The question exposes what Pharaoh's refusals really are: a proud king setting himself against God's people. Keil & Delitzsch render the verb, "thou still dammest thyself up against My people," picturing Pharaoh as a dam of heaped-up earth blocking the way. Gill notes that resisting Israel was resisting God, "for what is done to them he takes as done to himself." Matthew Henry sees the question as justifying the judgment about to fall: "Pharaoh was a great king; God's people were poor shepherds at the best, and now poor slaves; and yet Pharaoh shall be ruined if he exalt himself against them, for it is considered as exalting himself against God." The word "As yet" points back over six plagues already sent.

No reply from Pharaoh is recorded. The message goes straight on to the warning: "to morrow about this time I will cause it to rain a very grievous hail," with counsel to bring in cattle and servants from the field (Exodus 9:18-19). "He that feared the word of the LORD among the servants of Pharaoh" brought his servants and cattle into the houses; "he that regarded not the word of the LORD" left them in the field (Exodus 9:20-21). The hail came, "such as there was none like it in all the land of Egypt since it became a nation," but not in Goshen (Exodus 9:24-26). Then Pharaoh said, "I have sinned this time: the LORD is righteous, and I and my people are wicked" (Exodus 9:27). Yet once the storm stopped, "he sinned yet more, and hardened his heart, he and his servants" (Exodus 9:34).

This question sits inside God's fullest explanation to Pharaoh of what the plagues were for: "that thou mayest know that there is none like me in all the earth" (Exodus 9:14), and "for this cause have I raised thee up, for to shew in thee my power; and that my name may be declared throughout all the earth" (Exodus 9:16). Paul quotes that verse in Romans 9:17. Keil & Delitzsch say God had not destroyed Pharaoh at once so that Pharaoh would experience God's might and so that God's name would be declared through all the earth.

Yet even here judgment comes with mercy. God told Pharaoh how to shelter his men and animals (Exodus 9:19), and some of Pharaoh's own servants listened (Exodus 9:20). Keil & Delitzsch call that advice "a sign of divine mercy, which would still rescue the hardened man and save him from destruction," adding that "the hardening was not yet complete." Matthew Henry writes, "When God's justice threatens ruin his mercy, at the same time, shows us a way of escape from it."