Exodus 10:16

10:12-20 God bids Moses stretch out his hand; locusts came at the call. An army might more easily have been resisted than this host of insects. Who then is able to stand before the great God? They covered the face of the earth, and ate up the fruit of it. Herbs grow for the service of man; yet when God pleases, insects shall plunder him, and eat the bread out of his mouth. Let our labour be, not for the habitation and meat thus exposed, but for those which endure to eternal life. Pharaoh employs Moses and Aaron to pray for him. There are those, who, in distress, seek the help of other people's prayers, but have no mind to pray for themselves. They show thereby that they have no true love to God, nor any delight in communion with him. Pharaoh desires only that this death might be taken away, not this sin. He wishes to get rid of the plague of locusts, not the plague of a hard heart, which was more dangerous. An east wind brought the locusts, a west wind carries them off. Whatever point the wind is in, it is fulfilling God's word, and turns by his counsel. The wind bloweth where it listeth, as to us; but not so as it respects God. It was also an argument for their repentance; for by this it appeared that God is ready to forgive, and swift to show mercy. If he does this upon the outward tokens of humiliation, what will he do if we are sincere! Oh that this goodness of God might lead us to repentance! Pharaoh returned to his resolution again, not to let the people go.

Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron in haste,.... Or, "hastened to call them" (t); sent messengers in all haste to fetch them, and desire them to come as soon as possible to him. Thus he who a few hours ago drove them from his presence, in a hurry, sends for them to come to him with all speed, which the present circumstances he was in required: and he said to Moses and Aaron: when they were brought into his presence: I have sinned against the Lord your God, and against you; against the Lord by disobeying his command, in refusing to let Israel go, when he had so often required it of him; and against Moses and Aaron his ambassadors, whom he had treated with contempt, and had drove them from his presence with disgrace; and against the people of Israel, whom they personated, by retaining them, and using them so ill as he had. This confession did not arise from a true sense of sin, as committed against God, nor indeed does he in it own Jehovah to be his God, only the God of Moses and Aaron, or of the Israelites; but from the fright he was in, and fear of punishment continued upon him, to the utter ruin of him and his people. (t) "et festinavit ad vocandum", Montanus; "festinavit accersere", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator.

(16) Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron in haste .—Heb., hasted to call for Moses and Aaron. The expression “hasted to call” is new, and marks extreme urgency. The visitation of the locusts was felt as far more severe than any previous one. It entirely destroyed all the remaining harvest, both of grain and fruit, and must have produced a terrible famine, had it not been for the Egyptian institution of granaries ( Genesis 41:35 ; Genesis 41:48 , &c). I have sinned . . . —Comp. Exodus 9:27. This confession is an improvement upon the former one: (1) as acknowledging a double fault—“against the Lord and against you; “and (2) as free from any attempt to put the blame, either wholly or in part, upon others. It was probably sincere at the time; but the feeling from which it sprang was short-lived.

Pharaoh called for them, because this kind of plague in itself was most pernicious, whereby whole countries had been wasted, and grievous famines and pestilences caused, and was mightily aggravated by the vengeance of God, and by the peculiar quality of these locusts, which did not only fall upon their herbs and fruits, as they use to do, but invade their very houses, Exodus 10:6 , infect their meats, fill their beds, poison them with their stink and with their venomous bitings, whereby they killed many men, as it is written in /APC Wis 16:19 . Against you; by contempt of your great and terrible works, by breach of my promise made to you, and by my denial of your just desires and commands given to me in his name, whom I now find and feel to be the almighty and sovereign God.

Verse 16. - Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron in haste . Literally, as in the margin, "hasted to call for M. and A." He had made similar appeals before ( Exodus 8:8, 25 ; Exodus 9:27 ), but never with such haste and urgency. Evidently, the locusts were felt as a severer infliction than any previous one. I have sinned . So, after the plague of hail ( Exodus 9:27 ); but here we have the further acknowledgment, against the Lord your God and against you ; "against the Lord," in disobeying his commands; "against. you," in making you premises and then refusing to keep them ( Exodus 8:15, 32 ; Exodus 9:34, 35 ). Exodus 10:16

Went up - At a distance the locusts appear hanging, as it were, like a heavy cloud over the land; as they approach they seem to rise, and they fill the atmosphere overhead upon their arrival. Over all the land - Travelers mention a cloud of locusts extending over 500 miles, and so compact while on the wing that it completely hid the sun. This passage describes a swarm unprecedented in extent.

13-19. the Lord brought an east wind—The rod of Moses was again raised, and the locusts came. They are natives of the desert and are only brought by an east wind into Egypt, where they sometimes come in sun-obscuring clouds, destroying in a few days every green blade in the track they traverse. Man, with all his contrivances, can do nothing to protect himself from the overwhelming invasion. Egypt has often suffered from locusts. But the plague that followed the wave of the miraculous rod was altogether unexampled. Pharaoh, fearing irretrievable ruin to his country, sent in haste for Moses, and confessing his sin, implored the intercession of Moses, who entreated the Lord, and a "mighty strong west wind took away the locusts."

This plague, which even Pliny calls Deorum irae pestis, so terrified Pharaoh, that he sent for Moses and Aaron in haste, confessed his sin against Jehovah and them, and entreated them but this once more to procure, through their intercession with Jehovah their God, the forgiveness of his sin and the removal of "this death." He called the locusts death, as bringing death and destruction, and ruining the country. Mors etiam agrorum est et herbarum atque arborum, as Bochart observes with references to Genesis 47:19 ; Job 14:8 ; Psalm 78:46 .

[Bible] 10:7. And Pharao's servants said to him: How long shall we endure this scandal? Iet the men go to sacrifice to the Lord their God. Dost thou not see that Egypt is undone? 10:8. And they called back Moses, and Aaron, to Pharao; and he said to them: Go, sacrifice to the Lord your God: who are they that shall go? 10:9. Moses said: We will go with our young and old, with our sons and daughters, with our sheep and herds: for it is the solemnity of the Lord our God. 10:10. And Pharao answered: So be the Lord with you, as I shall let you and your children go: who can doubt but that you intend some great evil? 10:11. It shall not be so, but go ye men only, and sacrifice to the Lord: for this yourselves also desired. And immediately they were cast out from Pharao's presence. 10:12. And the Lord said to Moses: Stretch forth thy hand upon the land of Egypt unto the locust, that it come upon it, and devour every herb that is left after the hail. 10:13. And Moses stretched forth his rod upon the land of Egypt: and the Lord brought a burning wind all that day, and night; and when it was morning, the burning wind raised the locusts. 10:14. And they came up over the whole land of Egypt; and rested in all the coasts of the Egyptians, innumerable, the like as had not been before that time, nor shall be hereafter. 10:15. And they covered the whole face of the earth, wasting all things. And the grass of the earth was devoured, and what fruits soever were on the trees, which the hail had left; and there remained not any thing that was green on the trees, or in the herbs of the earth, in all Egypt. 10:16. Wherefore Pharao in haste called Moses and Aaron, and said to them: I have sinned against the Lord your God, and against you. 10:17. But now forgive me my sin this time also, and pray to the Lord your God, that he take away from me this death. 10:18: And Moses going forth from the presence of Pharao, prayed to the Lord: