daily java

Daily Java:

The LORD had said to Moses, “Pharaoh will refuse to listen to you—so that my wonders may be multiplied in Egypt.” Moses and Aaron performed all these wonders before Pharaoh, but the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he would not let the Israelites go out of his country.  (Exodus 11:9-10)

Nine plagues had hit the nation of Egypt and their king, the Pharaoh had refused to let the Israelites go out of the land.

For 400 years, the Israelites had been slaves to the Egyptians. In a little over 400 years, they had gone from honored guests to pariahs and were currently being used to build the monolithic structures the ego-ridden Pharaohs wanted to be buried in.

Of course, Pharaoh was reluctant to lose them. They were, after all, his main source of cheap labor.

Then came Moses and Aaron. And with them, they brought the presence of the God of the Universe, the Great I Am, YHVH himself. And he wanted his people to leave.

At first it was just a request to go out into the desert to sacrifice. Pharaoh refused this. Then it was more and more. Pharaoh refused all of it.

His reaction was really strange. There would be a major plague – boils, locusts, hail, others – and he would say, just stop it and you can go. Then he would change his mind the minute it was stopped. Nine times he did this. And I do not understand why God kept doing it knowing he would refuse.

But he did. Verse 10 says that the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart. Other verses say Pharaoh hardened his own heart. Which was it? Did God cause the problem or allow the problem to be caused.

God could have just sovreignly removed the Israelites from Egypt. But he didn’t. he let all this happen, knowing that Pharaoh would refuse all of it.

It wasn’t until the tenth plague, the big one, the death of the firstborn of all Egyptians, their slaves, and their cattle, that Pharaoh finally, in grief, said go.

Then, of course, he changed his mind again and his entire army was killed in the midst of a great miracle from God – the passage through the Red Sea.

The question is: does God harden hearts or does he just allow it?

He can soften hearts. He softened mine, along with many others I have known. He could have reached down and touched Pharaoh’s heart and made it right. But he didn’t. He allowed things to take their natural course.

Pharaoh was the kind of guy that refused to back down. Maybe he felt it an insult to his manhood, or a sign of weakness to step aside in the presence of a larger and stronger person. I have known people like that, and they regularly get beat up. Unless, of course, they have an army behind them and take over a small South American or African country.

Pharaoh saw his capitulation as weakness and refused. God saw it as it was, as rebellion, and pushed anyway. Of course, God won and the Israelites left Egypt.

Whether Pharaoh would cooperate or not, God was going to do what he was going to do. And that was that.

It was not God who put the thoughts into Pharaoh’s heart. It was Pharaoh. God just let Pharaoh do what he was going to do and let him accept the consequences.

You do not have to be like that.