(6.) That these plagues were real miracles, direct from the hand of God, it is unquestionably the intent of the whole narrative to set forth and affirm. So much, no candid reader of the account has ever questioned. Some may say, the narrator was himself deceived: none will deny that he saw God’s finger there and meant to make all his readers see it. None can deny that according to his account even proud Pharaoh saw and felt the very finger of God in them. In fact the narrative makes this its _main purpose_, viz. to show that these judgments were nothing less than immediate visitations from the hand of the Almighty. Take out this element and there is nothing left. (7.) Or thus: If there is any truth in history, the children of Israel were for a long period bondmen in Egypt. Ultimately the day of their deliverance broke and they came forth free. _How came this to pass?_ Was it by forcible insurrection――the uprising of slaves cutting their way out of bondage into freedom with brave hearts and strong arms of their own? Or was it achieved by diplomacy? Or did Pharaoh relax his grasp and let the people go, under the impulses of humanity, or as a measure of political economy? All suppositions of this sort are not only unhistorical but utterly chimerical. No solution of this great problem――the redemption of Israel from bondage in Egypt――can ever find rational support save the one given in this record, viz. that the Almighty wrenched them from the grasp of Egypt’s proud and hardened king by a series of terrible judgments launched upon him and his people in quick and hot succession, until they were only too glad to hasten and drive the people out lest they should all be dead men. They were made to feel that the battle was against Almighty God and that they could not succumb too soon. The events of this wonderful conflict and victory were stamped into the national life of Israel; they reappear all along the course of future ages, interwoven into the very warp and woof of her national history and into the moral forces which developed the nation’s piety. It might as reasonably be maintained that there never was any Hebrew nation as that God did not bring them forth out of Egypt with a high hand, first loosing Pharaoh’s grasp by these ten plagues, and last, burying his pursuing hosts and himself in the waters of the Red Sea. The supernatural character of these plagues will stand out yet more distinctly when we shall place them in contrast with the things done or attempted by the magicians. * * * * * 2. _Several of these plagues were very specially adapted to Egypt._