Exodus 7:1-13 - Pharaoh Stubborn Against Israel's Release
How often we say in a similar tone, "I am of uncircumcised lips, and how shall Pharaoh hearken unto me?" Forty years in the wilderness, in absolute solitude, had robbed Moses of the eloquence with which Stephen credits him in earlier life. Like Jeremiah, he felt himself a child and unable to speak.
It is an awful moment when the human will sets itself in antagonism to the divine. If it will not bend, it must break. For once the scion of an imperial race had met his superior. It were better for the potsherd to strive with the potsherds of the earth! But God is not unreasonable. At the outset He endeavored to prove to Pharaoh who and what He was. One of the chief reasons for the plagues, as well as of these miracles, was to establish the fact that the Jehovah of the Hebrews was the great Being who lives behind the whole apparatus of nature. [source]
Chapter Summary: Exodus 7
1Moses and Aaron are encouraged to go again to Pharaoh 8Aaron's rod is turned into a serpent 11The sorcerers do the like; but their rods are swallowed up by Aaron's 13Pharaoh's heart is hardened 14God's message to Pharaoh 19The river is turned into blood; and the consequent distress of the Egyptians