Vere. 16-19,-The third plaguer------the gnats: the finger of God. I. CONSIDER THE PLAGUE ITSELF, From tho water God comes to tho land. He who has power over every drop of water has power over every grain of dust. Everywhere at his touch the inorganic becomes the organic. And ho still keeps in tho same line of action which has been be= with the frogs. He produces small creatures in immense numbers, rather than lit.~ger creatures in fewer numbers; that thus he may the more irritate and humiliate Pharaoh. Individually, the gnats are nothing ; their delicate little bodies may be crushed out of exi.~tence between thumb and finger. Collectively, they amount to the dimensions of a plague. II. CoNBIDER TIIE VERDICT OF THE MAGICIANS UPON THIS PLAGUE. The noticeable thing in the plague of the gnats is not so much the new agents of chastisement as the discomfiture of the magicians. Not that they had been really successful before. On any view of their proceedings they were deceivers, for what they did was done either by trickery or by the power of God working through them ; whereas they took it all to their own credit and the credit of Egypt's deities. This was not success. No man can be called successful when he has the daily fear that his resources are coming to an end. Much that is reckoned success is only failure after all, ingeniously and impudently delayed. The verdict of the magiciam,p was worthless so far as it seemed to indicate the 1"eal state of affairs. They say, "This is the finger of God," but we see only too clearly the motive of their admission. When an admission is extorted, as theirs was, it is deprived of all virtue and grace. That the magicians talked of the finger of God was no proof that the finger of God was present. They talked thus because they had no other way of cloaking their own shame, and accounting for their failure. The finger of God was not more evident in the gnats than in the frogs or in the bloody streams, or in the converted rod. He who could really see the finger of God in one of these, could see it in .ill the rest. That finger had been pointing all the time just as it pointed now. It was a question of hand rather than finger; and the hand was certainly pressing more heavily. Still, though the magicians took up this way of speaking merely for excuse, we have to thank them for an expressive and appropriate phrase. 'l'hey, in their blind selfuhness, speak of the finger of God, not knowing all they say; but the finger of God is a great and helpful reality to those who will look for it and be guided by it. It should ever be our business to look for this great finger. In a world of weathercocks, blown about with changing and conflicting opinions, that finger ever points in one direction; and yet while it teaches us to maintain a rigorous adhesion to Christian principles, teaches us at the same time to maintain them in a spirit of wise expediency. He has no true eye for the finger of God who knows not when to bend that he may not break. Pharaoh would not recognise the finger even when his own magicians were compelled to make a show of recognition. When they were defeated he seemed to think they were no longer of any account- among his advisers. Thus we have to notice again what poor judges we are of the relative severity of the plagues. Pharaoh was more affected by the frogs than by the gnats. Perhaps he was so disgusted with the failure of the magicians as to be filled with a. more rebellious spirit than ever. They said they saw the finger of God; he stubbornly refused to see it. Whether a man will really see this finger depends on what he is looking for. Equally pernicious is it to see Divine power where it is not, and to fail in seeing it where it is.-Y.
Vers. 16-19.-I. THERE IS A LIMIT TO THE DIVINE MERCY. This, like every third plague, came without warning. Opportunity was given twice to avert coming judgment. None is given now. Unannounced it startles them in the midst of their fancied security. I. When men have baffled the servants of God by unrepentant stubbornness and broken vows the matter is not ended. God who has spoken will also act. 2. God will not always strive. Those who resist mercy pass on to meet sudden destruction. II. THE JUDGMENT UPON THE IDOLATRY OF EaYPT. In the two first pla,,"lles God's hand was laid upon the river which the Egyptians worshipped as the giver of life. In this it was laid upon the land-also an Egyptian god and the giver of their food, etc. God proves that these are his servants, and that they will bless or harm according to his word. The works of God's hands---ilarth, sea, etc.-a.re still regarded as bestowing goo.! independently of his will. Let us not need Egypt's chastisements to teach us that all are serving him, both in blessing and in judgment. 192 THE BOOK OF EXODUS. LCII, VIII, 20-24.
IIT. THE WORLD'S 'WISDOM TURNED INTO FOOLISHNESS, They who have hitherto COD• t.cnded so proudly with God are confounded before the basest of all the miracles. 1. '!'ho 1nsdom that seeks to rob man's heart of God is brought to nothing before the gospel, With all its vaunted power it could not bring peace to a sinner's heart nor change to his life. 2. Atheistic science, that oan see God nowhere, will yet be confounded beforo his judgments.-U.