first and the blood afterwards ; Pharaoh will yield to the blood what he will not yield to the frogs." But when it comes to a trial, it is quite the contrary. '!'he frogs are so tormenting that they must be got rid of, even at a cost of a i:rnmiliating promise. Not even the success of the magicians in bringing up frogs, makes the torment more endurable ; and so, perhaps somewhat to the astonishment of Moses, who might hardly expect such a. sudden change, Pharaoh makes a promise in the most general terms to let the people forth for sacrifice. But mark, the ·moment Moses begins to press him and fix for a day, he procrastinates. The moment there is any relaxation of pressure upon him, he takes advantage of it. Already he begins to show that he will yield as little as he can. Give him a cha.nee of fixing his time, and he naturally says "to-morrow." Un1,leasant things a.re always put off until to-morrow, either on a supposition that the unpleasantness may be diminished, or on a. chance that it may be escaped altogether. And ther. when to-morrow comes, "to-morrow" is again the cry. Notice that Moses complies with Pharaoh's wish for this slight delay. One day is nothing so far as Israel is concerned. They can easily wait, if only the granting of this one day will make Pharaoh's yielding more agreeable to himself. God _never humiliates for the sake of humiliating. He chooses the humiliation of his enetn1es-as when he sends a plague of jrogs,-because it is the most effectual means to his•own ends. But the moment there is a profession of repentance, the humiliation stops, and opportunity is given to make the profession a reality.-Y.