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Patriarchs and Prophets
deceitfully with them. The plague was stayed, but the king’s heart had
become hardened by persistent rebellion, and he still refused to yield.
A more terrible stroke followed—murrain upon all the Egyptian
cattle that were in the field. Both the sacred animals and the beasts
of burden—kine and oxen and sheep, horses and camels and asses—
were destroyed. It had been distinctly stated that the Hebrews were to
be exempt; and Pharaoh, on sending messengers to the home of the
Israelites, proved the truth of this declaration of Moses. “Of the cattle
of the children of Israel died not one.” Still the king was obstinate.
Moses was next directed to take ashes of the furnace, and “sprinkle
it toward heaven in the sight of Pharaoh.” This act was deeply signif-
icant. Four hundred years before, God had shown to Abraham the
future oppression of His people, under the figure of a smoking furnace
and a burning lamp. He had declared that He would visit judgments
upon their oppressors, and would bring forth the captives with great
substance. In Egypt, Israel had long languished in the furnace of af-
fliction. This act of Moses was an assurance to them that God was
mindful of His covenant, and that the time for their deliverance had
come.
As the ashes were sprinkled toward heaven, the fine particles spread
over all the land of Egypt, and wherever they settled, produced boils
“breaking forth with blains upon man, and upon beast.” The priests
and magicians had hitherto encouraged Pharaoh in his stubbornness,
but now a judgment had come that reached even them. Smitten with a
loathsome and painful disease, their vaunted power only making them
contemptible, they were no longer able to contend against the God of
Israel. The whole nation was made to see the folly of trusting in the
magicians, when they were not able to protect even their own persons.
Still the heart of Pharaoh grew harder. And now the Lord sent a
message to him, declaring, “I will at this time send all My plagues upon
thy heart, and upon thy servants, and upon thy people; that thou mayest
know that there is none like Me in all the earth.... And in very deed for
this cause have I raised thee up, for to show in thee My power.” Not that
God had given him an existence for this purpose, but His providence
had overruled events to place him upon the throne at the very time
appointed for Israel’s deliverance. Though this haughty tyrant had by
his crimes forfeited the mercy of God, yet his life had been preserved
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that through his stubbornness the Lord might manifest His wonders