Ex. 7, (esp. v1-7,10-14,22-23), Heart-Hardening (3)

We concluded yesterday saying Pharaoh was a normal sinful man.  He did what you would expect when challenged.  He did what he wanted to do, not what God made him do by twisting his heart.  What you see in today’s reading, as the plagues begin, is a confirmation of this: Pharaoh is doing what he wills as he does God’s will.

·        7:1: The way the LORD worked resulted in Pharaoh’s considering Moses as God.  How did God do this?  He worked through Pharaoh’s normal way of thinking.  Pharaoh was the incarnation of an Egyptian “god” so he was conditioned to think in terms of a “man” being not only a challenge but an opposing “god”.  As the plagues wore on this would have increased and Pharaoh’s heart would become harder in his need to win the competition so to speak.

·        7:3-4: God’s plan is to bring Israel out of Egypt and into Canaan.  The ever hardening heart of Pharaoh allows God to do this with many signs and wonders.  Note that besides what God is doing to Pharaoh, He is also at work in Moses to change him from the man of many excuses (Ex. 3-4) to the shepherd of Israel.

·        7:10-13: Here is another thing God does in hardening Pharaoh’s heart.  He uses signs and wonders that, for a short while, can be matched by the magicians of Egypt.  These men are a part of Pharaoh’s religious power.  They can do what Moses can do here, and then in turning water to blood (7:22) and in bringing up frogs on Egypt (8:7).  The third plague (lice) they cannot replicate (8:18-19) and when that happens they tell Pharaoh, “This is the finger of God.”  That exchange illustrates what we are trying to illustrate.  When they speak thus to Pharaoh you can say that this is an opportunity for Pharaoh see that he is overmatched and to let the people go.  Yet the same event becomes a hardening event when he refuses. 

·        7:13: In each of these verses we read in the NKJV that Pharaoh’s heart grew hard, and he did not heed them, as the LORD had said (also 7:22; 8:19).  The AV (KJV) translates these verses thus: And He hardened Pharaoh’s heart.  Other translations of note are the NASB (Yet Pharaoh’s heart was hardened), NIV (Yet Pharaoh’s heart became hard) and ESV (Still Pharaoh’s heart was hardened).  All the translations acknowledge that what happened was as the LORD had said.  The point is to say that as the plagues continued the effect was that the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart increased as the LORD said.  F. C. Cooks comment (on Ex. 4:21) we believe catches the essence of what is happening: Calamities which do not subdue the heart harden it.  God is hardening Pharaoh’s heart; it is God who is working the signs and wonders.  But Pharaoh is hardening his own heart, or allowing it to grow in hardness, by refusing to respond properly to God’s works.  The more plagues there are, the harder his heart.

This is a situation we would do well to consider.  As 1 Cor. 10:13 says: There has no temptation taken us but such as is common to man!