Sunday, July 23, 2017

God hardens Pharaoh's heart after the plague of boils

I want to give special attention to two of the plagues mentioned in Exodus. In that short text it becomes clear that self-hardening and divine hardening are both the same thing. I will intersperse my own comments as important points need to be made.

Exodus 9:1-12
1 Then the Lord said to Moses, "Go to Pharaoh, and say to him, "Thus says the Lord, the God of the Hebrews: Let my people go, so that they may worship me.
2 For if you refuse to let them go and still hold them,
My comments: Notice the conditional language in verse 2. This language ought to inform our understanding of verse 12.
3 the hand of the Lord will strike with a deadly pestilence your livestock in the field: the horses, the donkeys, the camels, the herds, and the flocks.
4 But the Lord will make a distinction between the livestock of Israel and the livestock of Egypt, so that nothing shall die of all that belongs to the Israelites.' "
It is interesting that there is no report of Moses actually delivering this warning to Pharaoh; but obviously he did.
5 The Lord set a time, saying, "Tomorrow the Lord will do this thing in the land."
6 And on the next day the Lord did so; all the livestock of the Egyptians died, but of the livestock of the Israelites not one died.
All of the livestock? But Exodus 9:19 reports that there was more livestock to die. This "all" language appeared recently in Exodus 8:31 where it seems Egypt had not a single fly remaining in the land. Not one fly! This language is called hyperbole. "All" type language is rarely to be taken literally but rather in a specific context. The point here is that there were many-many dead livestock animals.
7 Pharaoh inquired and found that not one of the livestock of the Israelites was dead. But the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, and he would not let the people go.
8 Then the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, "Take handfuls of soot from the kiln, and let Moses throw it in the air in the sight of Pharaoh.
9 It shall become fine dust all over the land of Egypt, and shall cause festering boils on humans and animals throughout the whole land of Egypt."
This plague, interestingly, comes upon Egypt this time without warning.
10 So they took soot from the kiln, and stood before Pharaoh, and Moses threw it in the air, and it caused festering boils on humans and animals.
11 The magicians could not stand before Moses because of the boils, for the boils afflicted the magicians as well as all the Egyptians.
12 But the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he would not listen to them, just as the Lord had spoken to Moses.
Remember the conditional language in verse 2? It shows that Pharaoh's behavior was not under God's control. Divine hardening is actually self-hardening but in the context of Divine pressure to repent. Exodus 9:27 calls Pharaoh's behavior a "sin" which, by definition,' is a personal act of the will. Exodus 9:34 calls self-hardening a sin, even though, two verses later, God calls Pharaoh's self-hardening divine hardening (Exodus 10:1). The obvious conclusion here is that self-hardening against God's invitations to repent is the exact same thing as divine hardening.

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