Exodus 10:27

_BUT THE LORD HARDENED PHARAOH'S HEART, AND HE WOULD NOT LET THEM GO._ No JFB commentary on this verse....

27._But the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart. _A probable conjecture may be elicited front hence, that at the coming of Moses some light shone forth, so that the darkness was not so thick; because Pharaoh would never have dared to boast himself so proudly without being confident of impunity; but his pretences at the commencement (of their interview) are here omitted by Moses, though the mitigation of the horrible punishment which had urged him to supplication depended upon them. But although he is still in a state of alarm, still he is hardened, and prepares himself for every extremity rather than simply to obey God. Here, also, according to his custom, Moses asserts that God was the author of his obduracy; not because he inspired with obstinacy a heart otherwise disposed to docility and obedience, but because He gave over as a slave to Satan a reprobate who was willfully devoted to his own...

21-29 The plague of darkness brought upon Egypt was a dreadful plague. It was darkness which might be felt, so thick were the fogs. It astonished and terrified. It continued three days; six nights in one; so long the most lightsome palaces were dungeons. Now Pharaoh had time to consider, if he would have improved it. Spiritual darkness is spiritual bondage; while Satan blinds men's eyes that they see not, he binds their hands and feet, that they work not for God, nor move toward heaven. They sit in darkness. It was righteous with God thus to punish. The blindness of their minds brought upon them this darkness of the air; never was mind so blinded as Pharaoh's, never was air so darkened as Egypt. Let us dread the consequences of sin; if three days of darkness were so dreadful, what will everlasting darkness be? The children of Israel, at the same time, had light in their dwellings. We mu...

Verse Exodus 10:27. _THE LORD HARDENED PHARAOH'S HEART_] He had yet another miracle to work for the complete conviction of the Egyptians and triumph of his people; and till that was wrought he permitted the natural obstinacy of Pharaoh's haughty heart to have its full sway, after each resistance of the gracious influence which was intended to soften and bring him to repentance....

EXPOSITION THE NINTH PLAGUE. The ninth plague, like the third and the sixth, was inflicted without special warning. God had announced, after the plague of boils, that he was about to "send all his plagues upon the heart" of the king; and so a succession of inflictions was to be expected. The ninth plague probably followed the eighth after a very short interval. It is rightly regarded as an aggravation of a well-known natural phenomenon—the Khamsin, or "Wind of the Desert"_ _which commonly visits Egypt about the time of the vernal equinox, and is accompanied by an awful and weird darkness. This is caused by the dense clouds of fine sand which the wind brings with it, which intercept the sun's light, and produce a darkness beyond that of our worst fogs, and compared by some travellers to "the most gloomy night." The wind is depressing and annoying to an extreme degree. "While it lasts no m...

BUT THE LORD HARDENED PHARAOH'S HEART,.... Yet more and more: AND HE WOULD NOT LET THEM GO; his heart was set against it, his will was resolute, and he was determined never to let them go....

CHAPTER 10 THE EIGHTH AND NINTH PLAGUES _ 1. The eighth plague: locusts (Exodus 10:1)_ 2. Pharaoh's renewed confession and refusal (Exodus 10:16) 3. The ninth plague: darkness (Exodus 10:21) 4. Pharaoh's anger (Exodus 10:27) The eighth plague is introduced by another warning; the ninth came without it. As a result of the eighth plague, Pharaoh confessed his sin against God and against Moses and Aaron; but after the ninth plague drove Moses from his presence and threatened the divine messenger with death. Locusts covered the face of the whole earth and every green thing was destroyed. On the

EXODUS 7:14 TO EXODUS 12:36. THE TEN PLAGUES. How deeply this series of events imprinted itself on the mind and heart of the nation is shown by the fulness with which the three sources report them. J 1° 2° 4° 5° 7° 8° 9° 10° E 1° 7° 8° 9° 10° P 1° 2° 3° 6° 10° 1°, river turned to blood; 2°, frogs; 3°, fice (gnats); 4°, flies; 5°, murrain; 6°, boils; 7°, hail; 8°, locusts; 9°, darkness; 10°, death of firstborn. A sound historical judgment will conclude, both from this fact and from the nature of the occurrences mentioned, as well as from the need for _some_ such group of causes to account for the escape of the tribes, that the traditions have a firm foothold in real events. But since not less than four centuries intervened between the events and the earliest of our sources, it is not to b

HARDENED. See on Exodus 4:21....

Exodus 7:14 to Exodus 11:5 _The first nine Plagues_ The narrative of the Plagues, like that of the preceding Chapter s, is composite. The details of the analysis depend partly upon literary criteria, partly upon differences in the representation, which are not isolated, but recurrent, and which moreover _accompany_the literary differences and support the conclusions based upon them, the differences referred to often also agreeing remarkably with corresponding differences in the parts of the preceding narrative, especially in Exodus 3:1 to Exodus 7:13, which have already, upon independent grounds, been assigned to P, J, and E, respectively. N