The Pulpit Commentary — Exodus — Volume 1 — Section 225

which he cannot avoid (eh. xii. 31-33). And that he may be brought to such a knowledge iB t-he rel\Son of the severe pll\,,,'7lles that remain. We might, indeed, count it enough to be t-0ld that Jehovah had sent all ~is plagues. We might rest upon Jehovabls character, and say that whatever he does 1s nght, even though there be much that nt first staggers us, and that continues to perplex. But the reason /0'1" all these plagues is plainly staf.ed, and if it be looked into "it will be seen an ample, cheering, a.nd encouraging reason. Though Jehovah is Sovereign of the universe, he does not treat Pharaoh in an arbitrary way; he acts, not as one who says that might makes right, but as using his might in order to secure the attainment of right. Pharaoh'a wny, on the contrary, is an arbitrary one, without the slightest mitigation or concealment. Everything rests simply on his will; and yet will is too dignified a word-whim would be nearer the mark. And now that proud will is to be subdued and dissolved, so for, at least, as to flow forth in the liberation of I'srael, even though immediately they be liberated it hardens again to its former rigidity. The announcement Moses was now to make to Pharaoh we may fairly say would have been inappropriate at an earlier time. It becomes God. in his first approaches to men, to draw them, if !Jerchance for their own sakes they may willingly submit; afterwards, when they will not be drawn, then for the sake of others they have to be driven. It is not until Pharaoh fully manifests his selfishness, his malignity, and the reasonless persistency of his refusal, that God indicates the approach of all his plagues. The man has been humbled in his circumstances, but his pride of heart remains as erect as ever; and so the full force of Jehovah has to be brought upon it in order to lay it low. He is at last to feel in himself, whatever he may say, that the true question is not " Who is Jehovah, that Pharaoh should let Israel go?" but, "Who is Pharaoh, that he should keep Israel back ? " He has gotten some rudiments and beginnings of this knowledge already, even though they have made no difference in his practice. Every time he has opened his ey8fl he has seen something fresh, which, however quickly he might close his eyes again, he could not unsee. And now he is on the very point of getting more knowledge, and that in a way very disagreeable to a despot. With alarming mpidity, his pe,opl,e are about to be impressed with the S'Upremacy of Jehovah (eh. ix.. 20; x. 7). II. Notice the peculiar reference in ver. 15 to THE DESTRUCTION OF PHARAOH. It is spoken of as a being cut off from the earth. It seems that our English version does not give the right tense-rendering in this verse, and that the reference is not to what will happen in the future, but to what might have already happened in the past. If Pharaoh was not already a dead man. and Israel a free people, there was nothing in this delay for Pharaoh to plume himself upon. Jehovah might have smitten him with pestilence, and slain the strong, proud man on his bed, amid humiliations and pains which would have been aggravated by the vanity of the regal splendours around him. He might have made Egypt one great expanse of the dead, a land which the lsr-aelit.es could have spoiled at their leisure, and then gone forth at any time most convenient to themselves. And if Jehovah did not thus slay Pharaoh and liberate Israel, it was because he had purposes of his own to accomplish by the lengthe1;1ed life of the one and the intensified sufferings of the other. But apart from the question of time, what awful significance there is in the expression, "cut off from the earth I" 'Io this separation, made most effectual, Pharaoh came at last. In considering t_his expression, notice first of all the S'll,flgestion of oor connection with the earth. A thmg cannot be cut off from the earth unless first of all it is connected with it. In respect of many things the connection may seem very slight and unimportant; but in the instan~e of a human being, the connection is evidently intimate and important; and, until our connection with heaven is established, not only important, but all-important. We are connected with the earth by what we get from it. The very limitations of ?ur bodily constitution remind us of our dependence upon the earth. We are not ~ke the birds with wings to soar away from it, nor like fishes who can breathe vital air under water ; we are emphatically of the solid earth. 'l'o its kindly fruits we look for our sustenance, a.nd out of it also comes our clothing and shelter. And then from the earth in its still larger seDSe, "the great globe itself," consider what comes to us in the way of occupation, instruction, interest, pleasure, opportunities of getting and giving in all sorts of ways. From all this Plwanh was at last cut off; and from all this OH, IX. 18-16.] THE BOOK OF EXODUS. 215