In the fifth place, Egypt is struck with the slaughter of animals or cattle. Frenzy is demonstrated here, and the stupidity of men who, like irrational animals, gave worship and the name of god to figures carved in wood or stone—figures not only of men but of animals, too. They worshiped Jupiter Ammon in a ram,^[1] Anubis in a dog,^[2] and Apis in a bull,^[3] and others, too, which Egypt admired as symbols of its gods. They believed that the divine splendor was present in these forms and offered pathetic acts of worship to them.

After these plagues came rotten and swollen cysts, along with fever, as the sixth plague. In the ulcers the troubled and purulent evil of this age is signified; in the cysts swollen and inflated pride; in the fevers anger and the madness of rage. Up to this point such punishments as were inflicted on the world were tempered, insofar as its errors were represented by signs.

With God there is no injustice. Thus [Paul] immediately added, For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, ‘For this very purpose I raised you up, that I may show through you my power and that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.’^[1] Then, having said this, he draws a conclusion that looks both ways, that is, toward mercy and toward judgment: Therefore, he says, he has mercy on whom he wills, and whom he wills he hardens. He shows mercy out of his great goodness; he hardens out of no unfairness at all. In this way neither does he who is saved have a basis for glorying in any merit of his own; nor does the man who is damned have a basis for complaining of anything except what he has fully merited. For grace alone separates the redeemed from the lost, all having been mingled together in the one mass of perdition, arising from a common cause which leads back to their common origin.

After these plagues come blows from on high: voices, thunder and hail, and flashing fire. Thunder means reproaches and divine rebukes, because it does not strike in silence. It makes sounds and sends its teaching down from heaven. By its teaching the world is castigated and can acknowledge its guilt.

And he sends hail, which destroys the young vices that are still tender. He sends fire, too, knowing that there are thorns and spiny plants which that fire might feed on. The Lord says of them, I came to cast fire on the earth.^[1] This fire consumes the incentives to pleasure and lust.

Hail and fire fell together; neither did the hail extinguish the fire, nor did the fire melt the hail. Rather, it burst into flames in the hail as in a thicket and turned [the hail] as red as iron in the fire, blazing in the hail, and careful of the trees. The force [of the hail] splintered the ancient trees,^[1] but the fire in [the hail] protected the hedges, seed beds and vineyards.

Pharaoh said to Moses, This time I have sinned. And the previous times he hardened his heart, did he not sin? And even if he sinned the previous times, he did not sin the way he did this time. [The Lord] warned him to bring in the cattle, but he was not persuaded. This is why his offense was more serious in this plague than in all the [other] plagues.

See whether it is for this reason that God hardens the heart of Pharaoh, so that at a moment when he was not hardened he could say, The Lord is just: I and my people are wicked.^[1] His heart has to be hardened further, and he has to suffer more, that he may not, because he has been freed of his hardheartedness too quickly, think too lightly of that hardheartedness and so may have to have his heart hardened over and over again.

Moreover, as we are wont to sing in the hymn, God is faithful, without deceit. For this reason, as I mentioned above, we should believe without any doubt concerning Pharaoh that he became hardened because of God’s patience rather than his power. This fact we know clearly from his own admission, for when he was being punished he confessed in this way as justice compelled him: The Lord is just; it is I and my subjects who are at fault. With what feelings then does a Christian complain that God is unjust, when even a wicked king admits that he is just? See