18 And the magicians did so with their enchantments to bring forth lice, but they could not: so there were lice upon man, and upon beast.

19 Then the magicians said unto Pharaoh, This is the finger of God: and Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he hearkened not unto them; as the Lord had said.

With every sign and curse performed by Moses and Aaron the magicians of Egypt repeated its effect. By this they had shown the ability to increase the affliction, but they never showed any capacity to remove it. Only God could do that.

Here, though, God completely left the magicians behind. They did try to bring forth lice of their own, but they just couldn’t. Presumably they had done all of their enchantments to try and dispute the power of the Lord, to show that their own gods were just as powerful as He. But with this one failure they changed from critics of God to ones that would testify of His sovereignty! They told Pharaoh that “truly this is the finger of God.” They were telling Pharaoh that the power that stood behind Moses was the genuine article, and they were powerless to answer it. And so it would be for all other curses that followed. We will not hear of the magicians repeating any more of the afflictions that God set upon Egypt.

But even with the testimony of his magicians, Pharaoh still hardened himself. Sometimes after a curse he would seek mercy, but at other times God would just escalate to the next afflictions until he relented. Pharaoh could hold out for a while, and so can we, but God is perfectly able to outlast and outpower any of us. He may move gradually and accumulatively, but He can go as far and as high as He needs until He breaks our pride and we humble ourselves before Him. As it has been written, sooner or later, “every knee shall bow” and “every tongue confess.”