Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Let my people go — Moses, in treating with the elders of Israel, is directed to call God the God of their fathers; but, in treating with Pharaoh, they call him the God of Israel, and it is the first time we find him called so in scripture. He is called the God of I... [ Continue Reading ]
Who is the Lord that I should obey his voice? — Being summoned to surrender, he thus hangs out the flag of defiance. Who is Jehovah? I neither know him nor care for him; neither value nor fear him. It is a hard name that he never heard of before, but he resolves it shall be no bugbear to him. Israel... [ Continue Reading ]
We pray thee, let us go three days journey into the desert — And that on a good errand, and unexceptionable: we will sacrifice to the Lord our God — As other people do to theirs; lest if we quite cast off his worship, he fall upon us — With one judgment or other, and then Pharaoh will lose his vassa... [ Continue Reading ]
The people are many — Therefore your injury to me is the greater, in attempting to make them rest from their labours.... [ Continue Reading ]
The task — masters, were Egyptians, the officers were Israelites employed under them.... [ Continue Reading ]
Straw — To mix with the clay, or to burn the brick with.... [ Continue Reading ]
They are idle — The cities they built for Pharaoh, were witnesses for them that they were not idle; yet he thus basely misrepresents them, that he might have a pretence to increase their burdens.... [ Continue Reading ]
Vain words — Those of Moses and Aaron.... [ Continue Reading ]
In thy own people — For if they had given us straw, we should have fulfilled our task.... [ Continue Reading ]
The Lord look upon you, and judge — They should have humbled themselves before God, but instead of that they fly in the face of their best friends. Those that are called to public service for God and their generation, must expect to be tried not only by the threats of proud enemies, but by the unjus... [ Continue Reading ]
He expostulated with him. He knew not how to reconcile the providence with the promise, and the commission he had received. Is this God's coming down to deliver Israel? Must I who hoped to be a blessing to them become a scourge to them? By this attempt to get them out of the pit, they are but sunk t... [ Continue Reading ]