Exodus: The Lord and His PilgrimsSample

Pharaoh's heart

Pharaoh’s heart has been part of the Exodus storyline so far (4:21; 7:3, 13, 14, 23; 8:15, 19, 32; 9:7, 12), and, at first sight, it is a puzzle how on one hand the Lord hardened his heart, and on the other blamed him for having a hard heart! It seems impossibly unjust, and we need to think carefully about it. Now, in fact, Exodus here, while recounting the seventh plague, says three distinct things about Pharaoh’s heart. They are all true and must all be kept in mind, and are all found in 9:34–10:1: he ‘hardened his heart’, together with his officials (9:34), his heart became hardened (v. 35, literally) and God proclaimed, ‘I have hardened his heart’ (10:1). 

So first, Pharaoh ‘hardened his heart’ (9:34; cf. 8:15; see 7:22). Pharaoh set himself to disobey: his heart-hardening was his own deliberate, wilful refusal of God’s word. As a result of this decision, secondly, his heart was hardened (v. 35). That’s what always happens: a decision made becomes a predisposition to go that way again. This is something we all know about: it is called ‘habit-forming’ – and sadly it can most easily be illustrated in the case of bad habits. A first experience proves attractive, and makes another try more likely and easier to submit to. First and second combine forces to make a third, and then a fourth easier still – until, somewhere along this line of trial and temptation, we are ‘hooked’; a point of no return has been reached. We can never see that point coming; we only know it by hindsight. Yet the all-righteous God knows it in advance. It is his decision: we have toyed with sin long enough; now we must pay the penalty. So it was for Pharaoh when Moses confronted him. We are not told Pharaoh’s prehistory; we are only informed that Moses’ call for obedience was his point of no return; one more refusal to go God’s way would seal his fate by the moment of irreversible heart-hardening. God hardened his heart. The act had become a habit; the habit a divine judgment. That is what we see thirdly in 10:1.

Reflection

Think about the words of this hymn:

‘Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love; here’s my heart, O take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above.’ 

(Robert Robinson, ‘Come thou fount of every blessing’.)