the Egyptians; and the third triplet are "nature-plagues"--hail,
locusts and darkness. It is only after the first three plagues that the
immunity of Israel is mentioned; and after the next three, when the hail
is threatened, instructions are first given by which those Egyptians who
fear Jehovah may also obtain protection. Thus, in orderly and solemn
procession, marched the avengers of God upon the guilty land.

It has been observed, concerning the miracles of Jesus, that not one of
them was creative, and that, whenever it was possible, He wrought by the
use of material naturally provided. The waterpots should be filled; the
five barley-loaves should be sought out; the nets should be let down for
a draught; and the blind man should have his eyes anointed, and go wash
in the Pool of Siloam.

And it is easily seen that such miracles were a more natural expression
of His errand, which was to repair and purify the existing system of
things, and to remove our moral disease and dearth, than any exercise of
creative power would have been, however it might have dazzled the
spectators.

Now, the same remark applies to the miracles of Moses, to the coming of
God in judgment, as to His revelation of Himself in grace; and therefore
we need not be surprised to hear that natural phenomena are not unknown
which offer a sort of dim hint or foreshadowing of the terrible ten
plagues. Either cryptogamic vegetation or the earth borne down from
upper Africa is still seen to redden the river, usually dark, but not so
as to destroy the fish. Frogs and vermin and stinging insects are the
pest of modern travellers. Cattle plagues make ravage there, and hideous
diseases of the skin are still as common as when the Lord promised to
reward the obedience of Israel to sanitary law by putting upon them none
of "the evil diseases of Egypt" which they knew (Deut. vii. 15).[11] The
locust is still dreaded. But some of the other visitations were more
direful because not only their intensity but even their existence was
almost unprecedented: hail in Egypt was only not quite unknown; and such
veiling of the sun as occurs for a few minutes during the storms of sand
in the desert ought scarcely to be quoted as even a suggestion of the
prolonged horror of the ninth plague.

Now, this accords exactly with the moral effect which was to be
produced. The rescued people were not to think of God as one who strikes
down into nature from outside, with strange and un