get up early in the morning for that
purpose. So Moses stood before Pharaoh and said, "Thus saith the Lord
God of the Hebrews, let my people go, that they may serve me. If you
refuse I shall plague you and your people worse than ever, and so teach
you that there is none like me in all the earth. Don't puff yourself up
with conceit, for you were made what you are only in order that through
you my power might be manifested. You had better cave in at once." But
Pharaoh would not harken. He tacitly declared that the Lord God of the
Hebrews might go to Jericho.

So the seventh plague came. A fierce hail, accompanied by fire that ran
along the ground, smote all that was in the field, both man and beast.
It smote also _every_ herb of the field and brake _every_ tree of the
field. Only those were saved who "feared the Lord" and stayed in doors
with their servants and cattle. Fortunately the wheat and the rice were
spared, as they were not grown up; or there would have been a famine in
Egypt compared with which the seven years of scarcity in Joseph's time
had sunk into insignificance. Pharaoh now relented and repented. "I have
sinned this time," he said, "the Lord is righteous, and I and my people
are wicked." And Moses, seeing that the king had recognised Jehovah
as the true cock of the theological walk, procured a cessation of the
thunder and the hail. But lo! when Pharaoh perceived this, he hardened
his heart again, and "sinned yet more." The obduracy of this potentate,
under the manipulation of God, is really becoming monotonous. So the
eighth plague came. After a day and a night of east wind, a prodigious
swarm of locusts went up over the land of Egypt, covering the face of
the whole earth, and darkening the ground. They "did eat every herb of
the land, and all the fruit of the trees which the hail had spared." But
we were told that the hail smote _every_ herb, and brake _every_ tree.
What then was left for the locusts to eat? The writer of this narrative
had a very short memory, or else a stupendous power of belief.

Again Pharaoh confessed that he had sinned. The locusts were cleared
away, and so effectually that "not one remained." But "the Lord hardened
Pharaoh's heart" for the eighth time, and he refused to let the people
go. Whereupon Moses brought darkness over the land of Egypt, a thick
darkness that might be felt. This thick darkness lasted in Egypt for
three days, during which time the people "saw not one another,