The Pulpit Commentary — Exodus — Volume 1 — Section 223

Ver. 16.-The road to ruin. "And in very deed for this ea.use," &c. (Ex. ix.16). The character and conduct of Pharaoh as a probationer under the moral government of the Ever Living God is worthy of special and separate consideration. That he was such a probationer should not be simply assumed., but made clearly manifest. All the great light of natural religion shone upon his path (Rom. i. 19-25), like stars in heaven upon the path of every soul. Then there is the inward witness that speaks of the soul, of God. of duty, of immortality (Rom. ii. 14, 15). Within the confines of his empire existed a nation of no less than two millions, to whom had already been confided a pa.rt, at least, of the "orncles of God." They were the recipients of such revelations as God had already vouchsafed. Their beliefs ought not to have been unknown to him. Two missionaries, direct from God. Moses and Aaron, were his teachers. They came with full credentials. Providential judgments, not untempered with mercy (for warning after warning ea.me), spake with trumpet tongue. Some of his own people, convinced, probably penitent, pleaded for the right. And yet this soul went from bad to worse. We indicate the stages on the road to rwn. It is only necessary to premise that though the stages are broadly manifest enough, they, in so complicated a character, occasionally overlap, and are blended with each other. I. D1''11ELIEF. Pharaoh's of the blankest kind (ver. 2). [Read correctly, "Who is Jehovah"?] The man a God unto himself, as all infidels practically are. The representative of the Sun-God. Note the independent stand he takes all through this controversy, as against Jehovah. [On this see Kurtz, Hist. of Old Cov. ii. 292.J II. SCPEBSTITION. So does the pendulum ever swing back from the extremes of belief or non-belief. No soul can rest in that in.fidelity which virtually deifies self. Hence Pharaoh played off against the representatives of Jehovah, the representatives of the polytheism of Egypt-the magicians. So in modem times. There are the credulities of atheism. Men who will not believe in the sublime truths of revelation fall to intellectual drivelling. Notable instance, Comte's "Religion of Humanity." After a.Ii, this is a witness that man cannot live without religion. [In this connection note the connection between magic and idolatry, and of that, possibly, with demons, Kurtz, ii. 246---259.J III. Ar.A..RlL In Pharaoh's case this was especially manifest after the eecond (viii, 8), fourth (viii. 25), seventh (ix. 27), and eighth (x.. 16) visitations. IV. Co1'"'YEBSION. After the seventh (ix. 27). No wonder, for God had said before this jud.,,oment, " I will at this time send all my plagues upon thy heart." Coming calamity wns to be of a deeper and more searching kind. The man seems to have had an accesa of CJ!, IX. 13-16.] THE BOOK OF EXODUel. 21,3