Here is, I. A general declaration of the wrath of God against Pharaoh for his obstinacy. Though God has hardened his heart (Exo 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, Exo 9:13. A most dreadful message Moses is here ordered to deliver to him, whether he will hear or whether he will forbear. 1. 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, Exo 9:14, Exo 9:15. "Now I will send all my plagues." Now that no place is found for repentance in Pharaoh, nothing can prevent his utter destruction, for that only would have prevented it. Now that God begins to harden his heart, his case is desperate. "I will send my plagues upon thy heart, not only temporal plagues upon thy body, but spiritual plagues upon thy soul." Note, God can send plagues upon thy soul." Note, God can send plagues upon the heart, either by making it senseless or by making it hopeless - and these are the worst plagues. Pharaoh must now expect no respite, no cessation of arms, but to be followed with plague upon plague, till he is utterly consumed. Note, When God judges he will overcome; none ever hardened his heart against him and prospered. 2. He must tell him that he is to remain in history a standing monument of the justice and power of God's wrath (Exo 9:16): "For this cause have I raised thee up to the throne at this time, and made thee to stand the shock of the plagues hitherto, to show in thee my power." Providence ordered it so that Moses should have a man of such a fierce and stubborn spirit as he was to deal with; and every thing was so managed in this transaction as to make it a most signal and memorable instance of the power God has to humble and bring down the proudest of his enemies. Every thing concurred to signalize this, that God's name (that is, his incontestable sovereignty, his irresistible power, and his inflexible justice) might be declared throughout all the earth, not only to all places, but through all ages while the earth remains. Note, God sometimes raises up very bad men to honour and power, spares them long, and suffers them to grow insufferably insolent, that he may be so much the more glorified in their destruction at last. See how the neighbouring nations, at that time, improved the ruin of Pharaoh to the glory of God. Jethro said upon it, Now know I that the Lord is greater than all gods, Exo 18:11. The apostle illustrates the doctrine of God's sovereignty with this instance, Rom 9:17. To justify God in these resolutions, Moses is directed to ask him (Exo 9:17), As yet exaltest thou thyself against my people? Pharaoh was a great king; God's people were poor shepherds at the best, and now poor slaves; and yet Pharaoh shall be ruined if he exalt himself against them, for it is considered as exalting himself against God. This was not the first time that God reproved kings for their sakes, and let them know that he would not suffer his people to be trampled upon and insulted, no, not by the most powerful of them.

II.A particular prediction of the plague of hail (Exo 9:18), and a gracious advice to Pharaoh and his people to send for their servants and cattle out of the field, that they might be sheltered from the hail, Exo 9:19. Note, When God's justice threatens ruin his mercy, at the same time, shows us a way of escape from it, so unwilling is he that any should perish. See here what care God took, not only to distinguish between Egyptians and Israelites, but between some Egyptians and others. If Pharaoh will not yield, and so prevent the judgment itself, yet an opportunity is given to those that have any dread of God and his word to save themselves from sharing in the judgment. Note, Those that will take warning may take shelter; and those that will not may thank themselves if they fall by the overflowing scourge, and the hail which will sweep away the refuge of lies, Isa 28:17. See the different effect of this warning. 1. Some believed the things that were spoken, and they feared, and housed their servants and cattle (Exo 9:20), like Noah (Heb 11:7), and it was their wisdom. Even among the servants of Pharaoh there were some that trembled at God's word; and shall not the sons of Israel dread it? But, 2. Others believed not: though, whatever plague Moses had hitherto foretold, the event exactly answered to the prediction; and though, if they had had any reason to question this, it would have been no great damage to them to have kept their cattle in the house for one day, and so, supposing it a doubtful case, to have chosen the surer side; yet they were so foolhardy as in defiance to the truth of Moses, and the power of God (of both which they had already had experience enough, to their cost), to leave their cattle in the field, Pharaoh himself, it is probable, giving them an example of the presumption, Exo 9:21. Note, Obstinate infidelity, which is deaf to the fairest warnings and the wisest counsels, leaves the blood of those that perish upon their own heads.

