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Patriarchs and Prophets
and courtiers pressed about the king and angrily demanded, “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?”
Moses and Aaron were again summoned, and the monarch said to
them, “Go, serve the Lord your God: but who are they that shall go?”
The answer was, “We will go with our young and with our old,
with our sons and with our daughters, with our flocks and with our
herds will we go; for we must hold a feast unto the Lord.”
The king was filled with rage. “Let the Lord be so with you,” he
cried, “as I will let you go, and your little ones: look to it; for evil is
before you. Not so: go now ye that are men, and serve the Lord; for
that ye did desire. And they were driven out from Pharaoh’s presence.”
Pharaoh had endeavored to destroy the Israelites by hard labor, but
he now pretended to have a deep interest in their welfare and a tender
care for their little ones. His real object was to keep the women and
children as surety for the return of the men.
Moses now stretched forth his rod over the land, and an east wind
blew, and brought locusts. “Very grievous were they; before them
there were no such locusts as they, neither after them shall be such.”
They filled the sky till the land was darkened, and devoured every
green thing remaining. Pharaoh sent for the prophets in haste, and
said, “I have sinned against the Lord your God, and against you. Now
therefore, forgive, I pray thee, my sin only this once, and entreat the
Lord your God, that He may take away from me this death only.” They
did so, and a strong west wind carried away the locusts toward the Red
Sea. Still the king persisted in his stubborn resolution.
The people of Egypt were ready to despair. The scourges that had
already fallen upon them seemed almost beyond endurance, and they
were filled with fear for the future. The nation had worshiped Pharaoh
as a representative of their god, but many were now convinced that he
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was opposing himself to One who made all the powers of nature the
ministers of His will. The Hebrew slaves, so miraculously favored,
were becoming confident of deliverance. Their taskmasters dared not
oppress them as heretofore. Throughout Egypt there was a secret fear
that the enslaved race would rise and avenge their wrongs. Everywhere
men were asking with bated breath, What will come next?
Suddenly a darkness settled upon the land, so thick and black that
it seemed a “darkness which may be felt.” Not only were the people