The Pulpit Commentary — Exodus — Volume 1 — Section 259

HOMILIES BY VARIOUS AUTHORS. Vers. 4--10.-A finale. These verses end the story of ho,v God wrought with Pharaoh to subdue him to his will. They prepare us for the catastrophe which brought the long conflict to a termination, and forced a way of egress for two millions of Hebrews through the barred gates of Egypt. I. LAST WORDS TO PHARAOH (vers. 4--9). Vers. 1-3 of this chapter are obviously parenthetical. They relate to a communication made to Moses prior to the visit to Pharaoh recorded in eh. x. 24--29, and in anticipation of it. The substance of that communication is now conveyed to the king. Having delivered his message :is God had directed, Moses finally leaves the royal presence (ver. 9). The present passage is there- fore to be read in i=ediate connection with eh. x. 29. Pharaoh would see the face of Moses no more--i.e., as a commissioner from Jehovah-but before leaving, Moses has words to speak which are to Pharaoh the knell of doom. The judgment he announces is the death of the first-born. On this observe-I. It was a judgment-stroke m<Yl'e terrible than any which had preceded. This is plain from the nature of it. What, put one with the other in the balance, was the discomfort, pain, loss, terror, devastation of crops, and darkening of the earth, caused by the previous pla,,"'lles, to this tremendous horror of finding in one night, in each home throughout the land, a dead first-born? The wound here was truly mortal. The first-born is the special joy of parents. He is loved, fondled, tended, admired, as few of the children are which come after him. The pride of the parents centres in him. Their hopes are largely built up on what he may become. He has drawn to himself, and embodies, a larger share of their thought, interest, sympathy, and affection than perhaps they are well aware of. He is the pillar of their household. They look to him to bear up its honour when their own heads are laid in the dust. To touch him is to touch the apple of their eye, to quench the central illumination of-their home. They are proud of him as a babe, the first occupant of the cradle; they are proud of him as a boy, unfolding his mental and physical powers in rivalry ~th his youthful peers; they are proud of him as a young man, when thought and decision begin to stamp their lines upon his brow, and manly dignity aives a new grace to his deportment. With the help of such considerations, try to ~stimate the wrench to the heart's tenderest affections, in the million homes of Egypt, by tho simultaneous discovery that in each there is a ghastly corpse, and that the corpse of the first-born. No wonder there was "a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as there was none like it, nor shall be like_ it any more" (ver. G). Natur~I affection retains a mighty hold of natures often otherwise very depraved. And there 111  262 THE BOOK OF EXODUS. [cH, XI, 4-10,