To-morrow about this time - The time of this plague is marked thus circumstantially to show Pharaoh that Jehovah was Lord of heaven and earth, and that the water, the fire, the earth, and the air, which were all objects of Egyptian idolatry, were the creatures of his power; and subservient to his will; and that, far from being able to help them, they were now, in the hands of God, instruments of their destruction.

To rain a very grievous hail - To rain hail may appear to some superficial observers as an unphilosophical mode of expression, but nothing can be more correct. "Drops of rain falling through a cold region of the atmosphere are frozen and converted into hail;" and thus the hail is produced by rain. When it begins to fall it is rain; when it is falling it is converted into hail; thus it is literally true that it rains hail. The farther a hail-stone falls the larger it generally is, because in its descent it meets with innumerable particles of water, which, becoming attached to it, are also frozen, and thus its bulk is continually increasing till it reaches the earth. In the case in question, if natural means were at all used, we may suppose a highly electrified state of an atmosphere loaded with vapors, which, becoming condensed and frozen, and having a considerable space to fall through, were of an unusually large size. Though this was a supernatural storm, there have been many of a natural kind, that have been exceedingly dreadful. A storm of hail fell near Liverpool, in Lancashire, in the year 1795, which greatly damaged the vegetation, broke windows, etc., etc. Many of the stones measured five inches in circumference. Dr. Halley mentions a similar storm of hail in Lancashire, Cheshire, etc., in 1697, April 29, that for sixty miles in length and two miles in breadth did immense damage, by splitting trees, killing fowls and all small animals, knocking down men and horses, etc., etc. Mezeray, in his History of France, says "that in Italy, in 1510, there was for some time a horrible darkness, thicker than that of night, after which the clouds broke into thunder and lightning, and there fell a shower of hail-stones which destroyed all the beasts, birds, and even fish of the country. It was attended with a strong smell of sulphur, and the stones were of a bluish color, some of them weighing one hundred pounds' weight." The Almighty says to Job: "Hast thou seen the treasures of the hail, which I have reserved against the time of trouble, against the day of battle and war?" Job 38:22, Job 38:23. While God has such artillery at his command, how soon may he desolate a country or a world! See the account of a remarkable hail-storm in Jos 10:11.

Behold, tomorrow about this time,.... It was now the fourth day of the month Abib, and the fifth when the following was inflicted:

I will cause it to rain a very grievous hail; which should fall very thick, and the hailstones be very numerous and heavy, and the storm last long:

such as hath not been in Egypt since the foundation thereof, even until now; not since the earth or land itself was founded, for that was founded when the rest of the world was, and the sense then would be the same as since the foundation of the world; and so the Targum of Jonathan seems to understand it, paraphrasing the words,"from the day that men were made, even until now.''And a like expression is used of a storm of hail, thunder, and lightning, and earthquakes yet to come, which will be such as has not been since men were upon the earth, with which this plague may be compared, Rev 16:19, but here is meant since Egypt was inhabited, or rather formed into a kingdom, and founded as such, which had been many hundreds of years before this time; there was a king of Egypt in Abraham's time; the first founder of this empire, and king of it, was Mizraim, the son of Ham, from whom it had its name, by which it is usually called in Scripture. This supposes that it did sometimes rain in Egypt, contrary to a vulgar notion, or otherwise there would have been no room for the comparison; though it must be owned that rain is rare in Egypt, especially in some parts of it; See Gill on Zac 14:18.

PLAGUE OF HAIL. (Exo. 9:18-35)

I will cause it to rain a very grievous hail, &c.--The seventh plague which Pharaoh's hardened heart provoked was that of hail, a phenomenon which must have produced the greatest astonishment and consternation in Egypt as rain and hailstones, accompanied by thunder and lightning, were very rare occurrences.

such as hath not been in Egypt--In the Delta, or lower Egypt, where the scene is laid, rain occasionally falls between January and March--hail is not unknown, and thunder sometimes heard. But a storm, not only exhibiting all these elements, but so terrific that hailstones of immense size fell, thunder pealed in awful volleys, and lightning swept the ground like fire, was an unexampled calamity.