Exodus 4:21

_AND THE LORD SAID UNTO MOSES, WHEN THOU GOEST TO RETURN INTO EGYPT, SEE THAT THOU DO ALL THOSE WONDERS BEFORE PHARAOH, WHICH I HAVE PUT IN THINE HAND: BUT I WILL HARDEN HIS HEART, THAT HE SHALL NOT LET THE PEOPLE GO._ No JFB commentary on this verse....

21._When thou goest to return. _Moses had not previously enumerated the wonders; but from this verse we gather, that whatever we shall presently read to be done, was already commanded by God. There is then, no doubt, but that God had already advised him of his whole course of proceeding, lest he might yield to the obstinacy of the proud tyrant, and when two or three miracles had been wrought in vain, might cast away his rod, together with the charge committed to him. Now, therefore, God exhorts him to perseverance; and although he might perceive after three or four miracles that the obstinacy of the king was indomitable, still that he should not turn back, nor be discouraged, but should continue even unto the end. This, then, is the sum, that he should not faint nor fail, when he saw the inutility of his first efforts; nor cease to contend boldly till he had fulfilled all the objects of...

18-23 After God had appeared in the bush, he often spake to Moses. Pharaoh had hardened his own heart against the groans and cries of the oppressed Israelites; and now God, in the way of righteous judgment, hardens his heart against the teaching of the miracles, and the terror of the plagues. But whether Pharaoh will hear, or whether he will forbear, Moses must tell him, Thus saith the Lord. He must demand a discharge for Israel, Let my son go; not only my servant, whom thou hast no right to detain, but my son. It is my son that serves me, and therefore must be spared, must be pleaded for. In case of refusal I will slay thy son, even thy first-born. As men deal with God's people, let them expect so to be dealt with....

Verse Exodus 4:21. _BUT I WILL HARDEN HIS HEART_] The case of Pharaoh has given rise to many fierce controversies, and to several strange and conflicting opinions. Would men but look at the whole account without the medium of their respective creeds, they would find little difficulty to apprehend the truth. If we take up the subject in a _theological_ point of view, all sober Christians will allow the truth of this proposition of St. Augustine, when the subject in question is a person who has hardened his own heart by frequently resisting the grace and spirit of God: _Non obdurat Deus_ _impertiendo malitiam, sed non impertiendo misericordiam_; Epist. 194, ad Sixtum, "God does not harden men by infusing malice into them, but by not imparting mercy to them." And this other will be as readily credited: _Non operatur Deus in homine ipsam duritiam_ cordis; sed indurare...

I WILL HARDEN - Calamities which do not subdue the heart harden it. In the case of Pharaoh, the hardening was at once a righteous judgment, and a natural result of a long series of oppressions and cruelties....

EXPOSITION EXODUS 4:18-2 If Moses had, as we have supposed, been accepted into the Midianitish nation, he would need permission to withdraw himself from the tribal head. This head was now Jether, or Jethro, Moses' connexion by marriage, perhaps his brother-in-law, perhaps a less near connexion. Nations and tribes were at this time anxious to keep up their numbers, and jealous of the desertion even of a single member. Jethro, however, made no opposition to the return of Moses to Egypt, even though he designed to be accompanied by his wife and sons (Exodus 4:20). Scripture gives no indications of the motives which actuated him. Perhaps the Midianites were at this time straitened for want of room. Perhaps the peculiar circumstances of Moses were held to justify his applicatio

AND THE LORD SAID UNTO MOSES,.... At the same time he appeared to him in Midian, and ordered him to go into Egypt, even before his departure thither: WHEN THOU GOEST TO RETURN INTO EGYPT; and when got thither; for before the thing directed to in the next clause could not be done: SEE THAT THOU DO ALL THESE WONDERS BEFORE PHARAOH WHICH I HAVE PUT IN THINE HAND; not the three signs or wonders, related in the preceding part of the chapter, for they were to be done not before Pharaoh, but before the children of Israel; but these are the wonders he was to do in the sight of Pharaoh, by inflicting the various plagues on him and his people, for refusing to let Israel go, and which God had put in the power of Moses to perform, and that by means of the rod in his hand he ordered him to take with him, Exodus 4:17: but I will harden his heart, that he

HARDEN HIS HEART (Cf) (Exodus 8:15); (Exodus 8:32); (Exodus 9:34). In the face of the righteous demand of Jehovah and of the tremendous attestations by miracle that He was indeed God, and that Moses and Aaron were His representatives, Pharaoh "hardened his heart." Instrumentally God hardened Pharaoh's heart by forcing him to an issue against which he hardened his own heart in refusal. Light rejected, rightful obedience refused, inevitably hardens conscience and heart. (Romans 9:17)....

CHAPTER 4:1-28 MOSES' OBJECTIONS, JEHOVAH'S ANSWER AND THE RETURN TO EGYPT _ 1. The first objection (Exodus 4:1)_ 2. The two signs and Jehovah's assurance (Exodus 4:2) 3. The second objection (Exodus 4:10) 4. Jehovah's answer (Exodus 4:11) 5. Moses' request (Exodus 4:13) 6. Jehovah's anger and answer (Exodus 4:14) 7. The command to return to Egypt (Exodus 4:18

EXODUS 4:21 J. THE DEATH OF PHARAOH'S FIRSTBORN IS THREATENED. Exodus 4:22 f. seems to have been moved back hither from before Exodus 10:28 to serve as a general introduction to the Plagues, receiving Exodus 4:21 as preface. The portents of Exodus 4:21 are not the signs of Exodus 4:2 J, to be done for Israel's benefit, but those of Exodus 4:17 E, to be done with the rod before Pharaoh. With...