We’ve been feeding on how God trains up Moses. But mighty Pharaoh is the centre of Exodus’ next chapters: Egypt’s Emperor, a man who God raised up to power so that for the next 3000 years we readers might know better how not to mess up our lives… But, it’s also a section we need to grasp because our friends may use it to argue that God is unfair…
Pharaoh is keeping the Israelites in utterly appalling slavery. Between chapters 5 and 10 we watch the `plagues’, how over (probably) 6 months God repeatedly warns him. Noticeably – and God Himself says this (9:15) – He doesn’t just wipe Pharaoh out straightaway; nor are we just told that God raised up Pharaoh, hardened him, and then deployed His righteous judgment. Instead, God sends a series of `signs` (even at considerable cost to the suffering Israelites), and up until ch9 they seem primarily designed for Pharaoh (7:17, 8:10,22); and when Pharaoh rejects the first lot of evidence, God doesn’t simply destroy him, but goes on and gives him more evidence. But the signs’ only longterm effect is that Pharaoh `hardened his heart`, leading him to disaster. Which was exactly what God had foreseen: indeed, more than that, God had foreseen a time when He Himself would harden (or `strengthen`) Pharaoh’s rebellious heart. And as a result of all this there would be an evil emperor on whom God’s self-revelatory judgments of Passover would rightly fall.
But is God being unfair to Pharaoh? No. If we read these chapters over a couple of days, we’ll see how God sends Pharaoh repeated warnings, which Pharaoh repeatedly rejects. And yet God doesn’t destroy him, but keeps on giving Pharaoh evidence, till the truth of His reality and lordship is unavoidable, and its rejection must only lead to judgment. But it isn’t that Pharaoh never had a chance, though God foreknew all along just what Pharaoh would do (3:19). As we read these chapters carefully we see it’s only after Pharaoh has repeatedly chosen to harden his own heart (7:13,22, 8:15,19,32) (we should plead with people not to do this!) that the point is reached when God finally hardens his heart for him (9:12,10:1), giving him what he has repeatedly chosen. (This `deliberate disobedience results in… the disposing of the heart and will towards that line of action`, says Alec Motyer, `with a diminishing power to act otherwise until, in the sovereign decree of God, power of reformation is lost altogether.`)
It’s a fascinating – horrifying – record if we follow it through. The first time we hear about Pharaoh’s heart being hardened is 4:21, but this isn’t God saying that He is making this happen at that time, it’s a prophecy of what He will do in the future. (And the next verses describe something that doesn’t take place until ch11.) Again in 7:3 God says He will harden Pharaoh’s heart, but makes no statement as to when. The first time we read of Pharaoh’s heart actually becoming hard is 7:13, but nothing is said there about God doing it, although the point is made that He had predicted it. Instead, God is presented giving lots more `signs`, more evidence (7:17), even at a cost to Israel, so that Pharaoh `will know that I, the Lord, am in this land` (8:22). But Pharaoh’s response to God’s self-revelation is tragic to read, and illuminating. He turns to God briefly when he’s in real trouble (8:8), but this isn’t real repentance; and so what something like that leads to, we learn, is further self-hardening (8:15). This starts to be very costly even to his own people; but by 8:19 he won’t even listen to his own staff. Yet still God gives him `signs`, evidence (8:22-23); and still Pharaoh `hardened his heart` (8:32).
In 9:6 comes a much more serious plague, resulting in the mass death of Egyptian livestock. Still Pharaoh refuses to repent. But this is the last time. Now in 9:12 we’re told something new: God gives Pharaoh what he’s repeatedly chosen, and hardens his heart for him (also in 10:20,27). He has rejected God’s warnings, rejected (we may say) God’s salvation, and finally God says, Enough. (One day this will happen to our own culture as a whole, 2 Thessalonians 2:10-12.) The signs have been described hitherto as being for Pharaoh; from 10:2 on they are for Israel.
But now that Pharaoh had demonstrated that he deserved God’s judging him, says John Lennox (in Determined to Believe?, to my mind the best book we have on God’s sovereignty and human freedom), `God chose to do so in a particular way that would sound out a powerful message to the world.` Pharaoh’s actions towards Moses grow increasingly aggressive (10:11,28), and God could have destroyed him (9:15): but now Pharaoh has a new, very important role in the drama, that of being a worked example, for the next 3000 years’ readers, of the power and glory of God and the disastrous results of consistently disobeying Him (9:16). It’s a pattern reminiscent of Romans 8:29, `Those God foreknew, He also predestined` (see also 1 Peter 1:2): God foreknows what we will freely choose; and that being so, He predestines where our choice will lead, which can include the part He will give us to play in His drama. In this case, God knew what Pharaoh would choose, and so `raised him up’ to power as the Emperor (9:16), so that Egypt would have a ruler because of whom the Exodus events (and God’s revelation therein for thousands of years to come) can happen.
This `hardening’ can be an act of mercy as well as of judgment, of course; for if it’s true, as many believe, that God judges us according to the light we’ve received (see eg Matthew 11:21-24), then for Pharaoh to go on receiving, and rejecting, more light from God could only make his fate far worse in the end: deeper pain, deeper loss. But what an unimaginably terrible point to have reached, when we’ve kept locking the door on the inside, till finally God says, So be it, your will be done, and His invitation never comes again: when God, even in mercy, finally decrees that there will be no more chances, no more calls to obedience and salvation. Surely it should motivate us to somehow think of ways (and pray for the courage) to plead with our friends, as Paul does in 2 Cor 5:20-6:2, to reach out and seize the generous offer of grace while it’s there, `not to receive God’s grace in vain`; now, says Paul, is the `time of God’s favour, now is the day of salvation` – now is all we have… (And may I not harden my own heart!)
As for the Egyptians in general: it seems they could have been distinctive and so stepped out of the judgment on their culture (9:20) – as we each must too. But by and large they didn’t; and finally God’s judgment comes. It overshadows Israel too: God’s holiness cannot overlook sin, whoever it’s committed by. And next time we’ll learn an incredibly important thing: just how it is God shelters those who desire it from His judgment on evil; and in the process, just how He sets people in bondage free…
