164 Pharaoh. CHAP. 



Esau was loved less ; this is all that " hated " can 

 mean here ; for, in the usual sense of the word, 

 hatred seeks to destroy ; and so far was God 

 from destroying Esau, that he was permitted to 

 receive a blessing, though an inferior blessing to 

 that of Jacob, and to become the father of a nation. 

 The elder served the younger; but service, even 

 the lowest, is not reprobation, and is scarcely com- 

 patible with it. 



In this case there is no moral difficulty whatever. 

 But the same cannot be said of the instance of 

 Pharaoh, which the Apostle mentions immediately 

 after. I quote the entire passage (Epistle to the 

 Eomans ix. 17-24), inserting comments of my own, 

 which are marked [thus] : 



"The Scripture saith unto Pharaoh, For this very 

 purpose did I raise thee up, that I might show in 

 thee My power, and that My name might be pub- 

 lished abroad in all the earth. So then He hath 

 mercy on whom He will, and whom He will He 

 hardeneth." [In Biblical language hardness of heart 

 does not mean cruelty, but judicial blindness; and 

 to say that God hardened Pharaoh's heart, means 

 that he was abandoned to his own pride and obsti- 

 nacy ; just as the men of the Gentile world generally, 

 according to Saint Paul in the same Epistle, were 

 given over to a reprobate mind as a punishment for 

 refusing to have God in their knowledge. 1 In the 

 ordinary Divine government, the neglect of the 

 1 Rom. i. 28. 



