Exodus 10:7

Pharaoh’s servants said. Thus far the courtiers seem not to have ventured their own opinion, at least in opposition to Pharaoh. Except for the magicians, who had pointed to the lice of the third plague as “the finger of God” (ch. 8:19), the entire court had remained passive while the king made the successive fateful decisions affecting the nation. They are even said to have “hardened” their hearts like the king (ch. 9:34). But now they speak forth their fears. Having already lost most of their cattle and nearly all crops for the current season, they became genuinely alarmed, fearing that further calamities would rain them permanently. It is significant that they interfered before the plague actually began, for this revealed that they had come to believe in the reliability of Moses’ predictions and in the power of his God. Some had already come to this point when the hailstorm was announced (ch. 9:20), but that feeling had now become more general.