Pharaoh's heart, and he would not let them go.

28 And Pharaoh said unto him, Get thee from me, take heed to thyself, see my face no more: for in that day thou seest my face, thou shalt die.

29 And Moses said, Thou hast

3 lo abah, was not willing, was not persuaded, did not consent, to let them go. This word, strongly indicative of the wilfulness of the king, occurs here for the first time in the whole narrative.

1. And the Lord said unto Moses. Rather perhaps, "The Lord had said unto Moses.' From v. 8, it appears that Moses, after announcing the eighth plague, went out from Pharaoh in great anger, and yet previously in ch. 10. 29, he is represented as saying to Pharaoh, 'I will see thy face again no more.' It is consequently to be inferred that the present judgment was denounced to the king before the close of the last-mentioned interview, and the information respecting it communicated to Moses some time previous to that interview. The true construction undoubtedly is to consider the first three verses of this chapter as a mere parenthesis, and to connect ch. 11. 4, with ch. 10. 29, as a continuation of the same train of narrative. Otherwise there is very great confusion in the incidents detailed. The connexion between this and the last verse of the preceding chapter is undoubtedly very close, however loose at first sight it may appear. Moses does

28. Get thee from me, &c. Has a servant, an agent, or an officer, deeply offended his superior, he will say to him, 'Take care never to see my face again; for on the day you do that, evil shall come upon you.' 'Begone, and in future never look in this face,' pointing to his own.' Roberts. The firmness of Moses exasperated Pharaoh beyond measure. He here shows himself frantic with disappointment and rage. He not only dismisses the unwelcome messenger with indignation, from his court, but forbids, upon pain of death, the beholding his face again. A desperate madness and an impotent malice are alike conspicuous in this angry order. Had he not had abundant evidence that Moses could plague him without seeing his face? Had he not had time to discover that an almighty power was work-in effect in these words state the ground ing with Moses, and that it was idle to threaten him with death, who was the special charge of Omnipotence? But to what length of daring impiety will not a hardened heart bring the presumptuous rebel!

29. I will see thy face again no more. It is a sad farewell when God, in the persons of his servants, refuses any more to see the face of the wicked; especially if in so doing he yields to their desires. For the manner in which this is to be reconciled with the subsequent history, see Note on Ex. 11. 1-3.

of the confident and peremptory tone which he assumed in his reply to Pharaoh. They give us to understand that it was not of his own motion that he then intimated that that should be their last interview; for we cannot suppose that it was optional with Moses whether to continue or to break off the negociations with Pharaoh. Unless divinely instructed to the contrary, how did he know but that God would have him carry another message to the king in despite of his lordly interdict? From this passage we learn that he was thus in

go hence: a when he shall let you go, he shall surely thrust you out hence altogether.

2 Speak now in the ears of the

a ch. 12. 31, 33, 39.

people, and let every man borrow of his neighbour, and every woman of her neighbour, bjewels of silver, and jewels of gold.

b ch. 3. 22. & 12. 35.

structed, that God had informed him as a statement of the reason which exthat the contest with Pharaoh was just isted to give countenance and secure about to close, that with one plague success to the measure proposed. Both more he would complete the deliver- Moses and the people were now in high ance of Israel. Yet will I bring estimation with the Egyptians, from its one plague more upon Pharaoh. Fear- having been so clearly evinced that they ful and wonderful had been the plagues were the special objects of a divine inwhich the Lord had already brought up- terposition, and accounting this as a on Egypt, but before Moses retires from providential intimation they were led to the royal presence he has one more, and avail themselves of the favorable imbut one, judgment to denounce to the pressions of their enemies to obtain a incorrigible king. It was of portentous partial redress for their wrongs. As to import, and might well make the ears the true import of the original word for of the haughty rebel to tingle. The sol-borrow,' it is, as before remarked, ch. emn manner in which it is announced 3. 22, that of asking, demanding, solito Moses reminds us that whatever aw-citing, without expressly implying a ful succession of plagues we may have thus far endured, God may still have one in reserve which shall do more execution than all the preceding.

