Why pharaoh hardened his heart

However, as Luzzatto implies, the situation is never permanent. Even then, the gates to the divine — and to ourselves — are always open.

We can do the work of goodness in the world. It will change us. Judaism and Free Will. The Bible records several problematic instances of God hardening human hearts, seemingly stripping them of free will. How do we reconcile the two? May I share with you two illustrations, one an ancient Jewish midrash I first heard while a graduate student and the second an ancient Christian interpretation I later read in my studies. The first farmer cultivates his land with great care.

The rains come. The sun shines. The crops grow. The second farmer refuses to work his land. The rains come and the ground turns to mud. Then the sun shines and the ground becomes as hard as clay. The widely accepted Jewish and Christian view is that when a person continually rejects God their heart becomes harder and harder, even when God continues to reach out to them in love. You have to keep reading, and stay alert.

In the last five plagues, the pattern changes. Here we are able to draw several conclusions. Can you see how this is a distinct change from plagues ? In those stories, Pharaoh explicitly hardened his own heart plagues 2 and 4 , or the source of the hardening was ambiguous plagues 1, 3, and 5.

God called Pharaoh to humble himself and acknowledge that God is his authority and that he cannot redefine good and evil on Egyptian terms. After this, God gives Pharaoh five opportunities to repent and humble himself. And five times Pharaoh hardens his heart. Ultimately, whether it was God or Pharaoh, at the end of ten plagues, Pharaoh wants the Israelites gone. After losing his own son, Pharaoh releases the Israelites. Not surprisingly, Pharaoh has yet another change of heart and goes back on his decision to let the Israelites go Exodus We know how this story ends.

Romans 9 is the lengthiest reference Paul makes to Exodus in the New Testament. Many point to this chapter to say that God was ultimately behind the evil of Pharoah from the beginning. He writes,. The fact that God can steer evil towards his purposes does not mean he engineered it. When human evil goes unchecked, bad things happen, and bad people can sometimes turn into monsters. The author of Exodus is showing us that Pharaoh was responsible for the evil in his heart.

At a clear point in the story after plague 5 , he crossed a point of no return. The point of the story is not to tell us that God engineers evil. God will always graciously offer us chances to turn back would you have given Pharaoh so many chances?! But sometimes a person can cement themselves in a destructive path and reach a point of no return. God can and sometimes will allow our evil to destroy us.

Tim Mackie is a writer and creative director for BibleProject. He wrote his dissertation on the manuscript history of the book of Ezekiel, with a focus on the Septuagint and Dead Sea Scrolls. What a total nerd!