And Pharaoh charged all his people, saying, Every son that is born ye shall cast into the river, and every daughter ye shall save alive.
Pharaoh was struck with blindness by God and driven to madness; the reprobate, once given over to destruction, dash themselves with greater audacity against every obstacle. Cruelty, having tasted innocent blood, grows thirstier for it, and wicked men persist in crime without measure or end. Yet in this desperate rage we must see God's vengeance at work, His design to try His people's patience and to display His own goodness and power.
AI summary
The enmity of the seed of the serpent against the seed of the woman divests men of humanity itself and makes them forget all pity. Even confessed innocence is no defence against this old enmity; what blood so guiltless as that of a newborn child, yet it is shed like water and sucked with delight. Pharaoh and Herod proved themselves agents for that great red dragon, standing to devour God's people.
AI summary
Commenting on Exodus 1:15-22
Finding the midwives would not obey, Pharaoh gave a general command to all his people to cast every son born to the Hebrews into the Nile, while sparing daughters. This was not some blanket order against all male births in Egypt, but specifically targeted against the Hebrew people.
AI summary