And the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over Egypt so that locusts swarm over the land and devour everything growing in the fields, everything left by the hail.”

13 So Moses stretched out his staff over Egypt, and the Lord made an east wind blow across the land all that day and all that night. By morning the wind had brought the locusts; 14 they invaded all Egypt and settled down in every area of the country in great numbers. Never before had there been such a plague of locusts, nor will there ever be again. 15 They covered all the ground until it was black. They devoured all that was left after the hail—everything growing in the fields and the fruit on the trees. Nothing green remained on tree or plant in all the land of Egypt.

16 Pharaoh quickly summoned Moses and Aaron and said, “I have sinned against the Lord your God and against you. 17 Now forgive my sin once more and pray to the Lord your God to take this deadly plague away from me.”

18 Moses then left Pharaoh and prayed to the Lord. 19 And the Lord changed the wind to a very strong west wind, which caught up the locusts and carried them into the Red Sea.Not a locust was left anywhere in Egypt. 20 But the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he would not let the Israelites go.

Repentance must be more than words. What Pharaoh said sounded good. It was orthodox alright. But his heart wasn’t changed. As we have seen before, repentance is more than correct words; it’s a change of mind, a change of life, a change of direction.

The mercy of God is  great. If we are not fooled by Pharaoh, the Lord certainly wasn’t. Yet at the slightest flicker of movement in the right direction, the He moved in mercy towards him

God is to be feared. Pharaoh was very slow to learn this lesson.

Proverbs 9:10a says: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom…”

‘One begins to get smart when he or she fears being crosswise of God – fears not doing what he wants and not being as he requires. Fear is the anticipation of harm. God is not mean, but he is dangerous, just as are some of the great forces he has placed in reality. Electricity and nuclear power, for example, are not mean, but they are dangerous. In a certain sense, if we don’t “worry” about God, we simply aren’t being smart. And that is the point of the verse.’ “Revolution of Character’, p.45.