But the LORD hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he did not listen to them, as the LORD had spoken to Moses.
When cattle die and men do not repent, God strikes their own bodies instead. The ashes from the furnace that enslaved Israel now terrorize the Egyptians with searing boils; they read their sin written in their punishment. Sores are calls to repentance, and if lighter judgments fail, heavier ones will follow.
AI summary
Commenting on Exodus 9:8-12
And the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh,.... He having often, and so long hardened his own heart, God gave him up to judicial hardness of heart, to his own corruptions, the temptations of Satan, and the lying magicians about him, to make an ill use of everything that offered to him, and put a wrong construction on all that befell him, so that whatever...
This plague struck the Egyptians' very persons as ulcerous eruptions on skin and flesh, not from natural causes but from the specific action of Moses in Pharaoh's sight, an unmistakable mark of divine judgment, not mere magic.
AI summary
Commenting on Exodus 9:8-17