But in this last instance they had no previous notice. It was an experiment, doubtless, that they had never tried, they could do nothing without enchantments; they had no jugglery prepared for such a case; they were baffled, disgraced, and thrust aside: and in what follows, the utter and desperate malignity of sin is shown in such obstinacy, hardihood, and perseverance on the part of Pharaoh and his people, as has a parallel only in Satan and his angels. Occasionally, indeed, under the most appalling terrors of mind and sufferings of body, conscious that Jehovah had absolute power over all creatures and all elements, and that new and unknown horrors awaited them, some momentary concessions were extorted from their physical fears and agonies. On the infliction of the plague of flies, (another of the deified or idolized representatives of Baal,) Pharaoh, to convince him that Jehovah was the same as the Elohe of the Hebrews, and that his supremacy and power were universal over all the earth, was told that while this plague should fall upon him, and upon his servants and people, and into their houses, and upon the ground, it should not touch the Hebrews. "I will sever the land of Goshen, in which my people dwell, that no swarms of flies shall be there; _to the end thou mayest know that I am Jehovah in the midst of the earth_." In this, as in the case of the frogs, and equally, it is presumed, in the case of the lice, they were necessitated to destroy multitudes of idolized creatures, representative of Baal, and thus by their own acts, as well as by their sufferings, to show that he was not able to protect his representatives, or those who worshipped him through them. Pharaoh hypocritically relented till, on the entreaty of Moses, Jehovah removed this plague.