The fifth plague of murrain destroyed all the cattle of Egypt, but of" the cattle of the Israelites died not one." It was immediately inflicted by GOD himself, after previous notification, and without the agency of Moses or Aaron, to manifest the divine indignation at Pharaoh's falsehood. And though the king sent, and found, that not one of the Israelites was dead, yet his heart was hardened this sixth time also, and he would not let the people go, ix. 1-7.

SIXTH PLAGUE.

At length, after Pharaoh had repeatedly abused the gracious. respites and warnings vouchsafed to him and his servants, a sorer set of plagues, affecting themselves, began to be inflicted. -And Moses, now for the first time, appears as the executioner of divine vengeance; for in the presence of Pharaoh, by the divine command, he sprinkled ashes of the furnace towards heaven, and it became a boil, breaking forth with blains upon man and upon beast. And the magicians could not stand before Moses, because of the boil, which affected them and all the Egyptians, ix. 8-11.

This was a very significant plague: " the furnace" from which the ashes were taken, aptly represented" the iron furnace" of Egyptian bondage, Deut. iv. 20; and the scattering of the ashes in the air, might have referred to the usage of the Egyptians in their Typhonian sacrifices of human victims; while it converted another of the elements, and of their gods, the air, or æther, into an instrument of their chastisement.

And now THE LORD, for the first time, hardened the heart of Pharaoh," after he had so repeatedly hardened it himself, " and he hearkened not unto them, as the Lord had foretold unto Moses," ix. 12. Though Pharaoh probably felt the scourge of the boil, as well as his people, it did not soften nor humble his heart. And when he wilfully and obstinately turned away from the light, and shut his eyes against the luminous evidences vouchsafed to him of the supremacy of the GOD OF THE HEBREWS, and had twice broken his promise, when he was indulged with a respite, and dealt deceitfully, he became a just object of punishment; and GOD now began to encrease the hardness or obduracy of his heart. And such is the usual and the righteous course of his Providence: when nations or individuals despise the warnings of heaven, abuse their best gifts, and

resist the means of grace, "GOD then delivers them over to a reprobate or undiscerning mind, to work all uncleanness with greediness," Rom. i. 28. In the emblematical plagues of the Apocalypse, when the fifth vial is poured out upon the air, the throne of the beast, the sufferers blaspheme the God of heaven, in consequence of their pains and their ulcers, and repent not of their works, Rev. xvi. 10, 11.

SEVENTH PLAGUE.

In the tremendous plague of hail, the united elements of air, water, and fire, were employed to terrify and punish the Egyptians, by their principal divinities. This plague was formally announced to Pharaoh and his people:

"I will, at this season, send all my plagues upon thine heart, and upon thy servants, and upon thy people, that thou mayest know that there is none like ME in all the earth. For now I could stretch out my hand, and smite thee and thy people with pestilence, [or destroy thee at once, like thy cattle with the murrain,] and thou shouldst be cut off from the earth: but in truth, for this cause have I sustained thee, that I might manifest in thee my power, and that my name might be declared throughout the whole earth," ix. 13-16. This rendering of the passage is more conformable to the context, the Chaldee Paraphrase, and to the foregoing observation of Philo, alluding thereto, than the received translation,-" For now, I will stretch out my hand, that I may smite thee and thy people with pestilence." -For surely Pharaoh and his people were not smitten with pestilence; and " they were preserved" or kept from immediate destruction, according to the Sept. (diτnon≈ns,) "to manifest the divine power," by the number and variety of their plagues.

Still, however, in the midst of judgment God remembered mercy; He gave a gracious warning to the Egyptians, to avoid, if they chose, the threatened calamity. "Send therefore now, and gather thy cattle, and all that thou hast in the field: every man and beast that shall be found in the field, and shall not be brought home, the hail shall come down upon them, and they shall die."

And this warning had some effect: "He that feared the word of the Lord among the servants of Pharaoh, made his servants and his cattle flee into the houses; and he that regarded not

the word of the Lord, left his servants and his cattle in the field," ix. 17-21.

But it may be asked, If all the cattle of the Egyptians were destroyed by the foregoing plague of murrain, as asserted, ix. 6. how came there to be any cattle left?-Surely the Egyptians might have recruited their stock from the land of Goshen, where "not one of the cattle of the Israelites died."-And this justifies the supposition, that there was some" respite," or interval, between the several plagues, and confirms the conjecture of the duration of the whole, about a quarter of a year. And that the warning, in this case, was respected by many of the Egyptians, we may infer from the number of chariots and horsemen that went in pursuit of the Israelites afterwards.

This was foretold to be "a very grievous hail, such as had not been in Egypt since the foundation thereof;-and the Lord sent thunder and hail, and the fire ran along the ground.-And the hail smote throughout all the land of Egypt all that was in the field, both man and beast; and the hail smote every herb of the field, and brake every tree of the field. Only in the land of Goshen, where the children of Israel were, was there no hail."

