Exodus 7:0 - Homilies By G. A. Goodhart

The Lord, he is the God.

Egypt was a pleasant land—"the garden of the Lord" ( Genesis 13:10 ). The river, the source of its fertility, was fenced off from desert on either side by cliff ranges—canopied from morning to evening by the ever blue, bright sky. No wonder that the inhabitants should think much of such a land, that they should come to say of river, land, sky, "These be thy gods, O Egypt!" The veil of nature, which should reveal—as by shadow cast on sheet—may hide, the unseen God: cf. Romans 1:20 . The struggle with Pharaoh shows us God asserting himself—proving himself "God of gods" as well as "Lord of lords." Regarding the river as the source of fertility; the land as the sphere for fertility; the sky as the guardian of fertility—see how God openly manifests the dependence of each and all on him.

I. THE RIVER . "The beneficent Nile, the very life of the state and of the people" (Stanley).

II. THE LAND . So far the fiver has been made to plague the land; but Jehovah needs no intermediary. He has direct power over the land also.

III. THE SKY . The previous plague ( Exodus 9:8 ) "toward the heaven," seems to challenge the sky divinities. Now they also are to be proved subject.

1 . Exodus 9:22 . At the word of Jehovah the protector becomes the devastator. Clouds gather and pour out water. Pharaoh and Egypt, too, shall know that the earth belongs to no sky divinity, but to Jehovah: Exodus 5:1-23 :29.

2 . Exodus 10:13 . The winds, compelled into Jehovah's service, become charioteers for his locust armies.

3 . Exodus 10:21 . The sun, source of light, chief of the gods—even he is draped in darkness at the word of Jehovah. "The sky is mine with its clouds and winds, even the sun in all his glory. Have not I , the Lord, made all these things?"

Application :—People still forget God—still, practically, deify his gifts, and so plant them as to hide the Giver of them. The world, our respectable every-day world, not unlike Egypt. Health (life, ζωὴ ), the river that fertilises it. Circumstances (life, βίος ), the land fertilised. Thought, intelligence, wisdom, the sky which seems to canopy and protect both. Deify them and forget the God above them, and God will yet manifest himself by strange plagues on your divinities. Your river shall be turned into blood, and your sun into darkness [cf. Tennyson, "Palace of Art."] These things, too—health, happiness, intelligence—he will surely show that he and no other has maple them all.— G .