Q: How can God be just & punish Pharaoh & Egypt with plagues if God was responsible for hardening Pharaoh’s heart? Why did God harden Pharaoh's heart?
15-Feb-10
This is primarily a reference to passages like Exodus 4.21 which says:
“The LORD said to Moses, "When you return to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders I have given you the power to do. But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go.”
But let’s back up the wagon a bit. Because God’s blessing was upon them, the Israelites “were fruitful and multiplied greatly and became exceedingly numerous” (Ex 1.7) long before any of this occurred. As a result, the Egyptians were jealous & embittered against an innocent Israel (Ex 1.8-10). They oppressed them with hard slave labor (Ex 1.11-14) & the Pharaoh (different from the hardened one in question) even gave orders to kill all newborn boys (Ex 1.15-16). When the midwives failed to do this, he told everyone to throw the Hebrew newborn boys into the Nile River (Ex 1.22) which was likely laden with crocodiles. In light of all this, the Egyptians were far from blameless.
Then, summarizing Ex 2: Moses is born, evades the aforementioned murderous plan, is providentially taken in by Pharaoh’s daughter, witnessed Israel’s hard labor, intervened by killing an Egyptian who was beating a fellow Hebrew, got scared & fled to Midian to escape Pharaoh’s death warrant, & met a shepherd in Midian who gave him his daughter in marriage who gave birth to his son. Then…
“During that long period, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God. God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them.” – Ex 2.23-25
God responds by appearing to Moses in the burning bush & gives him the assignment of leading the Israelites out of Egypt which is in Ex 4 where we find the controversial verse that was initially stated. But let’s not breeze past Ex 2.24 which mentions God’s covenant with Abraham. This goes back to Gen 15.12-21 where God predicts Abraham’s descendents will be strangers in a foreign land, they will be enslaved & mistreated 400 years, the foreign nation will be punished, Israel will leave with great possessions, a 4th generation after Abraham will return & inherit the land God promised. And it all happened with striking prophetic detail. The generations after Abraham are Isaac (1), Jacob (2), Joseph (3) & the fourth lands us at the beginning of this account (Ex 1.5-6, 8).
As prophesied, the Egyptians enslaved God’s people & it was the 4th generation after Abraham, so something was going to happen. Here you have God’s sovereignty, omniscience, justice & the limit of His mercy intersecting with sinful humanity. This was the case with Pharaoh & the Egyptians & it will be the case with every single person at some point (Heb 9.27-28, 1 Pt 4.5).
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“The LORD said to Moses, "When you return to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders I have given you the power to do. But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go.”
But let’s back up the wagon a bit. Because God’s blessing was upon them, the Israelites “were fruitful and multiplied greatly and became exceedingly numerous” (Ex 1.7) long before any of this occurred. As a result, the Egyptians were jealous & embittered against an innocent Israel (Ex 1.8-10). They oppressed them with hard slave labor (Ex 1.11-14) & the Pharaoh (different from the hardened one in question) even gave orders to kill all newborn boys (Ex 1.15-16). When the midwives failed to do this, he told everyone to throw the Hebrew newborn boys into the Nile River (Ex 1.22) which was likely laden with crocodiles. In light of all this, the Egyptians were far from blameless.
Then, summarizing Ex 2: Moses is born, evades the aforementioned murderous plan, is providentially taken in by Pharaoh’s daughter, witnessed Israel’s hard labor, intervened by killing an Egyptian who was beating a fellow Hebrew, got scared & fled to Midian to escape Pharaoh’s death warrant, & met a shepherd in Midian who gave him his daughter in marriage who gave birth to his son. Then…
“During that long period, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God. God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them.” – Ex 2.23-25
God responds by appearing to Moses in the burning bush & gives him the assignment of leading the Israelites out of Egypt which is in Ex 4 where we find the controversial verse that was initially stated. But let’s not breeze past Ex 2.24 which mentions God’s covenant with Abraham. This goes back to Gen 15.12-21 where God predicts Abraham’s descendents will be strangers in a foreign land, they will be enslaved & mistreated 400 years, the foreign nation will be punished, Israel will leave with great possessions, a 4th generation after Abraham will return & inherit the land God promised. And it all happened with striking prophetic detail. The generations after Abraham are Isaac (1), Jacob (2), Joseph (3) & the fourth lands us at the beginning of this account (Ex 1.5-6, 8).
As prophesied, the Egyptians enslaved God’s people & it was the 4th generation after Abraham, so something was going to happen. Here you have God’s sovereignty, omniscience, justice & the limit of His mercy intersecting with sinful humanity. This was the case with Pharaoh & the Egyptians & it will be the case with every single person at some point (Heb 9.27-28, 1 Pt 4.5).
\ \\ \\\ More to come... /// // /