Exodus 7-9
But for this purpose I have raised you up, to show you My power, so that My Name may be proclaimed in all the earth.
Exodus 9:16
Egypt stands here as the most powerful nation on earth, and Pharaoh rules it as a god. But with the plagues the LORD is systematically demonstrating His supremacy. Pharaoh and all Egypt’s gods beside him are powerless before the LORD, and yet Pharaoh resists.
As you read these stories, do you ever try to envision yourself “on scene”? If so, where are you in the room? Are you Moses? Aaron? An average Israelite? How about just a fly on the wall? (There are plenty of those!) Most of us probably imagine ourselves as “one of the good guys”, not necessarily Moses himself, but right there with him, rooting for him against the nasty Pharaoh. But we should at least occasionally break out of that self-congratulatory perspective and imagine things from a different point of view.
I am pretty sure none of us now occupies the position of head of the world’s most powerful nation. Nor do the people around us bow down to any of us as a god. So perhaps it is difficult to put ourselves in Pharaoh’s place — except for one thing: we all resist the LORD in one way or another. Perhaps our story is not as dramatic as the plagues of Egypt, but God’s message to us is the same as it was to Pharaoh: But for this purpose I have raised you up, to show you My power, so that My Name may be proclaimed in all the earth.
Perhaps it is time for us all to admit that God is in control, and we are not.
Okay, bear with me for a minute…
When God spoke from the burning bush, he gave Moses the sign of the rod turning into a serpent, seemingly to give him confidence before Pharaoh. But that didn’t turn out very well since Pharaoh’s wise men did the same trick (and no one was impressed when Moses’ serpent ate the others for breakfast).
God, of course, knew this would happen. How did Moses feel? Let down? Embarrassed? Putting myself in the scene as John suggested, I am feeling a bit tricked by God…
And has anyone else ever been bothered a bit by the thought that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart?
Also, just a recap of yesterday’s reading: Moses comes back and declares God’s salvation. Yayy! The people are worshiping God for this. Then immediately things get difficult in their lives—really difficult—and they’re not so excited anymore.
I am right there with them. I’m really good at praising God and thanking him for the blessings in my life, much less faithful about that when things get tough. I need to be reminded sometimes that God is always in control.
Ah, yes, the LORD’s hardening of Pharaoh’s heart, a topic of debate for the past 3,000 years. I think there are actually two questions here:
Let’s think about the latter question first. We all have an innate (i.e., God-given) sense of justice, which, of course is perverted by sin, but which is nonetheless there. And the notion that God would somehow force Pharaoh to sin by hardening his heart and then turn around and blame him for doing so, strikes us all as inherently unfair. Plus, we know from the rest of Scripture that God is indeed a good God Who never does evil and is never unjust. And so we have this cognitive dissonance trying to process how a just God can (seemingly) act so unjustly.
And that brings us to the first question: What does it mean to say that the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart? First, let’s just look at the three different ways that Exodus expresses the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart:
Interestingly, Pharaoh is held directly and explicitly accountable only three times, the LORD takes credit ten times, and it is left ambiguous six times. I think the LORD wins (which, of course, just means it bothers us more).
So, what does it mean? Sorry to disappoint, but I don’t have a peer reviewed answer for that. I’m loath to take the easy path and simply claim that it doesn’t mean what it says, that the LORD had no role whatsoever (which, I think, is the most common way of disposing of the problem). In some way or another, it means exactly what it says, reinforcing the idea that the LORD is sovereign and completely in control. And yet it remains that it cannot mean that the LORD forced Pharaoh into sin, and so I am left to say that it means what it says, but it doesn’t mean what we casually think. My best guess? I think it means that, ultimately, Pharaoh hardened his own heart, but the LORD pushed his buttons. The truth is that we are all inclined to sin, and we need no help to do so. But we are entirely dependent on the LORD not to sin. So for the LORD to harden Pharaoh’s heart, all that was necessary was to leave him to himself.
This hardening of the Pharaoh’s heart makes me think of God setting Job up for a life of misery. I think, if I have the opportunity, I will have a number of questions for Him…