This paragraph recalls Rey. 7:3. The great angel there commanded that no wind should blow on the earth, or on the sea, or upon any tree, until the servants of God had been sealed on their foreheads. Only when this had been effected did the trumpets give signal of the disasters that broke successively on the ‘earth. See Rev. 8:7, etc. The only spot in which the soul is safe is within the encircling provisions of the

covenant. Israel stood there and was safe, not only from the hail but from the destroying sword. It was as safe a spot as the center of a cyclone is said to be. God had bound himself by the most solemn sanctions to be a God to his people and deliver them. It was in pursuance of this pledge that he was their pavilion and canopy in this awful hour, catching the hailstones on his pinions, and securing them from hurt. Directly we trust in Christ he becomes our hiding-place from the storms of judgment and condemnation, Heb. 13: 20.

Exodus 10:1-11. Pharaoh was capable of being a noble and glorious soul, through which God might have shown forth all his power and glory, 9:16. But he refused, and the profanation of the best made him the worst. There is a crisis in every soul-history up to which God’s methods appear likely to turn the proud to himself; but if that is passed, those methods seem only to harden. Just as in winter the thaw of the noon makes harder ice during the night; so, if the love of God fails to soften, it hardens. In this sense God seemed to harden Pharaoh’s heart. The real conflict lay with his stubborn will, which would not yield, v. 3; although his servants advised him to let the people go, v. 7. The only result was that the king recalled the Hebrew leaders and made another effort at compromise—“Go now ye that are men.” The children are always the key to the situation.