Exodus 8:32

_AND PHARAOH CALLED FOR MOSES AND FOR AARON, AND SAID, GO YE, SACRIFICE TO YOUR GOD IN THE LAND._ Pharaoh called for Moses and for Aaron, and said, Go ye, sacrifice to your God in the land. Between impatient anxiety to be freed from this scourge, and a reluctance to part with the Hebrew bondsmen, the king followed the course of expediency: he proposed to let them free to engage in their religious rites within any part of the kingdom. But, true to his instructions, Moses would accede to no such arrangement; he stated a most valid reason to show the danger of it. Verse 26. WE SHALL SACRIFICE THE ABOMINATION OF THE EGYPTIANS BEFORE THEIR EYES ... The meaning is, not that the animals offered in sacrifice by the Israelites, being held sacred by the Egyptians, would naturally give offence to the latter; but it was the disregard of certain preparatory and accompanying rites, such as the minute...

20-32 Pharaoh was early at his false devotions to the river; and shall we be for more sleep and more slumber, when any service to the Lord is to be done? The Egyptians and the Hebrews were to be marked in the plague of flies. The Lord knows them that are his, and will make it appear, perhaps in this world, certainly in the other, that he has set them apart for himself. Pharaoh unwillingly entered into a treaty with Moses and Aaron. He is content they should sacrifice to their God, provided they would do it in the land of Egypt. But it would be an abomination to God, should they offer the Egyptian sacrifices; and it would be an abomination to the Egyptians, should they offer to God the objects of the worship of the Egyptians, namely, their calves or oxen. Those who would offer acceptable sacrifice to God, must separate themselves from the wicked and profane. They must also retire from th...

Verse Exodus 8:32. _PHARAOH HARDENED HIS HEART AT THIS TIME ALSO_] See Exodus 8:15. This hardening was the mere effect of his self-determining obstinacy. He preferred his _gain_ to the will and command of Jehovah, and God made his obstinacy the means of showing forth his own power and providence in a supereminent degree. 1. As every false religion proves there is a true one, as a _copy_, however marred or imperfect, shows there was an _original_ from which it was taken, so false miracles prove that there were genuine miracles, and that God chooses at particular times, for the most important purposes, to invert the established order of nature, and thus prove his omnipotence and universal agency. That the miracles wrought at this time were _real_ we have the fullest proof.

EXPOSITION The fourth plague moves the Pharaoh more than any preceding one. He still cannot bring himself to grant the demand of Moses; but he offers a compromise. The Israelites shall have a respite from their toils, and be permitted to hold their festival, and offer the needful sacrifices in Egypt (Exodus 8:25). When this offer is for good reasons not accepted, he yields even further—he will let the people go and sacrifice _in the wilderness_—only they must not "go far away"(Exodus 8:28). Having made this promise, he obtains for the second time the intercession of Moses and the discontinuance of the plague in consequence of it. But then, as before, when he saw that there was respite (Exodus 8:15), he retracted

AND PHARAOH HARDENED HIS HEART AT THIS TIME ALSO,.... As he did before, when he found the plague was removed, and the flies were gone: NEITHER WOULD HE LET THE PEOPLE GO; through pride and covetousness, being loath to have the number of those under his dominion so much diminished, and to lose so large a branch of his revenues arising from the labour of these people....

CHAPTER 8 THE SECOND, THIRD, AND FOURTH PLAGUES _ 1. The demand and the plague of frogs announced (Exodus 8:1)_ 2. The plague executed (Exodus 8:5) 3. The request of Pharaoh and the frogs removed (Exodus 8:8) 4. The divine command for the third plague (Exodus 8:16) 5. The plague executed (Exodus 8:17) 6. The confession of the magicians (Exodus 8:18) 7. The renewed demand and the plague of the flies announced ...

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

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

The Text of EXODUS TRANSLATION 8 And Je-ho-vah spake unto Mo-ses, Go in unto Pha-raoh, and say unto him, Thus saith Je-ho-vah, Let my people go, that they may serve me. (2) And if thou refuse to let them go, behold, I will smite all thy borders with frogs: (3) and the river shall swarm with frogs, which shall go up and come into thy house, and into thy bedchamber, and upon thy bed, and into the house of thy servants, and upon thy people, and into thine ovens, and into thy kneading-troughs: (4) and the frogs shall come up both upon thee, and upon thy people, and upon all thy servants. (5) And Je-ho-vah said unto Mo-ses, Say unto Aar-on, Stretch forth thy hand with thy rod over the rivers, over the streams, and over the pools, and cause frogs to come up upon the land of E-gypt. (6) And Aar-on stretched out his hand over the waters of E-gypt; and the frogs came up, and covered the land of E...

8:32 hardened (a-3) Lit. 'made heavy,' as chs. 7.14; 8.15; 9.34; 10.1....