Page 41 - Pentateuch

Anyone reading about God’s interaction with Pharaoh is struck by the twenty references to “hardening.”
Day after day, God is working on this man to bring him to know the true God. Day after day, this man
stubbornly resists. Three different Hebrew words are used to describe the hardening, but much more
important is the overall trend. God knows what the outcome will be. He told Moses from the beginning that
He would “harden Pharaoh’s heart” (4:21; 7:3). Yet as the events themselves occur, God’s hardening does
not expressly happen until during the sixth plague. In ten of these references, God is the subject of the
sentence. In the other ten, Pharaoh or his heart is the subject.

1. 4:21: “I will harden his heart.”
2, 7:3: “I will harden Pharaoh’s heart.”
3. 7:13: “Pharaoh’s heart became hard.”
4. 7:14: “Pharaoh’s heart is unyielding.”
5. 7:22: “Pharaoh’s heart became hard.”
6. 8:15: “He hardened his heart.”
7. 8:19: “Pharaoh’s heart was hard.”
8. 8:32: “Pharaoh hardened his heart.”
9. 9:7: “His heart was unyielding.”
10. 9:12: “The Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart.”
11. 9:34: “He and his officials hardened their hearts.”
12. 9:35: “So Pharaoh’s heart was hard.”
13. 10:1: “I have hardened his heart.”
14. 10:20: “The Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart.”
15. 10:27: “The Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart.”
16. 11:10: “The Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart.”
17. 13:15: “Pharaoh stubbornly refused.”
18. 14:4: “I will harden Pharaoh’s heart.”
19. 14:8: “The Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh.”
20. 14:17: “I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians.”

The picture is one of God calling to Pharaoh repeatedly through the first five plagues. Only Pharaoh’s
repeated stubbornness closes the door on God’s grace. We rightly note other aspects of God’s call to
Pharaoh. At one time, he responds, asking Moses to pray for him (8:28). His own magicians, after a time,
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attribute the plagues to “the finger of God” (8:19). He admits to sinning (9:27; 10:16). We also note how
God patiently increases the pressure, not jumping immediately to the final blow. The passage “holds in
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tension God’s divine sovereignty and humankind’s moral freedom.”

We are confronted here with one of the mysteries of God. He is sovereign over the entire world and its
inhabitants. Humans are responsible for their decisions. We do not know how to bring these two truths
together. Emphasize God’s sovereignty too much, and we can hardly blame humans for their choices.
Emphasize human responsibility too much, and God fades into the background. The scriptures insist that
both sides are true. The mystery of “compatibilism” is traceable to the mystery of God, to what we do not
know about God. So we must be careful not to state things too heavily on either side. We must simply note

48 Jesus refers to this phrase in Luke 11:20. He has been accused of driving out demons by Beelzebub. He points out
the impossibility of the accusation. Only the power of God could do such a thing. Both the Old and New Testaments
reserve certain activities for God. Already we know God is the one who makes someone deaf, mute, or blind (4:11, cf.
Deut. 32:39). When Jesus began working miracles, knowledgeable men recognized the exclusive work of God (John
3:2). So while we want to have a proper fear of Satan and all he can do, God’s is greater. Satan is limited as to what he
can know or do. His miracles tend to be trickery, although very believable (2 Thess. 2:9).
49 Hamilton, Handbook, 166.
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