Scripture
1Now the Lord said to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh for I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his servants, that I may show these signs of Mine before him, 2and that you may tell in the hearing of your son and your son’s son the mighty things I have done in Egypt, and My signs which I have done among them, that you may know that I am the Lord.” Exodus 10:1-2
Observation/Application
10 is the Biblical number of perfection (e.g. 10 commandments). 10 plagues against the 10 god’s of Egypt was a perfect indisputable display of God’s authority over all spiritual beings including the son of Ra himself- Pharaoh. Yes, Egyptians saw the Pharaoh as the god most high. Our God most high made sure He was humbled. You can see Pharaoh operating as “god” when he tries to bargain with Moses for the terms and conditions of their sacrifice. Moses and Aaron make it clear you can’t bargain with God you can only obey Him. Pharaoh, as a god himself, chooses to exert his own power to put our God in His place. The only feature that is common to the plague-by-plague display of God’s power in the Exodus account is the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart. Pharaoh hardened his own heart six times before God did, but it’s clear we as believers can’t skip over what God clearly wanted us to see through repetition- He is the King over our heart. Now, immediately this seems to mess with my free will theology because it looks like God is contradicting Pharaoh’s will to make a point. That is until you see the Hebrew definition of “hardened.” According to commentators, “The Hebrew word for “harden” (chazaq) can be translated “become strong… encourage… repair.” HALOT defines the word as “be strong, grow strong… prevail over… have courage… harden… gird… repair… sustain.” Forster and Marston show that the term is always translated “harden” in Exodus, but not translated this way in the rest of the OT.” Therefore, God gave Pharaoh the “courage” or “strengthening” to carry out what he had already decided in his heart to do. Forster and Marston write, “The wicked desire was already in Pharaoh; the Lord’s action simply gave him courage to carry it out… When any normal person would have given in because of fear, Pharaoh received supernatural strength to continue with his evil path of rebellion.” So, God isn’t contradicting Pharaoh’s will but He is strengthening it. Why would He do this? Simply put, God reached more hearts in both, Egypt and Israel, by strengthening Pharaoh’s heart to stand against him. Paul puts it this way, “For the Scriptures say that God told Pharaoh, “I have appointed you for the very purpose of displaying my power in you and to spread my fame throughout the earth.” (Romans 9:17). Paul then applies the parallels of Egypt and Israel to Israel and the Gentile nations. Israel hardened their heart toward Jesus so the Gentile nations could find Him and so that ultimately Israel would repent and return to the One True God through Jesus: “11Did God’s people stumble and fall beyond recovery? Of course not! They were disobedient, so God made salvation available to the Gentiles. But he wanted his own people to become jealous and claim it for themselves. 12Now if the Gentiles were enriched because the people of Israel turned down God’s offer of salvation, think how much greater a blessing the world will share when they finally accept it.” (Romans 11:11-12). God could have delivered His people in one fell swoop by simply destroying Egypt. Instead, God uses the hardness of Pharaoh’s heart and his refusal to repent to lead the nations, including Egypt itself, to God! At the end of Romans 11, Paul writes, “For God has imprisoned all people in their own disobedience so he could have mercy on everyone” (Rom. 11:32). The purpose of God’s plan is to show mercy on everyone (“the whole Earth” Rom. 9:17). God can use the hardened heart to reach hardened hearts. “Now the Lord had caused the Egyptians to look favorably on the people of Israel. And Moses was considered a very great man in the land of Egypt, respected by Pharaoh’s officials and the Egyptian people alike.” (Exodus 11:3)
Prayer
I will always find a way to reach more with your salvation. Sometimes, that’s by giving the sinner exactly what they are asking for leading them to such a place of desperation that, as with Pharaoh, they will have to admit the truth. Lord, I give up on people so easily. You never do. I see a hardened heart and give up hope. You use the hardened heart to open up the hearts of those around them as they see on vivid display the folly of going their own way. Sometimes I wonder what is taking you so long, why it’s so long and drawn out. Now I see, in a whole new way, the process of redemption through even the hardest of hearts.
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