2. Speak now in the ears of the people, and let every man borrow, &c. Heb. Nyishalu, ask, demand. On the import of the term see Note on Ex. 3. 22. We are by no means satisfied that Moses was required to command the people to practise the device here mentioned. We regard it rather, as far as they were concerned, as the mere prediction of a fact which should occur. Moses, we conceive, was here directed as a private individual, and probably in a covert manner (whence the Gr. has, speak therefore privily in the ears;' i. e. in a private, not in a public, capacity), to start the suggestion among the people that the present was a favorable opportunity to obtain some measure of that remuneration for years of unrequited service to which they were justly entitled. The grounds of this proceeding are given in the ensuing verse, which is to be taken in immediate connection with what goes before,

promise of restoration, although it cannot be denied that there are cases where it legitimately imports the act of borrowing, as Ex. 22. 14, 2 Kings 6.5. But in the present instance it is obvious that the Egyptians were as voluntary and as forward in giving as the Israelites were in receiving, there being no bribe which they were not willing to offer in order to free themselves from the presence of men whom they regarded as the cause of their calamities, and the natural effect of the terrible inflictions which they had just sustained, would be, for the time, to render the precious things which the Hebrews required of small value in their sight. When we consider for how long a period the Israelites had been impoverished that the Egyptians might be enriched, and that now being about to quit the land of their sojourning with only so much of their effects as they could bind up in their clothes upon their shoulders,' all the property which they left behind would naturally fall into the hands of their oppressors, we cannot deem it inconsistent with the divine perfections that

to utter extinction, it would indeed have object lately seen and enjoyed in perbeen a judgment of greater magnitude, fect health; to be forced to the acknow. and have produced a deeper impression ledgment of the great and holy Lord upon those that should have beheld it; God by such a fearful demonstration of but then one part of the people would his presence and power! But this was not have survived to experience the an- not all. The universality of the woe was guish of being so fearfully separated to be such as greatly to enhance its horfrom the other. As it was, it was to be rors. From every house the cry of misery attended with the most heart-rending was to burst forth. The mighty leveller aggravations. It was to be a blow which was to invade all ranks and conditions. should wound there where the heart is The prince and the peasant, the master most susceptible. The pride, the hope, and the slave, were alike to confess the the joy of every family was to be taken destructiveness of his march. And then from them. The bitterness of fathers to crown the whole was the keen reflecand mothers for their first-born is pro- tion, that all this accumulated distress verbial. Here were Egyptian parents might have been prevented. How would soon to be found weeping for their they now condemn their desperate madchildren because they were not.' It ness in provoking a power which had was to be a woe without alleviation so often and so forcibly warned them of and without remedy. He that is sick their danger? If Pharaoh were not past may be restored. A body emaciated or feeling, how dreadful must have been ulcerated, maimed or enfeebled, may the pangs which he felt in the thought again recover soundness and strength. that after attempting to destroy, by But what kindly process can reanimate unheard of cruelties, an innocent and the breathless clay, and give back to helpless race of strangers, he had now the arms of mourning affection an only ruined his own country by his obsti son, a first-born, stricken with death! nate perseverance in impiety and folly? Hope, the last refuge and remedy under With what anguish must he have beheld other evils, was here to be cut up by his own hopes blasted in their dearest the roots. Again, the blow was to be object, the heir of his throne and emstruck at midnight, when none could pire, because he regarded not the claims see the hand that inflicted it, and most of humanity in the treatment of his were reposing in quiet sleep. Had this vassals? But see the judgment more sleep been silently and insensibly ex- fully considered in the Note on Ex. 12. changed for the sleep of death, the cir- 29.¶ From the first-born of Phacumstances would have been less over-raoh that sitteth upon his throne. That whelmingly awful. But it was not to be so. Although for three days and nights previously they had been envel-kingdom as a successor to his father. oped in thick darkness, and none had risen up from their places, yet now they were to be aroused from their beds to render what fruitless aid they could to their expiring children, and to mourn over their slain. What consternation and woe could be equal to this? To De prematurely awakened out of sleep by the dying groans of a near relative suddenly smitten; to be presented with the ghastly image of death in a darling | Barbary, 'grind their wheat and barley

