Holly Bible - KJV with Concise Commentaries by Z Selam - HTML preview
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12 And the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he hearkened
not unto them; as the Lord had spoken unto Moses.
Pharaoh continued obstinate, for now the Lord hardened his heart, Ex 9:12. Before, he had hardened his own heart, and resisted the grace of God; and now God justly gave him up to his own heart's lusts, to a reprobate mind, and strong delusions, permitting Satan to blind and harden him, and ordering everything, henceforward, so as to make him more and more obstinate.
Note, Willful hardness is commonly punished with judicial hardness. If men shut their eyes against the light, it is just with God to close their eyes. Let us dread this as the sorest judgment a man can be under on this side hell.
The Plague of Hail
13 And the Lord said unto Moses, Rise up early in the morning, and
stand before Pharaoh, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord God of the Hebrews, Let my people go, that they may serve me.
A general declaration of the wrath of God against Pharaoh for his obstinacy. Though God has hardened his heart (Ex 9:12), yet Moses must repeat his applications to him; God suspends his grace and yet demands obedience, to punish him for requiring bricks of the children of Israel when he denied them straw. God would likewise show forth a pattern of long-suffering, and how he waits to be gracious to a rebellious and gainsaying people Six times the demand had been made in vain, yet Moses must make it the seventh time: Let my people go, Ex 9:13. A most dreadful message Moses is here ordered to deliver to him, whether he will hear or whether he will forbear.
He must tell him that he is marked for ruin, that he now stands as the butt at which God would shoot all the arrows of his wrath, Ex 9:14, 15. "Now I will send all my plagues." Now that no place is found for repentance in Pharaoh,