A. M. 2513. 19 Send therefore now, and and the fire ran along upon the A. M. 2513. gather thy cattle, and all that thou ground; and the LORD rained hail hast in the field; for upon every man and upon the land of Egypt. beast which shall be found in the field, and shall not be brought home, the hail shall come down upon them, and they shall die.

A. M. 2513. and hail; and I will let you go, my hands unto the LORD; and the and ye shall stay no longer. thunder shall cease, neither shall there be any more hail; that thou mayest know how that, the earth is the LORD'S.

The flax and the

A. M. 2513.
B. C. 1491.

EXODUS.

30 But as for thee and thy servants, I know that ye will not yet fear the LORD God.

barley are destroyed.

B. C. 1491.

for the barley was in the ear, and A. M. 2513 the flax was bolled.

32 But the wheat and the rye were not

31 And the flax and the barley was smitten: smitten for they were d not grown up.

b Isa. xxvi. 10.- e Ruth i. 22; ii. 23.-
When the supplicant could not approach the person
to whom he prayed, as where a deity was the object
of the prayer, he washed his hands, made an offering,
and kneeling down, either stretched out both his hands
to heaven, or laid them upon the offering or sacrifice,
or upon the altar. Thus Homer represents the priest
of Apollo praying :-

Χερνίψαντο δ' επειτα, και ουλοχύτας ανέλοντο.
Τοισιν δε Χρύσης μεγαλο ευχετο, χειρας ανασχών.
Iliad i., ver. 449.

With water purify their hands, and take
The sacred offering of the salted cake,
While thus, with arms devoutly raised in air,
And, solemn voice, the priest directs his prayer.

POPE How necessary ablutions of the whole body, and of the hands particularly, accompanied with offerings and sacrifices were, under the law, every reader of the Bible knows see especially chap. xxix. 1-4, where Aaron and his sons were commanded to be washed, previously to their performing the priest's office; and chap. xxx. 19-21, where it is said: "Aaron and his sons shall wash their hands—that they die not.” See also Lev. xvii. 15. When the high priest among the Jews blessed the people, he lifted up his hands, Lev. ix. 22. And the Israelites, when they presented a sacrifice to God, lifted up their hands and placed them on the head of the victim: “If any man of you bring an offering unto the Lord of the cattle of the herd, and of the flock-he shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt-offering, and it shall be accepted for him, to make atonement for him ;" Lev. i. 2-4. To these circumstances the apostle alludes, 1 Tim. ii. 8: "I will therefore that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting." In the apostle's word εaiovτas, lifting up, there is a manifest reference to stretching out the hands to place them either on the altar or on the head of the victim. Four things were signified by this lifting up of the hands. 1. It was the posture of supplication, and expressed a strong invitation-Come to my help; 2.. It expressed the earnest desire of the person to lay hold on the help he required, by bringing him who was the object of his prayer to his assistance; 3. It showed the ardour of the person to receive the blessings he expected; and 4. By this act he designated and consecrated his offering or sacrifice to his God.

From a great number of evidences and coincidences it is not unreasonable to conclude that the heathens borrowed all that was pure and rational, even in their mode of worship, from the ancient people of God; and that the preceding quotations are proofs of this.

Verse 31. The flax and the barley was smitten] The word n pishtah, flax, Mr. Parkhurst thinks, is derived from the root pashat, to strip, because the substance which we term flax is properly the bark

d Heb. hidden, or dark.

or rind of the vegetable, pilled or stripped off the stalks: From time immemorial Egypt was celebrated for the production and manufacture of flax: hence the linen and fine linen of Egypt, so often spoken of in ancient authors.

Barley] seorah, from w saar, to stand on end, to be rough, bristly, &c.; hence sear, the

hair of the head, and y sair, a he-goat, because of its shaggy hair; and hence also barley, because of the rough and prickly beard with which the ears are co

vered and defended.

