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"For this same purpose I raised thee up, not only in the first instance as king, but even
now, from the dire effects of the recent plague, that I might show in thee My power, etc."
Pharaoh apparently was not concerned with either evidence of the sovereign power of
God. Indeed, he sets God at nought, saying: "Who is the Lord, that I should obey His
voice? . . . . . I know not the Lord" (Exod. 5: 2).
It was the Lord's express purpose that Pharaoh should know Him, and that, through
him, His name might be declared throughout all the earth. There are no less than sixteen
different occasions in the Book of Exodus where it is stated that the Lord's object is to
make either Israel or the Egyptians know that He is the Lord. For example:
"The Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord when I stretch forth Mine hand upon
Egypt" (Exod. 7: 5).
"In this shalt thou know that I am the Lord: behold I will smite . . . . . the waters . . . . .
and they shall be turned into blood" (Exod. 7: 17).
One cannot help going back in mind to the passage in Exodus already considered,
where the Lord "proclaimed the name of the Lord" to Moses. His name is "proclaimed"
by the mercy shown to Israel, and by the judgment that fell upon Pharaoh. It is not one
God that saves, and another that condemns; the "Man Christ Jesus" Who became the
Saviour is also the One to Whom all judgment has been committed. Grace and wrath
proceed from the same source, and both are only answerable to the Lord's sovereign and
righteous Will.
In his Song after the overthrow of Pharaoh at the Red Sea, Moses remembers this
declaration of the name of the Lord:
"The people shall hear and be afraid . . . . . all the inhabitants of Canaan shall melt
away" (Exod. 15: 14, 15).
The news had traveled ahead of advancing Israel, as we know from what was told to
the spies by Rahab the harlot (Josh. 2: 9-11).
To return to our passage in Romans, the Apostle now anticipates another objection:
"Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth He yet find fault? For who hath resisted His
will? (Rom. 9: 19).
The Jew was evidently prone to this type of reasoning. A rather similar passage is
found in Rom. 3: 1-8, where we have the objection concerning the advantage of the
Jew. The advantage is admitted, summed up in this instance in the entrustment of the
oracles of God, and this is immediately followed by the arguments in Rom. 3: 1-8:
"Shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect?"
"Is God unrighteous Who taketh vengeance?"
"If the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto His glory, why am I
judged as a sinner?"