Matthew Henry on Exodus 10:12-20
Here is, I. The invasion of the land by the locusts - God's great army, Joe 2:11. God bids Moses stretch out his hand (Exo 10:12), to beckon them, as it wee (for they came at a call), and he stretched forth his rod, Exo 10:13. Compare Exo 9:22 23. Moses ascribes it to the stretching out, not of his own hand, but the rod of God, the instituted sign of God's presence with him. The locusts obey the summons, and fly upon the wings of the wind, the east wind, and caterpillars without number, as we are told, Psa 105:34, Psa 105:35. A formidable army of horse and foot might more easily have been resisted than this host of insects. Who then is able to stand before the great God?
II. The desolations…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Exodus 10:13
the Lord brought an east wind--The rod of Moses was again raised, and the locusts came. They are natives of the desert and are only brought by an east wind into Egypt, where they sometimes come in sun-obscuring clouds, destroying in a few days every green blade in the track they traverse. Man, with all his contrivances, can do nothing to protect himself from the overwhelming invasion. Egypt has often suffered from locusts. But the plague that followed the wave of the miraculous rod was altogether unexampled. Pharaoh, fearing irretrievable ruin to his country, sent in haste for Moses, and confessing his sin, implored the intercession of Moses, who entreated the Lord, and a "mighty strong west…
Read the whole note in the consoleAdam Clarke on Exodus 10:17
Forgive, I pray thee, my sin only this once - What a strange case! And what a series of softening and hardening, of sinning and repenting! Had he not now another opportunity of returning to God? But the love of gain, and the gratification of his own self-will and obstinacy, finally prevailed.
John Gill on Exodus 10:17
Now therefore forgive, I pray thee, my sin, only this once,.... Pretending that he would never offend any more, and if he did, he did not desire it should be forgiven him, but that due punishment should be inflicted on him. These words are directed to Moses, he being the principal person that came to him with a commission from the Lord, and who was made a god to Pharaoh; and therefore he does not ask forgiveness of the Lord, but of Moses:
and entreat the Lord your God, that he may take away from me this death only; this deadly plague of the locusts, which devouring all the fruits of the earth, must in course produce a famine, and that the death of men. Moreover, the author of the book of Wi…
