CHAPTER X. PHARAOH'S HEART STILL HARDENED. ANOTHER APPEAL TO PHARAOH. THE CONFESSION OF PHARAOH. THE LOCUST PLAGUE. THE PLAGUE OF DARKNESS. PHARAOH'S TERMS. WE now approach the last of the plagues or judgments that were dealt upon Pharaoh, and upon his subjects and his kingdom, because of his own wilful refusal to let the children of Israel go. I explained in the course of previous expository remarks on the chapters that precede this, that "the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart," is an expression obviously intended to denote that the measures which God pursued were productive, not of a softening and subduing, but of a hardening effect upon the mind, heart, and conscience of Pharaoh; that God was the occasion of his heart being hardened, not the cause of it; that he did it through the means that he employed to convince him. Just as the Gospel preached unto us is, if not the savor of life, the savor of death; and yet the God of the Gospel is not to be blamed for these its necessary effects. You will perceive that it is added twice in this chapter after the words, "The Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he would not let them go." It is not said that he could not, which would have been the result, if God by omnipotent power had prevented him; but it is said that he would not, which shows that the resistance to the will of God was his own volition, and that alone. God says to Moses, evidently bearing and forbearing with Pharaoh, and with a desire that the means employed should be productive of their just and legitimate effect, "Go into Pharaoh's presence, and tell him to let my people go, in order that they may serve me in the way that you pointed out in the commencement of your intercourse with him." Moses and Aaron then came unto Pharaoh - Moses mighty in action, Aaron eloquent in words - the one the gifted orator, the other the devoted, persistent, and holy servantand they said, "Thus saith the Lord God of the Hebrews, How long wilt thou refuse to humble thyself before me?" This reminds us of the just and fair interpretation that I presented of the passage in the previous chapter, where Pharaoh called Moses and Aaron, and said, “I have sinned this time; the Lord is righteous, and I and my people are wicked." I showed you that there were certain features in that confession almost significant of genuine repentance; but I noticed that the element of humility, which is always the necessary accompaniment of true repentance, seemed then and there to have been wanting. Now here we find the servants of God expressly declaring that he had refused to humble himself. No confession with the lip is enough without lowliness and humility of heart. No prayer can rise with acceptance from a proud heart; and what Pharaoh needed was not the removal of the judgment, was not simply a sense of danger, or of suffering, or even of death, but that he should humble himself, confess his sin, acknowledge the sovereignty of God, and submit to his will, and walk in his ways, as he should be pleased to prescribe. This he would not do; and therefore the servants of God were told, and told him, that there would be brought upon him another judgment, that would finish what the hail had begun; that every green tree, and herb, and fruit, and flower, that the hail, the lightning, and the tempest had spared, would be now consumed by devastating inroads of locusts, which should spread over the land. I have read of travellers who have witnessed there the inroads of immense bodies of locusts. They have noticed the very air to be darkened by the immense mass, or locust cloud, and they have heard even the sound of their wings, as they approached the scene of devastation. They have seen them cover the whole earth round about for a great many yards, one, two, or even three inches thick; so that the horses could not pursue their route without treading upon them; and they have remarked that such a plague, if universal, would be one of the greatest inflictions that could be suffered by any land. Hence the allusion in Scripture, with reference to devastating armies, and the incursions of lawless conquerors, that what was the garden of Eden before is made a wilderness and a desert behind. This plague evidently made a very deep impression upon Pharaoh, and he was disposed to relent and give way a little; for, whilst it is said that God hardened the heart of Pharaoh, it is quite obvious that after each plague (and the word "plague," whether derived from the Greek, which is its origin, or the Latin, means a blow), he evidently relented a little; and was more anxious for terms, and, if it could only be done compatibly with his wounded pride, to come to a close of this very serious and severe treatment. He now proposed that the grown up men should only go away, and leave the mothers and their children behind; because he felt that when the old slaves were thus got rid of, that would not be a very great loss, since the young slaves would take their place, and that thus his treasury would not be exhausted by their secession. He therefore tried to come to terms with Moses and Aaron, which terms, like those of an avaricious miser, were the most satisfactory and profitable to himself. When he saw the frightful visitation of the locusts - all that was green devoured, all that was beautiful blasted, the whole land threatened with a plague that would depopulate it by destroying all the grass eaten by the cattle, and every Moses and story — the -- herb for the service of man - he rushed to Aaron, and said, "I have sinned"— the old mere expression of the lip, and not the feeling of the heart- "against the Lord your God," as if he implied, "I have nothing to do with him, he is not my God, and I do not owe allegiance to him; yet I see that he is your God, and that he has great power." "Now therefore forgive, I pray thee, my sin only this once." He now almost becomes a Romanist; for he asks forgiveness of Aaron the priest, instead of seeking it where it could then, and can now be found, from the God of Moses and Aaron. Then "Moses entreated the Lord. And the Lord turned a mighty strong west wind, which took away the locusts, and cast them into the Red Sea. But the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart," that is, this blow, instead of subduing Pharaoh, ended in his being hardened, "so that he would not," not could not, "let the children of Israel go." The Lord then told his servants to stretch out their hands, and darkness should overspread the land; and to show Pharaoh that this was miraculous and had a moral significance, as well as a physical calamity, there was light in all the dwellings of the children of Israel. Now this could not be a mist, or a fog, or a very heavy and dense cloud; it must have been some miraculous distribution of the light in one place, and an equally miraculous arrest or prevention of it in another place, by which it was evidently intended that Pharaoh should see that moral excellence has light irradiating it with its splendor, and that wickedness has darkness as the congenial element for it to live in; and that he might thus learn that the God of Israel was not a God displaying mere freaks of omnipotent power, but a God distinguishing now, as he will distinguish at the judgment-seat, between them who are the lights of the world, and them who are the children of night, and love the night, because their deeds are evil. Pharaoh then tried to come to terms again, and he said, "Go ye, serve the Lord; only let your flocks and your herds be stayed; let your little ones also go with you." He gives way one notch; he comes down one peg, as it were; for instead of saying, "Your little ones shall not go with you," he now says, "I find I cannot hold out any more;" but still he is determined to hold all that he can, and to give up only in obedience to irresistible force what he would like to retain; and he now comes to the point of saying that all, fathers, mothers, and children shall go, "only let your flocks and your herds be stayed." I want only a few of your cattle left, so that I may have something to propitiate my own pride, and that will make me look as if I had had a hard fight, and had not altogether lost the day, with the God of the Hebrews. Let me keep your cattle. But Moses acted just as the servant of God should ever act. What is right do; what is wrong do not; but whenever men attempt in religion, politics, or any thing else, to make a compromise between truth and error, between duty and expediency, there is sure to be a disastrous issue. Therefore, the servants of God said, "No. Fathers, mothers, children, and cattle shall go out of this land, and serve God. We will have all, or none. It is not our asking, but God's command." Concede a prejudice, but never compromise a duty. Give up your own likings, profits, or preference, but never dare to surrender the sacred obligations of everlasting truth, or to compromise one jot or atom of what conscience enlightened by the Bible tells you to be duty to God. But the result was that all this hardened his heart more and more; and then we have the last solemn parting, which introduces us to that most impressive and suggestive plague that followed the slaughter of the first-born of Pharaoh, and the sparing of the first-born of Israel, "Pharaoh said unto him, Get thee from me, take heed to thyself, see my face no more". he evidently lost his temper, and got ex |