Resisting the Truth

Notes

(Concluded next week.)

If in our version the word "Jehovah" were allowed to appear wherever it does in the corresponding place in the Hebrew, the sense would often appear more clearly. "Jehovah" is the distinctive title of the one true God. Paul says, "There be gods many, and lords many; but to us there is but one God." He is the one who made all things, and who exists by his own power. This God, Pharaoh did not know. When Moses and Aaron said, "Thus saith Jehovah, the God of Israel, Let my people go," he rudely exclaimed, "Who is Jehovah, that I should obey his voice to let Israel go? I know not Jehovah, neither will I let Israel go." If Moses had said, as our version indicates, "Thus saith the Lord," it would not have been distinctive, for the sun-god, which Pharaoh worshiped, corresponded to the Canaanitish Baal, which means "lord." Pharaoh knew many lords and gods, and one above all, the sun-god, which was known as "the lord;" he knew Ra, and Osiris, and Isis, and Phthah, and Set, but he did not know Jehovah, the only Lord. He might have known God, but, like the other heathen, he did not like to retain God in his knowledge. Still God gave him this opportunity to know and to recognize him; and when Pharaoh haughtily said, "I know not Jehovah," the Lord brought judgments upon him until he was forced to confess his power.

"And the king of Egypt said unto them, Wherefore do ye, Moses and Aaron, let the people from their works?" The word "let" is used in its primitive sense of hindering, or causing to cease. That this is so, is shown by the next verse, where the king continues, "Behold, the people of the land now are many, and ye make them rest from their burdens." Whatever opinion may be held as to the reason, this much is certain, that in consequence of the coming of Moses and Aaron, and what they had said, the Israelites had to some extent ceased from their work. This is still further shown by the fact that Pharaoh said of them, "They be idle" (verse 8), and to them, "Ye are idle, ye are idle" (verse 17). It was because of this that the king increased their task, compelling them to make brick without straw.

To the Jews Jesus once said, "Yet a little while is the light with you. Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you." John 12:35. Nothing is more evident than that when a person turns away from light he goes into darkness. Light and darkness are opposite conditions, so that if a man is not in the light he is in the dark. That proposition needs no argument. It was on this principle that Pharaoh's heart was hardened. Ample evidence of the superiority of God's power over that of Satan, as exhibited through the magicians, was given to Pharaoh, but when he refused to accept it, that very rejection was a hardening of his heart. The light which, if it were accepted, would acquaint him with God, was rejected, and by thus shutting himself farther away from God, hardness of heart and blindness of mind necessarily followed. For this no one was to blame but Pharaoh himself. The Revised Version renders Ex. 7:9 thus: "And Pharaoh's heart was hardened."

The only reason that can be given why the magicians did not remove the plague of frogs, is that they could not. That they would gladly have done everything in their power to destroy the effect of the miracle upon the mind of Pharaoh, and to make him believe that the power that was with Moses was no greater than that with them, there is no reason to doubt. It is most reasonable, also, to conclude that as the king had called the magicians to his assistance for the purpose of withstanding Moses, he would first call upon them to remove the plague. But they could not. The fact that Pharaoh was obliged to call upon Moses and Aaron to remove the plague, was an additional humiliation, and emphasized the fact that the power that was with them was greater than that power that was with the magicians.