"And I am sure that the king of Egypt will not let you go, no, not by a mighty hand. And I will stretch out my hand, and smite Egypt with all my wonders which I will do in the midst thereof: and after that he will let you go." This is the plain state of the case; Pharaoh blinded by views of worldly policy, and as an irreligious statesman, having no notion of the interference of Providence in the affairs of the world, will not from any regard to the favour of God, give up the advantage which he supposes himself to possess in detaining the Israelites in an unjust bondage for the sake of their services. God out of mercy to him is not willing to destroy him, till he has by his obstinate infidelity proved himself to be irreclaimable; tries him by repeatedly increasing severity of chastisement, till it becomes necessary, for the accomplishment of his own purposes, to crush him altogether. In this merciful forbearance he gains another end; the display of his long-suffering and the manifestation of his power in the government of the affairs of men. What need is there of compulsion upon the mind of Pharaoh? Is he a solitary instance of an oppressor ceasing to oppress those who are in his power, for fear of the judgment of the Most High? Are conquerors accustomed, from such considerations as these, to give up that Exod. iii. 19, 20. which they call a lawful prey? Who but themselves hardens their hearts against the terrors of the Lord? Is Pharaoh the only automaton among them? The proceeding seems perfectly analogous with the whole of God's dealings with the sons of men. He never cuts off a nation, till he has tried by repeated judgments whether they will take warning or not. This delay gives opportunity and encouragement to repent, and when repentance and amendment fail to come, the judgment, so long suspended, at length falls, and proves both his justice and his power. All this is very intelligible to us, and comes home to our business and our bosoms (to use the expression of the philosophical essayist,) upon the supposition that we have really the choice. of the life and death which is set before us: but if the choice is already made for us, the whole carries no interest with it, except the melancholy information that we are mere machines. No one can suppose that the all wise God needs to try us for his own satisfaction? Knowing from the first what our choice will be, he means to justify his dispensations to all the reasonable creatures of the universe. But how can the judgment be justified to them, if they see the parties arraigned were forcibly constrained to that obstinacy by which they were ruined? There is nothing to make Pharaoh's an exempt 5 Bacon. case: one exempt case impeaches the whole. Exod. v. 2. Pharaoh makes his own determination. "Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice to let Israel go? I know not the Lord, neither will I let Israel go. Exod. vi. 1. "The Lord said unto Moses, now thou shalt see what I will do to Pharaoh; for with a strong hand shall he let them go, and with a strong hand shall he drive them out of his land." Pharaoh having made his determination, God declared his to Moses for his comfort, that he would never leave him till he had overcome the king's obstinate spirit. In Wickliffe's translation of the New Testament (which is the only portion of his version of the Scripture printed), shall, appears to be the only auxiliary used to express the future in all the persons*. In our authorized translation, it is very commonly used in the second and third persons, where there is no reason to prefer it to will, as Psalm civ. 12; (though often a sort of emphasis attends it) but not so commonly in the first person. The modern distinction however, appears to have had place at that time, by the opposition of shall and will in the Bible, Prayer Book, and Geneva translations of the last verse of the seventeenth Psalmt. And there is an emphatic interchange of each still prevailing in our idiom; the force of which is to ex * See Note 4. † See Note 5. press that, notwithstanding the consequences, the speaker will persist in his purposes till he carry his point; and well according with the idiom of the Hebrew, which involves both senses in its simple expression; and therefore, in the substitution of the one for the other, in the following endeavour to make the argument clear, it is not meant to intimate that our present translation is faulty in this respect; nor is any opinion meant to be expressed that it would be better to alter it. The true solution of the difficulty is to be sought in the general principles here insisted upon. For, in expressing the declared purposes of God, it is in fact of little importance which is used, when he is speaking of himself; for all his purposes are right, and his will uncontrolled: nor will either produce any perplexity in our minds, if we consider him in the double light of being the cause of all causes, and of their effects; and the moral Governor of the world, who exercises mercy and justice in his treatment of his rational creatures. Our translation might therefore have used the word will, instead of shall; but even the latter word in these phrases does not express force applied to the will of another, when the event depends upon his own choice; but rather the determination of the speaker to persevere in his adopted line of conduct till that obstinate will bow to the alternative designed by the other. The first passage, which speaks as if the hardening of Pharaoh's heart were the act of God, is Exod. vii. 3, 4, 5o. "And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt. But Pharaoh shall not hearken unto you; that I may lay my hand upon Egypt, and bring forth mine armies, and my people, the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great judgments. And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I stretch forth mine hand upon Egypt, and bring out the children of Israel from among them." And afterwards, Exod. ix. 12. "And the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he hearkened not unto them, as the Lord had spoken unto Moses." But in the first passage the original says only, "I shall occasion Pharaoh's heart to be hardened;" and in the second, "The Lord occasioned Pharaoh's heart to be hardened;" without, in either case, determining, whether that hardening were expressly the immediate will of God, that it should be so, or only the consequence of those miracles upon a careless irreligious heart like his neither does the original give us any authority for preferring will to shall in the first place, nor shall to will in the second, nor in the last clause: neither does the original describe the end of that hardening to be," that I may lay my hand upon Egypt, and bring forth mine armies:" but, " and I will 6 Compare on this subject, Wisd. xi. 23-26, and xii. 2. 4. 10. 12. Ecclus. xv. 11-20. and xvi. 12. 15, 16. |