I don't like today's OT reading. I saw in it for the first time something that particularly disturbs me. In all the times I have read and heard and been taught the story of the plagues of Egypt, it goes like this: Moses reasons with Pharaoh to let the people go. Pharaoh is a pagan, greedy, mean dictator who realizes that a large portion of his economy will collapse if he lets the Hebrew slaves leave, so he refuses. Moses threatens the plague of the day. Pharaoh scoffs. God does His stuff. Pharaoh relents. God removes the plague. Pharaoh hardens his heart, laughs maniacally, says "gotcha," hardens his heart some more, and once again refuses to let the people go. The pattern repeats 10 times until the day of Passover. All along the way, it is the fault of the power-hungry Pharaoh that such misery is visited on the land., and we feel that the divine smack downs are sort of cool and certainly well deserved. But what I saw today in Exodus 9 and 10 were these words: "But the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart" . . . "so that I can perform these miracles and you can tell your children and grandchildren that I treated the Egyptians harshly . . . "
I could see the first part of that possibly being a translation error, but the second part makes the message pretty darn clear. I don't like it.
1 comment:
It puzzles me, too, that God would several times harden pharaoh's heart seemingly so He could continue to demonstrate His power by sending plague after plague. It just doesn't seem to me that God would arrange for a person to actually sin and rebel just to make Himself great.
I would ask, How do you propose that we determine the truth about what motivates the heart of God? Will we base our conclusions on our own feelings about what seems right? Or will we base our conclusions on what God Himself says in the Bible to be true about what motivates Him?
I suppose the best, most direct, simple answer to the question is God's own answer. See Exodus 9:16 - "And in very deed for this cause have I raised thee up, for to shew in thee my power; and that my name may be declared throughout all the earth." and Romans 9:17 - "For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.".
Still a bit hard to reconcile.
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