Bible Commentaries

Exodus 8:1

I. Perfect freedom is not the thing demanded of Pharaoh, nor is this the prize of their high calling held out before the eyes of the Israelites. To serve God is the perfect freedom held out: to change masters, to be rid of him who had no claim to their allegiance, and to be permitted without hindrance to serve Kim who was indeed their Lord and their God. This was the boon offered to the children of Israel, and demanded on their account by Moses as the ambassador of God.

II. This feature in the deliverance of the Israelites is worthy of special notice, when we regard it as typical of the deliverance from sin and the bondage of the devil, which our heavenly Father is willing to effect for each one of us. "Let My people go,"—not that they may be free from a master, but that they may serve; let them go, because they have been redeemed by Christ, and are not their own, but His. The deliverance from sin which God works for His people is, in fact, a change from one service to another: a change from service to sin, which is perfect bondage, to service to God, which is perfect freedom.

III. The blessedness of the service of God is not estimated as it ought to be; men in these days are too like the children of Israel, who seemed to think that they had conferred a favour on Moses by following his guidance, and that the least reverse would be a sufficient excuse to justify them in going back again to Egypt. There is nothing in their conduct more strange or more blameable than in the conduct of men calling themselves Christians, who do not perceive that in the earnest discharge of God's service is their highest happiness as well as their principal duty and most blessed privilege.

Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Parish Sermons, series iv., p. 179.

References: Exodus 8:7.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. vi., No. 322. Exodus 7:2.—Parker, vol. ii., p. 311. Exodus 8:19.—Parker, vol. ii., p. 312; J. N. Norton, The King's Ferry Boat, p. 174. Exodus 8:20.—Parker, vol. ii., p. 312. Exodus 8:25.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxi., No. 1830. Exodus 8:28.—Spurgeon, Morning by Morning, p. 179; Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxi., No. 1830; Parker, vol. ii., p. 313. Exodus 9:1-35.—Clergyman's Magazine, vol. iv., p. 144. Exodus 9:7.—C. Kingsley, National Sermons, p. 325. Exodus 9:13, Exodus 9:14.—C. Kingsley, Gospel of the Pentateuch, pp. 148, 164. Exodus 12:12.—I. Williams, Characters of the Old Testament, p. 103.