Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Exodus · About this commentary
Hail, and a Warning Some Believed
Exodus 9:13-35
13 Yahweh said to Moses, “Rise up early in the morning, and stand before Pharaoh, and tell him, ‘This is what Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews, says: “Let my people go, that they may serve me. · WEB
A plague preceded by a public escape route divides Egypt against itself, and produces the first confession of sin from the throne.
For this time I will send all my plagues against your heart... that you may know that there is no one like me in all the earth Exodus 9:14.
The seventh plague opens with the longest speech of the series, and its center is a sentence that has been argued over ever since. For now I would have stretched out my hand, and struck you and your people with pestilence, and you would have been cut off from the earth; but indeed for this cause I have made you stand: to show you my power, and that my name may be declared throughout all the earth Exodus 9:15–16.
Read in place, the statement is about a delay rather than a design. The first clause says what could have happened and did not: Egypt could have been finished at the fifth plague. What is claimed is not that this king was created wicked for the purpose, but that a wicked king was kept standing when he might have been removed, so that the contest could be carried to a conclusion the whole world would hear about Romans 9:17. The next verse names the reason the patience is not indefinite: because you still exalt yourself against my people Exodus 9:17.
Then something new. Command that all of your livestock and all that you have in the field be brought into shelter Exodus 9:19. The judgment comes with instructions for surviving it, published to the whole country a day in advance, and Egypt divides along the line those instructions draw. Those who feared Yahweh's word among the servants of Pharaoh made their servants and their livestock flee into the houses. Whoever didn't respect Yahweh's word left his servants and his livestock in the field Exodus 9:20–21.
This is the first time the narrative distinguishes Egyptians from one another, and it does so by response rather than by birth. The division that mattered was never national, and the mixed multitude that leaves with Israel Exodus 12:38 presumably begins here.
There was very severe hail, and lightning mixed with the hail, such as had not been in all the land of Egypt since it became a nation Exodus 9:24. In a country that depends on irrigation rather than rain, ice falling from the sky was not merely destructive but unintelligible.
I have sinned this time. Yahweh is righteous, and I and my people are wicked Exodus 9:27.
It is a full confession in the correct words, and it is worth nothing. Moses says so to his face: as for you and your servants, I know that you don't yet fear Yahweh God Exodus 9:30. The judgment is proved right within four verses — when Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the thunders had ceased, he sinned yet more Exodus 9:34.
Accurate theology under duress is not repentance. The king says the right sentence about God's righteousness and his own guilt, and what he wants is for the noise to stop.
One detail is left standing at the end like a footnote, and it is a mercy: the wheat and the spelt were not struck, for they had not grown up Exodus 9:32. Even at this stage, not everything is taken.
held with reason What this mark means