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in the ear, and the flax was bolled. But the wheat and the rye were not
smitten, for they were not grown up.”
After the plague was stayed, the king refused to let Israel go.
Rebellion produces rebellion. The king had become so hardened with
his continual opposition to the will of God, that his whole being rose
in rebellion to the awful exhibitions of his divine power.
Moses and Aaron were commanded to again go in unto Pharaoh,
and request him to let Israel go. The Lord tells them that he has
suffered the king to resist them, and has borne with his continual
rebellion, that he might show his great signs and wonders before him,
and before the children of Israel, “that thou mayest tell in the ears of
thy son, and of thy son’s son, what things I have wrought in Egypt,
and my signs which I have done among them, that ye may know how
that I am the Lord.”
Here the Lord was manifesting his power to confirm the faith of
his people Israel in him as being the only true and living God. He
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would give them unmistakable evidences of the difference he placed
between the Egyptians and his people. His wonderful works in their
deliverance should cause all nations to know that although they had
been bound down by hard labor, and had been despised, yet he had
chosen them as his peculiar people, and that he would work for their
deliverance in a wonderful manner.
Moses and Aaron obeyed the command of God, and related to the
king the nature of the grievous plague which God was about to send
upon him; that if he would not let Israel go, he would bring locusts
into the coasts of Egypt, which would cover the face of the earth, and
would eat the residue of that which escaped the hail. The king was
permitted to choose—to humble himself before God, and let Israel go,
or refuse and suffer the effects of the plague.
“And Pharaoh’s servants said unto him, How long shall this man
be a snare unto us? Let the men go, that they may serve the Lord
their God. Knowest thou not yet that Egypt is destroyed?” The king’s
rulers or counselors were called his servants, because they were under
Pharaoh. They entreated the king to let Israel go. They related to him
that they had sustained great loss by the death of their cattle, and that
Egypt was nearly ruined by lightning. And the hail mingled with fire,
had broken down their forests, and had destroyed their fruit, and nearly
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all their grain; that everything was in a ruinous condition, and that they