Pharaoh's prayer.
It has come then to this, that Pharaoh is glad to beg a blessing from the man whom at first he had so contemptuously spurned. "And bless me also."
I. THE WICKED MAN IS OFTEN MADE PAINFULLY AWARE OF THE MISERABLENESS OF HIS OWN PORTION, AS COMPARED WITH THAT OF THE GODLY. He may be, often is, even when he refuses to acknowledge it, secretly conscious of the superior happiness of the good man. There come times, however, when severe affliction, the sense of a gnawing inward dissatisfaction, or special contact of some kind with a man of genuine piety, extorts the confession from him. He owns that the good man has a standing in the Divine favour; enjoys an invisible Divine protection; and is the possessor of a peace, happiness, and inward support, to which his own wretched life is utterly a stranger.
II. THE WICKED MAN HAS SOMETIMES DESIRES AFTER A SNARE IN THE GOOD OF GOD'S PEOPLE. He envies them. He feels in his heart that he is wretched and miserable beside them, and that it would be happiness to be like them. He says with Balaam, "Let me die the death of the righteous, and: let my last end be like his" (Numbers 23:10).
III. THE WICKED MAN, IN HIS TIME OF TROUBLE, WILL OFTEN HUMBLE HIMSELF TO BEG THE PRAYERS OF THE GODLY. And this, though but a little before, he has been persecuting them. He feels that the good man has power with God.
IV. THESE FEELINGS OF THE WICKED MAN ARE USUALLY TRANSIENT.—J.O.