Exodus 10:16

16 Pharaoh hurriedly summoned Moses and Aaron and said, "I have sinned against the Lord your God, and against you.

Exodus 10:16 Meaning and Commentary

Exodus 10:16

Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron in haste
Or, "hastened to call them" F20; sent messengers in all haste to fetch them, and desire them to come as soon as possible to him. Thus he who a few hours ago drove them from his presence, in a hurry, sends for them to come to him with all speed, which the present circumstances he was in required:

and he said to Moses and Aaron:
when they were brought into his presence:

I have sinned against the Lord your God, and against you;
against the Lord by disobeying his command, in refusing to let Israel go, when he had so often required it of him; and against Moses and Aaron his ambassadors, whom he had treated with contempt, and had drove them from his presence with disgrace; and against the people of Israel, whom they personated, by retaining them, and using them so ill as he had. This confession did not arise from a true sense of sin, as committed against God, nor indeed does he in it own Jehovah to be his God, only the God of Moses and Aaron, or of the Israelites; but from the fright he was in, and fear of punishment continued upon him, to the utter ruin of him and his people.


FOOTNOTES:

F20 (arql-rhmyw) "et festinavit ad vocandum", Montanus; "festinavit accersere", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator.

Exodus 10:16 In-Context

14 The locusts came upon all the land of Egypt and settled on the whole country of Egypt, such a dense swarm of locusts as had never been before, nor ever shall be again.
15 They covered the surface of the whole land, so that the land was black; and they ate all the plants in the land and all the fruit of the trees that the hail had left; nothing green was left, no tree, no plant in the field, in all the land of Egypt.
16 Pharaoh hurriedly summoned Moses and Aaron and said, "I have sinned against the Lord your God, and against you.
17 Do forgive my sin just this once, and pray to the Lord your God that at the least he remove this deadly thing from me."
18 So he went out from Pharaoh and prayed to the Lord.
New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.