Ver. 1. Let my people go.] The very same message to a word, as before often. Austin persuades God’s messengers so long to insist upon the same point, beating and repeating of it in the same words, till they perceive by the gesture and countenance of the hearers that they understand and embrace it. Chrysostom at Antioch preached many sermons against swearing; and told the people, that seeme d to be weary of that subject, that till they stopped their swearing, he would never stop preaching against that sin; ου μονον ταυτα αλλα και περι ταυτων, said Socrates. De Doctrina Christiana.
Ver. 2. And wilt hold them still.] Being wedded to thy will, which will prove thy hell. Voluntas tua infernus tuus. -Bern.
Ver. 3. Is upon thy cattle.] Both those ad esum and those ad usum. Men sin, these suffer, and therefore groan. (Romans 8:22)
Ver. 4. And there shall nothing die.] It is fair weather oft with the saints when it is foulest with the wicked. God hideth his in the hollow of his hand, (Psalms 91) till the indignation be overpast. (Isaiah 26:20) He gives the like charge of them as David did of Absalom. (2 Samuel 18:5)
Ver. 6. And all the cattle.] That is, A great sort of them, not all. (Exodus 9:19,25) And this was the fifth of those ten plagues, a number of perfection; to note that God therein did most perfectly administer and execute his judgments. Non universaliter, sed communiter.
Ver. 7. And the heart of Pharaoh was hardened.] Like a smith’s anvil, he grew harder for hammering. There was little need to say to Pharaoh, as the smith did to the Landgrave of Thuring, Durescite, durescite, O in felix Lantgravi. He hardened fast enough. Pet. Nicol. Gelstronp.
Ver. 8. Sprinkle it toward the heaven.] In token that this plague should, in a special manner, be inflicted from heaven. The Philistines, by their golden emerods, acknowledged that the emerods in thei r flesh were from God. Hippocrates called the pestilence το θειον, the divine disease, as we call the spots thereof God’s marks. The falling sickness was anciently called morbus sacer as an immediate hand of God. And what can we conceive less of the sweating sickness, with which no stranger in England was touched? And yet the English were chased therewith, not only in England, but in other countries abroad; which made them, like tyrants, both feared and avoided wherever they came. Life of King Edward VI, by Sir John Heywood, p. 127.
Ver. 9. A boil breaking forth.] This Moses threateneth to all disobedient persons (Deuteronomy 28:27) Job’s boils were rather probational than penal. So were Munster’s ulcers (medicinal they were, howsoever), which he showed to his friend, and said, Hae sunt gemmae et pretiosa ornamenta Dei, quibus Deus amicos suos ornat, ut eos ad se attrahat. These be those gems and jewels wherewith God adorneth his best friends, that he may bring them nearer to himself. Manlii, loc. com, p. 127.
Ver. 10. And they took ashes of the furnace.] Whereby, being cast up towards heaven, was sent up, as it were, a complaint to God against the oppression of the Israelites in the furnace of the brick kilns, -see Deuteronomy 4:20, -which came down with a vengeance upon man and beast.
Ver. 11. For the boil was upon the magicians.] Who were convicted, but not converted. (Exodus 8:19) They stood still to withstand Moses: as Balaam, against the light of his own conscience, was resolved to curse, howsoever; and therefore went not aside as at other times to speak with God, but set his face toward the wilderness; like a headstrong horse that gets the bit in his teeth, and runs away with his rider.
Ver. 12. And the Lord hardened.] See Exodus 9:7 4:21, &c.
Ver. 13. Let my people go.] See Exodus 9:1.
Ver. 14. All my plagues upon thine heart.] Heart plagues are the worst plagues of all. A hard heart is in some respects worse than hell: since one of the greatest sins is greater in evil, than any of the greatest punishments.
Ver. 15. For now I will stretch out.] His former preservation was but a reservation: and he hath hitherto escaped with his life; not for any love that God bare to him, but “to show his power on him.” Wicked men may have common mercies and deliverances, but “the Lord Ioveth the righteous.” (Psalms 146:8)
Ver. 16. Have I raised thee up.] Heb., I have constituted and set thee up as a butt mark: that I may let fly at thee and follow thee close with plague upon plague, till I’have beaten the very breath out of thy body. See Proverbs 16:4 Ro 9:17.
