Exodus 7:5

_BUT PHARAOH SHALL NOT HEARKEN UNTO YOU, THAT I MAY LAY MY HAND UPON EGYPT, AND BRING FORTH MINE ARMIES, AND MY PEOPLE THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL, OUT OF THE LAND OF EGYPT BY GREAT JUDGMENTS._ Pharaoh shall not hearken unto you, that I may lay my hand upon Egypt. The succession of terrible judgments with which the country was about to be scourged would fully demonstrate the supremacy of Israel's God. It is a very partial and incomplete view of the momentous transactions which were enacted on the field of Zoan to consider them as designed to accomplish the deliverance of the Israelites from Egyptian bondage. That certainly was one part of the plan. But a far higher and more enlarged purpose was contemplated by those miraculous occurances-namely, that of opposing and destroying the power and influence of Egyptian idolatry. The contest was not so much with the monarch himself as with the idols...

5._And the Egyptians shall know. _This is a species of irony, viz., that the Egyptians, subdued by the plagues, should at last begin to feel that their contention was against God. The object, however, of God was to encourage Moses, lest he should fail before the madness and fury of his enemies. Therefore, although the Egyptians might be stupid n their rage, still God declares that in the end they would know that they had fought to their own destruction when they waged war against heaven; for there is an implied _antithesis _between their tardy acknowledgment of this and their present slowness of heart, which was at length forcibly removed when God thundered openly against them from heaven. For we know how unconcernedly the wicked oppose their (79) iron obstinacy to the Divine threatenings, until they are forced into a state of alarm by violence; not because they are humbled beneath the h...

1-7 God glorifies himself. He makes people know that he is Jehovah. Israel is made to know it by the performance of his promises to them, and the Egyptians by the pouring out of his wrath upon them. Moses, as the ambassador of Jehovah, speaking in his name, laid commands upon Pharaoh, denounced threatenings against him, and called for judgments upon him. Pharaoh, proud and great as he was, could not resist. Moses stood not in awe of Pharaoh, but made him tremble. This seems to be meant in the words, Thou shalt be a god unto Pharaoh. At length Moses is delivered from his fears. He makes no more objections, but, being strengthened in faith, goes about his work with courage, and proceeds in it with perseverance....

Verse Exodus 7:5. _AND BRING OUT THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL_] Pharaoh's obstinacy was either caused or permitted in mercy to the Egyptians, that he and his magicians being suffered to oppose Moses and Aaron to the uttermost of their power, the Israelites might be brought out of Egypt in so signal a manner, in spite of all the opposition of the Egyptians, their king, and their gods, that Jehovah might appear to be _All-mighty_ and _All-sufficient_....

EXPOSITION EXODUS 7:1 Once more God made allowance for the weakness and self-distrust of Moses, severely tried as he had been by his former failure to persuade Pharaoh (Exodus 5:1) and his recent rejection by the people of Israel (Exodus 6:9). He made allowance, and raised his courage and his spirits by fresh promises, and by a call upon him for immediate action. The process of deliverance, God assured him, was just about to begin. Miracles would be wrought until Pharaoh's stubbornness was overcome. He was himself to begin the series at once by casting his rod upon the ground, that it might become a serpent (Exodus 7:9). Fr

AND THE EGYPTIANS SHALL KNOW THAT I AM THE LORD,.... Jehovah, the one only true and living God; this they should know by the judgments executed upon them, and be obliged to acknowledge it: WHEN I STRETCH FORTH MINE HAND UPON EGYPT: especially the last time, to destroy the firstborn: AND BRING OUT THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL FROM AMONG THEM; by which it would appear that he was mightier than they, and obtained the end for which the plagues were inflicted on them....

WHEN A prophetic sign also. The nations shall know Jehovah when He restores and blesses Israel in the kingdom. (Isaiah 2:1); (Isaiah 11:10); (Isaiah 11:1); (Isaiah 60:4); (Ezekiel 37:28)....

CHAPTER S 6:28-7:13 THE RENEWED COMMISSION AND BEFORE PHARAOH AGAIN _ 1. Renewed commission and renewed hesitation (Exodus 6:28)_ 2. Jehovah's instructions (Exodus 7:1) 3. Before Pharaoh and the sign of the rod (Exodus 7:10) Once more Moses received his commission, and again he hesitated on account of his poor speech. After all the gracious words Jehovah had spoken he pleads again his weakness. It shows what the unbelieving heart is. Twice Jehovah said that Moses should be a god. A god to Aaron (4:16) and a god to Pharaoh (7:1). He received divine authority and power over Pharaoh, while he was to his spokesman Aaron a god, because the word he uttered to him to communicate to Pharaoh was the word of

SHALL KNOW: i.e. by. great experience. That was the great object of all these ten plagues; as it will be in the coming day of the judgments described in the Apocalypse. Revelation 16:5....

THE EGYPTIANS SHALL KNOW THAT I AM THE LORD— The great design of this wonderful exhibition of miracles, was to prove to the Egyptians, and so to all the world, that the _Jehovah_ of the Jews, the Almighty Deliverer of his people Israel, was not only superior to theirs, and to all the gods of the nations; but also, that he was the Sovereign Ruler and Controuler, as well as the Maker, of all created things: and if we consider the miracles in this view, we shall find that they all tend to demonstrate the uncontroulable sovereignty of Jehovah over all nature. See ch. Exodus 10:2 Exodus 14:4; Exodus 14:18, &c....