Notes on the book of Exodus

by Charles Henry Mackintosh

"And the Lord said unto Moses, 'Yet will I bring one plague more upon Pharaoh, and upon Egypt; afterwards he will let you go hence: when he shall let you go, he shall surely thrust you out hence altogether.'" (Chap. xi. 1.) One more heavy blow must fall upon this hard-hearted monarch and his land ere he will be compelled to let go the favored objects of Jehovah's sovereign grace.

How utterly vain it is for man to harden and exalt himself against God; for, truly, He can grind to powder the hardest heart, and bring down to the dust the haughtiest spirit. "Those that walk in pride He is able to abase." (Dan. iv. 37.) Man may fancy himself to be something; he may lift up his head, in pomp and vainglory, as though he were his own master. Vain man! how little he knows of his real condition and character! He is but the tool of Satan, taken up and used by him, in his malignant efforts to counteract the purposes of God. The most splendid intellect, the most commanding genius, the most indomitable energy, if not under the direct control of the Spirit of God, are but so many instruments in Satan's hand to carry forward his dark designs. No man is his own master; he is either governed by Christ or governed by Satan. The king of Egypt might fancy himself to be a free agent, yet he was but a tool in the hands of another. Satan was behind the throne; and, as the result of Pharaoh's having set himself to resist the purposes of God, he was judicially handed over to the blinding and hardening influence of his self-chosen master.

This will explain to us an expression occurring very frequently throughout the earlier chapters of this book,—"The Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart." There is no need whatever for any one to seek to avoid the full, plain sense of this most solemn statement. If man resists the light of divine testimony, he is shut up to judicial blindness and hardness of heart. God leaves him to himself, and then Satan comes in and carries him headlong to perdition. There was abundant light for Pharaoh, to show him the extravagant folly of his course in seeking to detain those whom God had commanded him to let go. But the real disposition of his heart was to act against God, and therefore God left him to himself, and made him a monument for the display of His glory "through all the earth." There is no difficulty in this to any, save those whose desire is to argue against God—"to rush upon the thick bosses of the shield of the Almighty"—to ruin their own immortal souls.

God gives people, at times, according to the real bent of their hearts' desire. "... because of this, God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie; that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness." (2 Thess. ii. 11, 12.) If men will not have the truth when it is put before them, they shall assuredly have a lie. If they will not have Christ, they shall have Satan; if they will not have heaven, they shall have hell.[6] Will the infidel mind find fault with this? Ere it does so, let it prove that all who are thus judicially dealt with have fully answered their responsibilities. Let it, for instance, prove, in Pharaoh's case, that he acted, in any measure, up to the light he possessed. The same is to be proved in every case. Unquestionably, the task of proving rests on those who are disposed to quarrel with God's mode of dealing with the rejecters of His truth. The simple-hearted child of God will justify Him, in view of the most inscrutable dispensations; and even if he cannot meet and satisfactorily solve the difficult questions of a sceptical mind, he can rest perfectly satisfied with this word, "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" There is far more wisdom in this method of settling an apparent difficulty, than in the most elaborate argument; for it is perfectly certain that the heart which is in a condition to "reply against God," will not be convinced by the arguments of man.

However, it is God's prerogative to answer all the proud reasonings, and bring down the lofty imaginations of the human mind. He can write the sentence of death upon nature, in its fairest forms. "It is appointed unto men once to die." This cannot be avoided. Man may seek to hide his humiliation in various ways,—to cover his retreat through the valley of death in the most heroic manner possible,—to call the last humiliating stage of his career by the most honorable titles he can devise,—to gild the bed of death with a false light,—to adorn the funeral procession and the grave with the appearance of pomp, pageantry, and glory,—to raise above the mouldering ashes a splendid monument, on which are engraven the records of human shame,—all these things he may do; but death is death after all, and he cannot keep it off for a moment, or make it aught else than what it is, namely, "the wages of sin."