Ver. 17. As yet exaltest thou thgself?] q.d., No amendment yet? A sore sign of a vessel of wrath fitted to destruction. It is ill with the body when physic will either not enter or not stay with us.
Ver. 18. Such as hath not been in Egypt.] Dio maketh mention of a shower of blood and of water, that fell in Egypt a little before it was subjected by Augustus, in quae loca ne stilla quidem aquae ante ceciderat, saith he; where never any drop of water, much less of blood, ever fell before. Dio, in Aug.
Ver. 19. Send therefore now.] Here “(mercy rejoiceth against judgment,” (James 2:13) if by any means he might be wrought upon. Sed Rhinoceros interimi potest, capi non potest. It was past time of day to do Pharaoh good.
Ver. 20. He that feared the word of the Lord.] As few will do till they feel his hand. But they that tremble not in hearing shall be crushed to pieces in feeling, said that martyr. Bradford.
Ver. 21. And he that regarded not.] This was, doubtless, the greater number; Qualis Rex, talis grex. This was a just presage and desert of ruin, not to be warned.
Ver. 22. Stretch forth thine hand,] i.e., Thy rod in thine hand. (Exodus 9:23)
Ver. 23. And the fire ran along upon the ground.] Such “hailstones and coals of fire” we also read of in Psalms 18:13-15 Isa 30:30,31; and in the Roman history, when Marcus Antonius the philosopher fought with the Quades, and by the prayers of the thundering legion—κεραυνοβολος, as they were afterwards called—of the Christians, rain was obtained to the refreshing of the Roman army, ingens grando compluraque fulmina in hostes ceciderunt: Itaque licebat videre in eodem loco aquam ignemque simul de coelo cadere, atque ob eam causam, Romanos valere ac bibere. Quados exuri et penitus interire. i.e., A huge hail and many lightening bolts fell upon the enemy; fire and water fell at once from heaven; the Romans drank of the water and were relieved; the Quades were burnt by the fire, and perished. Dio, in Vita M. Ant. Phil.
Ver. 24. e. So there was hail, and fire mingled.] A strange mixture; a miracle within a miracle, saith Rub. Solomon. Fire and water made a peace betwixt themselves, that they might obey the will of their Creator.
Ver. 25. And break every tree of the fleld.] Here was strages et clades horrenda; yet Pharaoh’s heart is not broken, but remains obdurate. Perdidistis fructum afflictionis, was a heavy charge. Ducklings stoop and dive at any little stone thrown by a man at them; yet shrink not at the heaven’s great thunder. August.
Ver. 26. Only in the land of Goshen.] [See Trapp on “Ex 8:23”] Dio reports further of the fire forementioned, (Exodus 8:23) that that fire from heaven either fell not at all upon the Romans; or, if it did, it was presently quenched: neither did the waters help the Quades, but inflamed them, as if it had been oil, so that they called for water to cool them, when the rain fell upon them; and wounded their own bodies to quench the fire with their blood. Dio, ubi supra.
Ver. 27. The Lord is righteous.] [See Trapp on “Ex 5:2”]
Ver. 28. I will let you go.] But though he speak thus fair, believe him not: “for there are seven abominations in his heart.” (Proverbs 26:25) No sooner was Pharaoh off the rack, but he bites in his confession, and retracts his promise.
Ver. 29. I will spread abroad my hands,] viz., In prayer; holding up and out the palms of the hand, as those do that expect to receive an alms, in a having manner: so did Solomon, 2 Chronicles 6:13 Ps 143:6 Ezr 9:5. That the earth is the Lord’s.] [See Trapp on “Ex 9:14”]
Ver. 30. That ye will not yet fear.] Howbeit I will pray for you, and you shall feel the fruit of it. Thus God is good to “the just and the unjust.” (Matthew 5:45)
Ver. 31,32. And the flax and the barley.] We need not wonder that in Egypt their barley harvest was so long before their wheat harvest; since, from the overflow of the Nile, and the difference of the climate, it must, needs be otherwise with them than with other countries.
Ver. 32. [See Trapp on “Ex 9:31”]
Ver. 33. Went out of the city.] For privacy sake. Spread abroad his hands.] [See Trapp on “Ex 9:29”]
Ver. 34. But sinned yet more.] As iron is very soft and malleable while in the fire, but soon after returns to its former hardness: so here.
Ver. 35. And the heart of Pharaoh was hardened.] Judicially; and penally, after that he had first hardened his own heart. (Exodus 9:34)