Dr. Pocock has observed that there is a double seedtime and harvest in Egypt: Rice, India wheat, and a grain called the corn of Damascus, and in Italian surgo rosso, are sown and reaped at a very different time from wheat, barley and flax. The first are sown in March, before the overflowing of the Nile, and reaped about October; whereas the wheat and barley are sown in November and December, as soon as the Nile is gone off, and are reaped before May.

Pliny observes, Hist. Nat., lib. xviii., cap..10, that in Egypt the barley is ready for reaping in six months after it is sown, and wheat in seven. In Egypto HORDEUM sexto a satu mense, FRUMENTA septimo, metuntur.

gibol,

The flax was bolled.] Meaning, I suppose, was grown up into a stalk: the original is hy podded or was in the pod. The word well expresses that globous pod on the top of the stalk of flax which succeeds the flower and contains the seed, very properly expressed by the Septuagint, ro de Aivov σñeрparilov, but the flax was in seed or was seeding.

Rye,

Verse 32. But the wheat and the rye were not smitten] Wheat, chittah, which Mr. Parkhurst thinks should be derived from the Chaldee and Samaritan on chati, which signifies tender, delicious, delicate, because of the superiority of its flavour, &c., to every other kind of grain. But this term in Scripture appears to mean any kind of bread-corn. no cussemeth, from DD casam, to have long hair; and hence, though the particular species is not known, the word must mean some bearded grain. The Septuagint call it okupa, the Vulgate for, and Aquila (ɛa, which signify the grain called spelt; and some suppose that rice is meant.

Mr. Harmer, referring to the double harvest in Egypt mentioned by Dr. Pocock, says that the circumstance of the wheat and the rye being nex aphiloth, dark or hidden, as the margin renders it, (i. e., they were sown, but not grown up,) shows that it was the Indian wheat or surgo rósso mentioned ver. 31, which, with the rye, escaped, while the barley and flax were smitten because they were at or nearly at a state of maturity. See Harmer's Obs., vol. iv., p. 11, edit. 1808. But what is intended by the words in the Hebrew text we cannot positively. say, as there is a great variety of opinions on this

The seventh plague is removed.

B. C. 1491.

B. C. 1491.

A. M. 2513. 33 And Moses went out of the and the hail and the thunders were A. M. 2513. city from Pharaoh, and spread ceased, he sinned yet more, and abroad his hands unto the LORD: and the hardened his heart, he and his servants. thunders and hail ceased, and the rain was not poured upon the earth..

35 And the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, neither would he let the children of Israel go; 34 And when Pharaoh saw that the rain as the LORD had spoken by Moses.

tors.

verse.

Ver. 29; chap. viii. 12. Chap. iv. 21.

Heb. by the hand of Moses; chap. iv. 13.

subject, both among the versions and the commenta-it, doubtful to the Egyptians whether Moses himself The Anglo-Saxon translator, probably from not was not a magician acting without any Divine authoknowing the meaning of the words, omits the whole rity; but the plague of the boils, which they could not imitate, by which they were themselves afflicted, and which they confessed to be the finger of God, decided the business. Pharaoh had no longer any excuse," and must know that he had now to contend, not with Moses and Aaron, mortals like himself, but with the living God. How strange, then, that he should continue to resist! Many affect to be astonished at this, and think it must be attributed only to a sovereign

Verse 33. Spread abroad his hands] Probably with the rod of God in them. See what has been said on the spreading out of the hands in prayer, ver. 29.

Verse 34. He sinned yet more, and hardened his heart] These were merely acts of his own; "for who can deny," says Mr. Psalmanazar, "that what God did on Pharaoh was much more proper to soften than to harden his heart; especially when it is observ-controlling influence of God, which rendered it imposable that it was not till-after seeing each miracle, and after the ceasing of each plague, that his heart is said to have been hardened? The verbs here used are in the conjugations pihel and hiphil, and often signify a bare permission, from which it is plain that the words should have been read, God suffered the heart of Pharaoh to be hardened."-Universal Hist., vol. i., p. 494. Note D.