The foregoing thoughts are suggested by the opening verse of chapter xi—"One plague more!" Solemn word! It signed the death-warrant of Egypt's first-born—"the chief of all their strength." "And Moses said, 'Thus saith the Lord, About midnight will I go out into the midst of Egypt; and all the first-born in the land of Egypt shall die, from the first-born of Pharaoh that sitteth upon his throne, even unto the first-born of the maid-servant that is behind the mill; and all the first-born of beasts. And there shall be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as there was none like it, nor shall be like it any more.'" (Chap. xi. 4-6.) This was to be the final plague—death in every house. "But against any of the children of Israel shall not a dog move his tongue, against man or beast; that ye may know how that the Lord doth put a difference between the Egyptians and Israel." It is the Lord alone who can "put a difference" between those who are His and those who are not. It is not our province to say to any one, "Stand by thyself; I am holier than thou:" this is the language of a Pharisee. "But when God puts a difference," we are bound to inquire what that difference is; and, in the case before us, we see it to be a simple question of life or death. This is God's grand "difference." He draws a line of demarkation, and on one side of this line is "life," on the other "death." Many of Egypt's first-born might have been as fair and attractive as those of Israel, and much more so; but Israel had life and light, founded upon God's counsels of redeeming love, established, as we shall see presently, by the blood of the lamb. This was Israel's happy position; while, on the other hand, throughout the length and breadth of the land of Egypt, from the monarch on the throne to the menial behind the mill, nothing was to be seen but death; nothing to be heard but the cry of bitter anguish, elicited by the heavy stroke of Jehovah's rod. God can bring down the haughty spirit of man. He can make the wrath of man to praise Him, and restrain the remainder. "And all these thy servants shall come down unto me, and bow down themselves unto me, saying, Get thee out, and all the people that follow thee: and after that I will go out." God will accomplish His own ends. His schemes of mercy must be carried out at all cost, and confusion of face must be the portion of all who stand in the way. "O, give thanks unto the Lord; for He is good: for His mercy endureth forever.... To Him that smote Egypt in their first-born; for His mercy endureth forever: and brought out Israel from among them; for His mercy endureth forever: with a strong hand and with a stretched-out arm; for His mercy endureth forever." (Ps. cxxxvi.)

"And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, 'This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you.'" (Chap. xii. 1, 2.) There is here a very interesting change in the order of time. The common or civil year was rolling on in its ordinary course, when Jehovah interrupted it in reference to His people, and thus, in principle, taught them that they were to begin a new era in company with Him; their previous history was henceforth to be regarded as a blank. Redemption was to constitute the first step in real life.

This teaches a plain truth. A man's life is really of no account until he begins to walk with God, in the knowledge of full salvation and settled peace, through the precious blood of the Lamb. Previous to this, he is, in the judgment of God, and in the language of Scripture, "dead in trespasses and sins;" "alienated from the life of God." His whole history is a complete blank, even though, in man's account, it may have been one uninterrupted scene of bustling activity. All that which engages the attention of the man of this world—the honors, the riches, the pleasures, the attractions of life, so called—all, when examined in the light of the judgment of God, when weighed in the balances of the sanctuary, must be accounted as a dismal blank, a worthless void, utterly unworthy of a place in the records of the Holy Ghost. "He that believeth not the Son shall not see life." (John iii. 36.) Men speak of "seeing life" when they launch forth into society, travel hither and thither, and see all that is to be seen; but they forget that the only true, the only real, the only divine way to "see life," is to "believe on the Son of God."

How little do men think of this! They imagine that "real life" is at an end when a man becomes a Christian, in truth and reality, not merely in name and outward profession; whereas God's Word teaches us that it is only then we can see life and taste true happiness.—"He that hath the Son, hath life." (1 John v. 12.) And, again, "Happy is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered." (Ps. xxxii. 1.) We can get life and happiness only in Christ. Apart from Him, all is death and misery, in Heaven's judgment, whatever the outward appearance may be. It is when the thick vail of unbelief is removed from the heart, and we are enabled to behold, with the eye of faith, the bleeding Lamb, bearing our heavy burden of guilt upon the cursed tree, that we enter upon the path of life, and partake of the cup of divine happiness,—a life which begins at the cross, and flows onward into an eternity of glory,—a happiness which, each day, becomes deeper and purer, more connected with God and founded on Christ, until we reach its proper sphere, in the presence of God and the Lamb. To seek life and happiness in any other way is vainer work by far than seeking to make bricks without straw.

True, the enemy of souls spreads a gilding over this passing scene, in order that men may imagine it to be all gold. He sets up many a puppet-show to elicit the hollow laugh from a thoughtless multitude, who will not remember that it is Satan who is in the box, and that his object is to keep them from Christ, and drag them down into eternal perdition. There is nothing real, nothing solid, nothing satisfying, but in Christ. Outside of Him, "all is vanity and vexation of spirit." In Him alone true and eternal joys are to be found; and we only begin to live when we begin to live in, live on, live with, and live for Him. "This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you." The time spent in the brick-kilns and by the flesh-pots must be ignored. It is henceforth to be of no account, save that the remembrance thereof should ever and anon serve to quicken and deepen their sense of what divine grace had accomplished on their behalf.