The completeness of the ruin brought a swift surrender, but it has been well said that folly is the wisdom which is only wise too late, and, let us add, too fitfully. If Pharaoh had only submitted before the plague instead of after it![18] If he had only respected himself enough to be faithful, instead of being too vain really to yield!
It is an interesting coincidence that, since he had this time defied the remonstrances of his advisers, his confession of sin is entirely personal: it is no longer, “I and my people are sinners,” but “I have sinned against the Lord your God, and against you.” This last clause was bitter to his lips, but the need for their intercession was urgent: life and death were at stake upon the removal of this dense cloud of creatures which penetrated everywhere, leaving everywhere an evil odour, and of which a later sufferer complains, “We could not eat, but we bit a locust; nor open our mouths, but locusts filled them.”
Therefore he went on to entreat volubly, “Forgive, I pray thee, my sin only this once, and intreat Jehovah your God that He may take away from me this death only.”
And at the prayer of Moses, the Lord caused the breeze to veer and rise into a hurricane: “The Lord turned an exceeding strong west wind.” Now, the locust can float very well upon an easy breeze, and so it had been wafted over the Red Sea; but it is at once beaten down by a storm, and when it touches the water it is destroyed. Thus simply was the plague removed.
“But the Lord made strong Pharaoh’s heart,” and so, his fears being conquered, his own rebellious will went on upon its evil way. He would not let Israel go.
This narrative throws light upon a thousand vows made upon sick beds, but broken when the sufferer recovers; and a thousand prayers for amendment, breathed in all the sincerity of panic, and forgotten with all the levity of security. It shows also, in the hesitating and abortive half-submission of the tyrant, the greater folly of many professing Christians, who will, for Christ’s sake, surrender all their sins except one or two, and make any confession except that which really brings low their pride.
Thoroughness, decision, depth, and self-surrender, needed by Pharaoh, are needed by every soul of man.