Of two facts we may be very sure. (1) They had no help from God. Their wonders were not wrought by God’s power. We may put this denial on two independent grounds:——(a.) The moral purpose of their work utterly forbids the least participation on God’s part. God never fights against himself.——(b.) Their power was infinitely less than divine. Compared with God’s, it was shown to be simple weakness. “Aaron’s rod swallowed up their rods.” Before the plague of lice they were compelled to succumb, and (utterly against their will and against their interest) they declare to Pharaoh—“This is the finger of God”! It utterly distances all our skill. We can not approach it. Before the boils, they writhed in agony. They could not even screen themselves from the terrible infliction. Moreover it is made plain throughout the whole transaction that they were powerless to remove even the slightest of these plagues. If they had possessed this power Pharaoh would have put them to this service. It is plain they shrank from even the attempt. The whole scene was a competition between God’s power as manifested through his servants, Moses and Aaron, and the power of Egypt’s magicians—resulting in most overwhelming proof that the latter had not the first element of God’s power in it.——It follows therefore that if the magicians had extra-human help—if they had any power beyond human skill, they obtained it from Satan. We may readily suppose they were in league with him, working according to his will. He may have sharpened their wits by his influence, helped their arts by his suggestions, and possibly may have given them superhuman aid in the line of physical power. It is not given to us to know the exact limits of his power to aid his servants. It is not essential that we should know precisely where these limits are. We know enough to impress the injunction—“Be sober, be vigilant, because of your adversary the devil” (1 Pet. 5: 8).It may always be our consolation that whenever he matches his power or his skill against the Almighty, he will come off, as, in the case before us, utterly worsted in the fight, overwhelmed with defeat and shame.
4. Some attention should be given to the divine purpose and policy in shaping the demand made upon Pharaoh to let the people go.——The point of special importance here is one which has been thought to involve the question of strict moral honesty—it being claimed that the divine demand at first ran on this wise: “Let us go three days’ journey into the wilderness that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God” (Ex. 3: 18)—leaving Pharaoh to assume that, this being granted, they would return to his service.
The facts on this point are:
(1.) It was never promised or even intimated that they would return. If Pharaoh construed the words of God and of Moses to imply this, he did so on his own responsibility.
(2.) The demand made upon him that he should let the people go was based in part at least on the religious duty of sacrificing to God in the wilderness (Ex. 5: 1, 3)—an entirely appropriate demand—one which Pharaoh ought to have appreciated, and one which would be more likely to have weight with him than any other. For he was himself a worshiper of his own gods; he knew the strength of the religious element in human nature; he was able to recognize the universal rights of conscience by which every man may claim to worship God according to his own convictions of duty. If Pharaoh would not yield to this request he would yield to none. The policy pursued was, therefore, the most hopeful and the least likely to arouse opposition.
(3.) Even the severest honesty did not require that the Lord should put this demand in its most revolting form in the outset. True, he might have said from the beginning: “My people shall never return”; but this would have at once foreclosed all hope of gaining Pharaoh’s consent.
(4.) If the question of the return of the people was thus left a very little open—or more correctly, was not peremptorily closed, it served the better to test theheart of Pharaoh. It left the way open to ply him with inducements most likely to be successful; and at the same time if he proved obstinate and self-willed, he might show it by bantering over the conditions, higgling as tradesmen and their customers sometimes do over the price, negotiating like diplomatists for the most favorable terms. But this was the fault of Pharaoh, not of God.
(5.) Most frequently the demand was made in these significant words: “Let my people go that they may serve me” (Ex. 8: 1, 20, and 9: 1, 13). Israel is my son; his service is due to me and I claim it (Ex. 4: 22, 23). You have no right to his services; I demand therefore that you let my son go that he may serve me.——This is at least sufficiently definite, and is by no means open to the slightest imputation of lacking in the point of honesty.
5. The hardening of Pharaoh’s heart.