Matthew Henry on Exodus 10:1-11
Here, I. Moses is instructed. We may well suppose that he, for his part, was much astonished both at Pharaoh's obstinacy and at God's severity, and could not but be compassionately concerned for the desolations of Egypt, and at a loss to conceive what this contest would come to at last. Now here God tells him what he designed, not only Israel's release, but the magnifying of his own name: That thou mayest tell in thy writings, which shall continue to the world's end, what I have wrought in Egypt, Exo 10:1, Exo 10:2. The ten plagues of Egypt must be inflicted, that they may be recorded for the generations to come as undeniable proofs, 1. Of God's overruling power in the kingdom of nature, his…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Exodus 10:2
And that thou mayest tell . . . of thy son, and of thy son's son, &c.--There was a further and higher reason for the infliction of those awful judgments, namely, that the knowledge of them there, and the permanent record of them still, might furnish a salutary and impressive lesson to the Church down to the latest ages. Worldly historians might have described them as extraordinary occurrences that marked this era of Moses in ancient Egypt. But we are taught to trace them to their cause: the judgments of divine wrath on a grossly idolatrous king and nation.
Adam Clarke on Exodus 10:2
That thou mayest tell in the ears of thy son - That the miracles wrought at this time might be a record for the instruction of the latest posterity, that Jehovah alone, the God of the Hebrews, was the sole Maker, Governor, and Supporter of the heavens and the earth. Thus we find God so did his marvelous works, that they might be had in everlasting remembrance. It was not to crush the poor worm, Pharaoh, that he wrought such mighty wonders, but to convince his enemies, to the end of the world, that no cunning or power can prevail against him; and to show his followers that whosoever trusted in him should never be confounded.
John Gill on Exodus 10:2
And that thou mayest tell in the ears of thy son, and of thy son's son,.... Not of his sons and grandsons only; for Moses here, as Aben Ezra observes, was in the stead of Israel; and the sense is, that it should be told to their posterity in all succeeding ages:
what things I have wrought in Egypt; the plagues that he inflicted on the Egyptians:
and my signs which I have done amongst them; meaning the same things which were signs:
that ye may know how that I am the Lord; that their God is the true Jehovah, and the one only living and true God; the Lord God omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, infinite, and eternal.
