NOTES for Exo 10:1-29
There is a logic of its own in a person's relationship with God, and if a person again and again pushes away the hand God extends to him, this cannot remain without consequences. At first glance, such a situation seems not very clear: after all, God can simply leave alone the one who does not want to have anything to do with Him. But what if, because of the circumstances that have developed, this person who does not want to know God has ended up in a place where the fulfillment of God's plan depends on his decision? After all, God's providence is realized in a world of free people, and in a fallen world a person, using his freedom, does not always take God's plans into account. And then God has to act firmly. Pharaoh's intransigence, in a certain sense, forces God too to become intransigent toward him. And then the sign will no longer be Pharaoh's acknowledgment of God's authority, but God's carrying out His plan despite Pharaoh's will (vv. 1-2).
And Pharaoh himself will meet face to face not with God's love, but with God's power. And this power will be such that its obvious superiority will be clear to everyone without exception (v. 7). Such power has to be reckoned with. But reckoning with it does not mean accepting it. Even a magician or a materialist is sometimes ready to admit that there are forces in the world that surpass human forces, whether the might of science or the power of magic. But even if behind this force such a materialist senses the presence of someone's will, far surpassing the human will, he will not necessarily recognize it as higher than himself, because the stronger one does not always have the right to rule over the weaker. Of course, nature is not like that; according to the law of nature, the strongest has the right to rule over the weakest. But a person rarely accepts such a state of things as normal, even if verbally he recognizes nature as the highest and final reality.
And then, encountering God's power and not finding God behind it, a person tries to negotiate with it or with the one who, as it seems to him, stands behind it, just as Pharaoh tries to negotiate with Moses (vv. 8-11, 24-27). It would seem that this would be the moment to try to establish contact with Pharaoh and try to soften his heart. But in reality such bargaining does not involve any full communion or even any genuine meeting with God: it allows no recognition of God's authority. On the contrary, its aim is an attempt to buy off and get rid of the God of Moses, to do something so that He will finally leave Egypt, Pharaoh himself, and all of them alone, and to achieve this with as little cost as possible. That is why Pharaoh cares so much about guarantees that those whom he releases for the festival will return. But in relationships with God, bargaining is out of place.