VOL I

12

is, the first-born whose right it would have been to sit upon the throne of the

6

Modern interpreters for the most part
refer the expression that sitteth upon
his throne' to Pharaoh, but the Targums
of Onkelos and Jonathan understand it
of the heir apparent-qui sessurus est
super thronum regni ejus, who is to sit
upon the throne of his kingdom.-
¶ The maid-servant that is behind the
mill. 'Most families,' says Shaw (Tra-
vels, p. 231) speaking of the Moors in

6 And there shall be a great cry | doth put a difference between the throughout all the land of Egypt, Egyptians and Israel. such as there was none like it, nor shall be like it any more.

7 h But against any of the children of Israel i shall not a dog move his tongue, against man or beast: that ye may know how that the LORD

ch. 12. 30. Amos 5. 17. h ch. 8. 22. i Josh. 10. 21.

8 And kall these thy servants shall come down unto me, and bow down themselves unto me, saying, Get thee out, and all the people that follow thee; and after that I will go cut. And he went out from Pharaoh in a great anger.

k ch. 12. 33.

profound tranquillity, implying that nothing should occur to harm or affright them; they should abide in peace and safety. T Doth put a difference. Heb. yapleh, wonderfully distinguisheth. See Note on Ex. 8. 22.

8. Shall come down unto me, and bow down themselves unto me, saying, &c. Moses has thus recited the words of God's message to Pharaoh, but here he begins to speak in his own person, an

at home, having two portable millstones for that purpose; the uppermost of which is turned round by a small handle of wood or iron that is placed in the rim. When this stone is large, or expedition is required, then a second person is called in to assist; and as it is usual for the women alone to be concerned in this employment, who seat themselves over against each other with the millstones between them, we may see not only the propriety of the ex-nouncing the speedy submission of Phapression, Ex. 11. 5, of 'sitting behind raoh's servants to him, and their humthe mill,' but the force of another, Mat. ble and earnest request that he should 24. 40, that 'two women shall be grind- 'depart out of their coasts.' At the ing at the mill, the one shall be taken, same time, we must bear in mind that and the other left.' Sir John Chardin Moses says this in his representative also remarks, that they are female character, and that it is to the Most slaves who are generally employed in High in Moses that this submission was the East at these hand-mills; that this to be made. It is indeed wonderful to work is extremely laborious, and es- see God thus identifying himself with teemed the lowest employment in the a creature of clay who speaks in his house.' Thus, we find a translation name, and yet it is unquestionable that from the highest honor to the lowest the Scriptures afford repeated instances degradation described in the following of the same usage of speech.- -T All terms, Is. 47. 1, 2, 'Come down and sit the people that follow thee. Heb. N in the dust, O virgin, daughter of Baby-asher beragleka, who are at lon, sit on the ground-take the mill thy feet. An expressive phrase, of which stones and grind meal!' see the import explained in the Notes on Gen. 49. 10, and Judg. 4. 10. Gr. 'Whom thou leadest.' Chal. 'Who are with thee.' Vulg. 'Who are subject to thee.' Aben Ezra, 'Who are in thy power.' Jarchi, 'Who follow thy counsel and thy steps.'¶ Went out from Pharaoh in a great anger. Heb.

6. And there shall be a great cry. A cry of lamentation and mourning, and anguish, a loud and universal wailing, such as never was and never should be paralleled in that land. The latter clause of the verse is probably to be interpreted on the same principle with that of ch. 10. 14.

7. Shall not a dog move his tongue. A proverbial expression for the most

bohori aph, in a heat of anger. His indignation was justly moved at the repeated falsehoods of the king, at his