John Calvin Commentary Exodus 7:5

"And the Egyptians shall know that I am Jehovah, when I stretch forth my hand upon Egypt, and bring out the children of Israel from among them." — Exodus 7:5 (ASV)

And the Egyptians shall know. This is a type of irony, namely, that the Egyptians, subdued by the plagues, would at last begin to feel that their struggle was against God. The object of God, however, was to encourage Moses, so that he would not falter before the madness and fury of his enemies. Therefore, although the Egyptians might be senseless in their rage, God still declares that in the end they would know they had fought to their own destruction when they waged war against heaven. For there is an implied antithesis between their delayed acknowledgment of this and their present slowness of heart, which was at last forcefully removed when God thundered openly against them from heaven.

For we know how indifferently the wicked oppose their⁷⁹ iron obstinacy to the divine threats, until they are forced into a state of alarm by violence. This is not because they are humbled under the hand of God, but because they see that by all their raging and turbulence they cannot escape punishment. They are like drunkards who, awakened from their intoxication, would willingly drown their senses in eternal sleep, even in annihilation. Yet, whether they want to or not, they must suffer the pains of their intemperance.

Moreover, this acknowledgment, which was to be extorted from the unwilling, urged Moses and others⁸⁰ to attribute just praise to the power of God before they were convinced of it by experience. It is true, indeed, that the sincere worshippers of God are also sometimes instructed by punishments (to which reference is made in Isaiah 26:9, when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness; ), but a kind of “knowledge” is pointed out here that so prostrates the reprobate that they do not cease to lift up their horns, as it were, against God; and thus it casts them down without amending them. There was also an experiential knowledge for the elect people, of which mention has already been made (Isaiah 6:7),

ye shall know that I am the Lord your God, after that I shall have brought you out from the land of Egypt;

But this (properly speaking) is nothing more than a confirmation of the faith which, before the event takes place, is content with the simple word. Or, God certainly, by the event itself, reproves the dullness of His people when He sees that their confidence in His own word is not sufficiently strong. But the wicked so know God that, lost in shame and fear, they do not see what they do see.

⁷⁹ “Leur fierte, comme un bouclier de fer;” their pride like an iron buckler. — Fr..

⁸⁰ Les autres fideles. — Fr..