The effect of such a tremendous hurricane, in a country where it seldom rains or thunders, insomuch that Herodotus represents rain at Thebes, in upper Egypt, as an alarming event, (avapoiov Toпyμа,) B. III. 10; and its universality; whereas hurricanes are usually partial; and the total exemption of Goshen, in the heart of Egypt, altogether moved the obdurate heart of Pharaoh, so that he sent and called for Moses and Aaron, and said unto them "I have sinned this time; the LORD is righteous, and I and my people are wicked. Intreat THE LORD, (for it is enough,) that there might be no more mighty thunderings and hail; and I will let you go, and ye shall stay no longer."-But when there was respite, Pharaoh "sinned yet more, and hardened his heart, he and his servants-neither would he let the people go," Exod. ix. 27-35.

In this instance, there is a remarkable suspension of the judicial infatuation. Pharaoh had humbled himself, and acknowledged his own and his people's guilt, and the justice of the divine plague. The Lord, therefore, forebore this time to harden his heart. But he abused the long-sufferance of God, and this additional respite; he sinned yet more, because he now sinned wilfully, after he had received information of the truth; he re

lapsed, and hardened his own heart, a seventh time. He became, therefore, a vessel of wrath fitted for destruction," Heb.

x. 26; Rom. ix. 22.

The state of such a relapsed penitent is awfully described by our LORD: "when the impure spirit is gone out of a man, [expelled, for a time, by some divine judgment or visitation in mercy,] it walketh through desert places, seeking rest, but findeth none: Then it saith, I will return to my house [the man's heart,] from whence I went out, and having come, [thither,] findeth it vacant, swept, and garnished, [disposed and prepared for re-occupation]. Then it goeth, and taketh with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they enter in and dwell there. So, the last state of that man is worse than the first,” Matt. xii. 43. Compare 2 Pet. ii. 20.

From this awakening passage, compared with other parts of Scripture, may we not venture to collect, that when GoD is said to harden Pharaoh's heart, it was in reality hardened by diabolical influence, or demoniacal possession. The cases of David and Ahab are precisely in point: in one passage it is said, "The anger of THE LORD was kindled against Israel, and HE moved David against them, [to say to his captains,] Go, number Israel and Judah," 2 Sam. xxiv. 1. But the parallel passage states, that "Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel," 1 Chron. xxi. 1. And in Ahab's case, "THE LORD, in his council, commissioned a lying spirit to persuade Ahab to his destruction, by fighting the Syrians at Ramoth Gilead," 2 Kings xxii. 19. See the foregoing analysis of the book of Job.

And surely the distinction between Pharaoh's hardening his heart, at first, and GOD afterwards, is too strongly marked, to resolve the latter, with most expositors, merely into "divine dereliction;" as if God only left Pharaoh to himself, to follow his own inventions or imaginations, unrestrained by preventing grace. Pharaoh's situation in the latter case, after his relapse, exactly resembled that of Eli's sons; who were sons of Belial, [or the Devil, 2 Cor. vi. 15, 1 Cor. x. 21,] they knew not THE LORD and they hearkened not unto the [warning] voice of their father, because THE LORD willed to slay them," 1 Sam. ii. 12-25. Their destruction is here expressly ascribed to THE LORD; which implies something more than a bare negation, or desertion, on his part; it implies the active operation of divine

wrath.-Like them, Pharaoh was "a son of Belial," and the magicians of his court were like Elymas the sorcerer, who withstood the Apostles, and endeavoured to pervert Sergius Paulus from the faith of CHRIST; whom Paul, “filled with the Holy Spirit," called " a son of the Devil, and an enemy of all righteousness;" and struck with a temporary blindness, Acts xiii. 6—12.

THE EIGHTH PLAGUE.

The design of this and the ensuing plagues, was to confirm the faith of the Israelites.—“ That thou mayest tell in the ears of thy son, and of thy son's son, what I have wrought in Egypt, and my signs which I have done among them: that ye may know how that I am THE LORD."

This plague of locusts, inflicted on the now devoted Egyptians and their king, completed the havoc begun by the hail; by this "the wheat and rye were destroyed, and every herb of the land, and all the fruit of the trees which the hail had left : and there remained not any verdure in the trees, nor in the herbs of the field, throughout the land of Egypt."-" Very grievous were they; before them there were no such locusts as they, neither after them shall there be such," Exod. x. 3—15.

Though locusts are common in Arabia, they are seldom found in Egypt; the Red Sea forming a barrier against them, as they are not formed for crossing seas, or for long flights. The winds, also, blow there six months from the north, and six from the south: so that “the strong easterly wind" that enabled them to cross it, was evidently præternatural. Such was the powerful operation of this plague, that " Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron in haste, and said, I have sinned against THE LORD YOUR GOD, and against you: Now, therefore, forgive I pray thee, my sins, only this once, and intreat the Lord your God, that he may take away from me this death only.""And the Lord turned a mighty strong sea wind," (which blew from the Mediterranean Sea, or in a north-westerly direction,)" and carried away the locusts, and cast them into the Red Sea," so completely, that there remained not one locust in all the coasts of Egypt. But THE LORD hardened the heart of Pharaoh, so that he would not let the children of Israel go, with their

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