Righteous anger.
It seems to be supposed by some that the true Christian ought never to be angry. St. Paul certainly says in one place, "Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour be put away from you" (Ephesians 4:31); and in another, "Put ye off all these, anger, wrath, malice" (Colossians 3:8). But he guards himself from being misunderstood by giving a command in one of these very chapters (Ephesians 4:26), "Be ye angry, and sin not." He was himself angry when he said to the High Priest, "God shall smite thee, thou whited wall" (Acts 23:3), and to the jailer at Philippi, "They have beaten us openly, uncondemned, being Romans, and have cast us into prison; and now do they thrust us out privily? Nay, verily: but let them come themselves and fetch us out" (Acts 16:37). There is such a thing as "righteous anger;" and it was righteous anger which Moses felt at this time. He was indignant—
I. BECAUSE GOD WAS SPURNED AND HIS COMMANDMENTS MADE OF NO ACCOUNT. Pharaoh, after temporising, and professing contrition, and suggesting a variety of compromises, had declared himself finally against God—cast his words behind his back—and resolved on following out his own will, and defying the Almighty. Bold, unblushing wickedness may well make the minister of God angry. It is an insult to God's majesty. It is a contradiction of man's moral nature, it is an open enlisting in the service of Satan.
II. BECAUSE HIS COUNTRYMEN WERE WRONGED, BY BEING DISAPPOINTED OF THEIR JUST HOPES. Pharaoh's professions, his promises, his attempts at compromise had given the Israelites a right to expect that he would yield in the end. His sudden stiffness was an injury to them, with which Moses did well to sympathise. How should he not be indignant, when the just rights of his nation were wholly ignored, their patience despised, and their legitimate expectations baulked? His anger, so far as it arose out of sympathy for them, was justified—
(a) by the bitterness of their feelings;
(b) by the heartiness in which he had thrown himself into their cause;
(c) by the apparent hopelessness of their case, if the king now drew back.
III. BECAUSE HE HAD BEEN HIMSELF INSULTED AND ILL-USED. The anger which springs from a sense of wrong done to oneself is less noble than that which arises from a sense of wrong done to our fellows, and still less noble than that which has its origin in zeal for the honour of God; but still it is not illegitimate. Wrong done to oneself is nevertheless wrong, and, as wrong, properly stirs up anger within us. Moses had been ill-used by Pharaoh from first to last, derided (Exodus 5:4), trifled with (Exodus 8:26-32; Exodus 10:16-20), driven from his presence (Exodus 10:11); and now at last had been deprived of his right to make personal representations to the monarch, and even threatened with death (Exodus 10:28). And why? What evil had he done? He had simply delivered God's messages to Pharaoh, and inflicted the plagues at God's command. Of his own mere notion he had done nothing but shorten the duration of the plagues by entreating God from time to time at Pharaoh's request. Even, therefore, if his "heat of anger" had been caused solely by the wrong done to himself, it would have been justified.
HOMILIES BY J. ORR