Ex. 9:13-21; 5:2, God vs. god!

We are not going to go into any more detail on the issue of the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart, mainly because we have already done that (see our Blogs dated Jan. 18-26, 2019).  Our conclusion at that time we still maintain today: as God hardened Pharaoh’s heart, Pharaoh did exactly what he willed to do resisting God.  Whatever conclusion we come to on that subject, the ultimate conclusion is that God was doing things in a way that would bring Him great glory. 

We need to remember that God loved and loves the nations.  He did not choose Israel because they were better than other nations (Deut. 7:6-8).  God’s purpose in all of this was that the nations would seek Him.  Think about these passages.

·       Gen. 15:12-16: God promised Abraham He would punish the nation that held his descendants in bondage (Egypt). But God waited over 400 years because the sin of the Amorites (who inhabited Canaan) had not reached its full measure.  God was patient with the Amorites.

·       Psalm 47: God is ruler over the nations, even to the point of subduing them for Israel’s sake.  But God’s special relationship with Israel was intended to make Israel a witness to the nations, to display His glory to the nations.

·       Ezekiel: God punished the Assyrians (who deported the Northern Kingdom of Israel and devastated Judah all except for Jerusalem) using another nation, the Babylonians.  The reason was the pride of the Assyrians (Isa. 36-37).  God also used the Babylonians to defeat Egypt because Israel was putting her trust in Egypt to defend them against the Babylonians.  Our point is that God judged sin wherever is appeared: in Israel or in the nations.

·       Zech. 14:2-3,9,17-19:  Israel be around in the future kingdom of Messiah.  But so will the nations, engaging in the worship of the God of Israel.

·       Acts 17:25-28: God placed every nation in boundaries “so that men would seek Him.”  Keep this in mind when you read the list of nations in Gen. 10. 

God wants the nations to seek Him.  This was true of Egypt in Moses’ time.  Egypt was a widely divergent country (Upper and Lower Egypt were urban and rural).  To enable Pharaoh to be strong enough to rule he was declared “god.”  It was evident in the names of the kings of Egypt: Ramses (the sun-god Ra is the one who begot him), Amenhotep (the god of Amon is satisfied) and so forth.  By law all property and people, were his by divine right (Gen. 47:13-26).  There was no need to codify law because the word of the god-king was present to make law.  By Moses time Pharaoh had begun to seek the oracle of the great gods, and the high priest of Amon-Ra of Karnak became a powerful figure along with the vizier (prime minister) and the commander of the army.  Did Egypt seek the Creator?  No!  Instead of thanking the Creator for the Nile and its many blessings, they worshiped and served the creature.  What is recorded in Ex. 7-12 is “God vs. god” (Ex. 5:2).  The same could be said about our daily lives, for we also live to declare God's glory.