Romans 9:17

17. Scripture saith In the words of Jehovah, (Exodus 9:16.)

Pharaoh Who claimed, like Paul’s Jew, to overrule God; and who, if human power could have overruled God, was the man of his age to do it; yet who was most peremptorily overruled by God, and reduced, like our Jew, to the level of a just probationary free-agency, under the most equitable divine administration.

Raised thee up Hebrew, Made thee to stand. The context in the Old Testament would seem to imply the causing thee to stand or survive amid the past destroying plagues. Though the greatest criminal in Egypt, he had been preserved alive, amid repeated plagues, for the purpose here announced. He had attained the acme of sin; he had forfeited life, and passed the day of grace. Hence it is that Paul selects him as a specimen and monument of wrath.

Show my power Years there had been in which God was earnest to show his mercy in Pharaoh; those years are past; the hour now is when he is made to live on earth, when he should be in hell, that God may reveal his true omnipotence in the land, and over the rulers, and over the gods of Egypt.