Verse 35. And the heart of Pharaoh was hardened] In consequence of his sinning yet more, and hardening his own heart against both, the judgments and mercies of God, we need not be surprised that, after God had given him the means of softening and repentance, and he had in every instance resisted and abused them, he should at last have been left to the hardness and darkness of his own obstinate heart, so as to fill up the measure of his iniquity, and rush headlong to his own destruction.

sible for him to repent or take warning. But the
whole conduct of God shows the improbability of this
opinion and is not the conduct of Pharaoh and his
courtiers copied and reacted by thousands who are
never suspected to be under any such necessitating
decree? Every sinner under heaven, who has the
Bible in his hand, is acting the same part.
God says

to the swearer and the profane, Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; and yet common swearing and profaneness are most scandalously common among multitudes who bear the Christian name, and who presume on the mercy of God to get at last to the kingdom of heaven! He says also, Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy; thou shalt not kill; thou shall not commit adultery; thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not bear false witness; thou shalt not covet; and sanctions all these commandments with the most awful penalties: and yet, with all these things before them, and the professed belief that they IN the fifth, sixth, and seventh plagues described in came from God, Sabbath-breakers, men-slayers, adulthis chapter, we have additional proofs of the justice terers, fornicators, thieves, dishonest men, false witand mercy of God, as well as of the stupidity, rebellion, nesses, liars, slanderers, backbiters, covetous men, and wickedness of Pharaoh and his courtiers. As lovers of the world more than lovers of God, are found these continued to contradict and resist, it was just by hundreds and thousands! What were, the crimes that God should continue to inflict those punishments of the poor half-blind Egyptian king when compared which their iniquities deserved. Yet in the midst of with these! He sinned against a comparatively judgment he remembers mercy; and therefore Moses unknown God; these sin against the God of their and Aaron are sent to inform the Egyptians that such fathers against the God and Father of Him whom plagues would come if they continued obstinate. Here they call their Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ! They is mercy; the cattle only are destroyed, and the people sin with the Bible in their hand, and a conviction of saved! Is it not evident from all these messages, its Divine authority in their hearts. They sin against and the repeated expostulations of Moses and Aaron light and knowledge; against the checks of their conin the name and on the authority of God,, that Pha-seiences, the reproofs of their friends, the admonitions raoh was bound by no fatal necessity to continue his of the messengers of God; against Moses and Aaron obstinacy; that he might have humbled himself before in the law; against the testimony of all the prophets; God, and thus prevented the disasters that fell, on the against the evangelists, the apostles, the Maker of land, and saved himself and his people from destruc-heaven and earth, the Judge of all men, and the Sation? But he would sin, and therefore he must be viour of the world! What were Pharaoh's crimes to punished.

In the sixth plague Pharaoh had advantages which he had not before. The magicians, by their successful imitations of the miracles wrought by Moses, made VOL. I. ( 23 )

the crimes of these? On comparison, his atom of moral turpitude is lost in their world of iniquity. And yet who supposes these to be under any necessitating decree to sin on, and go to perdition? Nor are they;

337

The Lord again sends Moses

EXODUS.

to expostulate with Pharaoh.

nor was Pharaoh. In all things God has proved both | from the possibility of being saved because of his inihis justice and mercy to be clear in this point. Pha-quities, who outdo him so far in the viciousness of raoh, through a principle of covetousness, refused to dismiss the Israelites, whose services he found profitable to the state: these are absorbed in the love of the world, the love of pleasure, and the love of gain; nor will they let one lust go, even in the presence of the thunders of Sinai, or in sight of the agony, bloody sweat, crucifixion, and death of Jesus Christ! Alas! how many are in the habit of considering Pharaoh the worst of human beings, inevitably cut off

their lives, that Pharaoh, hardening his heart against
ten plagues, appears a saint when compared with those
who are hardening their hearts against ten millions of
mercies. Reader, art thou of this number? Proceed
no farther! God's judgments linger not. Desperate
as thy state is, thou mayest return; and thou, even
thou, find mercy through the blood of the Lamb.
See the observations at the conclusion of the next
chapter.

