obscure the light of the eun, o.nd turn noonday did not ask any more for the removal of & into twilight. And it is o.lso e. fa.et the.t with plague. This death only--i.e. "this fatal their dull brownish bodies e.nd wings they visitation "-this visitation, which, by produc- do.rken the ground after they he.ve settled. it1g famit1e, causes nt1merous deaths inn. nation Perhaps it is most probable that this last is Phare.oh feels now, as his courtiers had. felt the fact noticed, (Comparo ver. 5.) All when the plague was first threatened, that the fruit of the trees which the he.il had left. "Egypt is destroyed" ( ver. 7). Injury to fruit by the hnil had not been ex- Ver. 18.-He . .. in treated the Lord. Mos~ pressly mentioned in the account of that complied, though Pharaoh had this time made plo.gue, though perhaps it mo.y be regarded ru1 no distinct promise of releasing the people implied in the expression-that the hail He had learnt that no dependence was to be "brake every tree of the field" (ver. 25). ple.ced on such promises, and that it was idle to The damage which locusts do to fruit is well exe.ct them. If anything could have touched the known. They devour it with the green dull and hard heart of the king, it would ha..,. crops, the herbage, and the foliage, before been the gentleness and magnanimity shown setting to work upon the harder materials, 08 by Moses in uttering no word of reproach, reeds, twigs, and the bark of trees. In Egypt making no conditions, but simply granting his the principal fruits would be figs, pomegran- request as soon as it was made, and obtaining ates, mulberries, gro.pes, olives, peaches, pears, the removal of the plague. plums, and apples ; together with dates, and Ver. 19.-And the Lord turned a mighty the produce of the perBea, and the neb1' or Bidr. strong west wind. Literally, "o. very strong The fro.it of the nebk is ripe in March. There sea-wind "-i.e. one which blevr from the remained not any green thing, "It is suffi- Mediterranean, and which might, therefore, cient," observes one writer, " if these terrible so far, be north, north-west, or north-east. columns stop half an hour on o. spot, for every- As it blew the locusts into the " Sea of thing growing on it, vines, olive-trees, and Weeds," i.e. the Red Sea, it must have been corn, to be entirely destroyed. After they actually a north-west wind, and so passing have passed, nothing remains but the large obliquely over Egypt, ho.ve carried the locusts branches and the roots, which, being under- in a south-easterly direction. Cast them into ground, have escaped their vore.city." "Wbere- the Red Sea. Literally, "the Sea of Weeds." ever they settle," says another, " it looks as if No commentator doubts that the Red Sea is fire had burnt up everything." "The country here meant. It seems to have received its did not seem to be burnt," declares a third, Hebrew appellation, Yam Suph, "Sea of "but to be covered with snow, through the Weeds," either from the quantity of sea-weed whiteness of the trees and the dryness of the which it throws up, or, more probably, from herbs." A fourth sums up his e.ccount of the the fact that anciently its north-western recess ravages committed by locusts thus-" Accord- W08 connected with a marshy tract extending ing to all accounts, wherever the swarms of from the present heo.d of the Gulf of Suez locusts arrive, the vegetables are entirely con- nearly to the Bitter Lakes, in which grew sumed and destroyed, appearing as if they had e.rundant weeds and water-plants. There been burnt by fire." remained not one locust. The sudden and Ver. 16.-Then Pharaoh called for Moses entire departure of locusts is as remarkable 08 and Aaron in haste. Literally, as in the their coming. "At the hour of prime," says margin, "hasted to co.II for M. and A." He one writer, "they began to depart, and at had made similar appeals before ( eh. viii. 8, midday there was not one remnin.ing." "A 25 ; ix. 27), but never with such haste and wind from the south-west," says another, urgency. Evidently, the locusts were felt :is "which had brought them, so completely a severer infliction than any previous one. I drove them forwards that not a vestige of have sinned, So, after the plague of hail (ix. them was to be seen two hours afterwards " 27); but here we have the further acknow- (Morier, 'Second Journey,' p. 98). ledgment, against the Lord ygur God and Ver. 20.-But the Lord hardened Phe.raoh's against you; "ago.inst the Lord," in disobey- heart. The word used here is the intensive ing his commands ; "against you," in making one, 1'hazoq, in.stead of the milder kabod of you promises o.nd then refusing to keep them ver. I. Pho.raoh's prolonged obstinacy o.nd (eh viii. 15, 32; eh. ix. 34, 35). impenitence was receiving aggramtion by the Ver. 17.-0nly this onoe. Compare Gen. working of the just lo.ws of God, (See the xviii 32. Pharaoh kept this promise He comment on eh. iv. 21.)
HOMILETICS. Vers. I, 2.-God's mercies and wondrous works to be kept in perpetual remembrance. Man's forgetfulness of God's benefits is one of the saddest features of his existing con- d\.tion and character, He needs continual urging and exhortation to tho duty of remem- bering them. EXODUS. Q 226 THE BOOK OF EXODUS. [011. x.1-20.