CHAPTER X.

The

Moses is again sent to Pharaoh, and expostulates with-him on his refusal to let the Hebrews go, 1-3. eighth plague, viz., of locusts, is threatened, 4. The extent and oppressive nature of this plague, 5, 6. Pharaoh's servants counsel him to dismiss the Hebrews, 7. He calls for Moses and Aaron, and inquires who they are of the Hebrews who wish to go, 8. Moses having answered that the whole people, with their flocks and herds must go and hold a feast to the Lord, 9, Pharaoh is enraged, and having granted permission only to the men; drives Moses and Aaron from his presence, 10, 11. Moses is commanded to stretch out his hand and bring the locusts, 12. He does so, and an east wind is sent, which, blowing all that day and night, brings the locusts the next morning, 13: The devastation occasioned by these insects, 14,15, Pharaoh is humbled, acknowledges his sin, and begs Moses to intercede with Jehovah for him, 16, 17. Moses does so, and at his request a strong west wind is sent, which carries all the locusts to the Red Sea, 18, 19, Pharaoh's heart is again hardened, 20. Moses is commanded to bring the ninth plague an extraordinary darkness over all the land of Egypt, 21, The nature, duration, and effects of this, 22, 23. Pharaoh, again humbled, consents to let the people go, provided they leave their cattle behind, 24. Moses insists on having all their cattle, because of the sacrifices which they must make to the Lord, 25, 26. Pharaoh, again hardened, refuses, 27. Orders Moses from his presence, and threatens him with death should he ever return, 28. Moses departs with the promise of returning no more, 29. A. M. 2513. AND the Loan said unto Moses, thy son, and of thy son's son, A. M. 2513. Go in unto Pharaoh for Ihat things I have wrought in : have hardened his heart, and the heart of his Egypt, and my signs which I have done among servants, that I might show these my signs them; that ye may know how that I am before him: the LORD.

B. C. 1491.

b

2 And that thou mayest tell in the ears of

a

Chap. iv. 21; vii. 14. b Chap. vii. 4.

NOTES ON CHAP. X. Verse 1. Hardened his heart] God suffered his natural obstinacy to prevail, that he might have farther opportunities of showing forth his eternal power and Godhead.

Verse 2. That thou mayest tell in the ears of thy son] That the miracles wrought at this time might be a record for the instruction of the latest posterity, that Jehovah alone, the God of the Hebrews, was the sole Maker, Governor, and Supporter of the heavens and the earth. Thus we find God so did his marvellous works, that they might be had in everlasting remembrance. It was not to crush the poor worm, Pharaoh, that he wrought such mighty wonders, but to convince his enemies, to the end of the world, that no cunning or power can prevail against him; and to show his followers that whosoever trusted in him should never be confounded.

=

B. C. 1491.

3 And Moses and Aaron came in unto Pha

Deut. iv. 9; Psa. xliv. 1; lxxi. 18; lxxviii. 5, &c.; Joel i. 3. pented, can we suppose that God could have addressed him in such language as the preceding? We may rest assured that there was always a time in which he might have relented, and that it was because he hardened his heart at such times that God is said to harden him, i. e, to give him up to his own stubborn and obstinate heart; in consequence of which he refused to let the people go, so that God had a fresh opportunity to work another miracle, for the very gracious purposes mentioned in ver. 2. Had Pharaoh relented before, the same gracious ends would have been accomplished by other means.

The EIGHTH plague-the LOCUSTS.

Verse 4. To-morrow will I bring the locusts] The word 7 arbeh, a locust, is probably from the root

rabah, he multiplied, became great, mighty, &c., because of the immense swarms of these animals by which different countries, especially the east, are infested. The locust, in entomology, belongs to a genus of insects known among naturalists by the term GRYLLI; ( 23* )