Journey to the Land of Promise:
Genesis-Deuteronomy

How are we to determine who was responsible for Pharaoh's stubborn refusal to let the Hebrews go free? On the one hand, we are told that it was God who hardened Pharaoh's heart. Other passages report that Pharaoh hardened his own heart.

The author of the book of Exodus makes no attempt to harmonize these two viewpoints. What we have here is an illustration of the paradox of human freedom and divine sovereignty. While Pharaoh was a free moral agent pursuing his own course of action and fully responsible for his own misdeeds, God still maintained ultimate control over the situation. It was God and not Pharaoh who would determine the outcome. Pharaoh was given plenty of rope, but the end of the rope was still held firmly in the hand of God. Paul understood God's reason for putting up with Pharaoh's stubbornness when he wrote these words: "The scripture says to Pharaoh, 'I have raised you up for the very purpose of showing my power in you, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth'" (Rom 9:17).

The story of the wearing down of Pharaoh's resistance is told as if it were a complicated piece of oriental bargaining. In the beginning Pharaoh's magicians were able to duplicate the changing of Aaron's rod into a serpent, the changing of water into blood, and the multiplication of the frogs. After the third plague, Pharaoh proposed a slight compromise by offering to let the Hebrews offer sacrifices to their God in the land of Egypt, a plan Moses flatly rejected. Pharaoh then proposed that the Israelites go only a short distance outside the land of Egypt to offer their sacrifices. After the seventh plague, Pharaoh confessed that he had sinned and offered to let the Hebrews go, only to harden his heart immediately afterwards. He then tried to negotiate another compromise with Moses; he would agree to let the men go if they would leave their wives and children behind. Moses again refused the compromise. After the plague of darkness, Pharaoh made a final attempt to effect a compromise. He offered to let the Hebrews depart if they would leave their flocks and herds behind. Again Moses refused to compromise, although it required the plague of death on all the firstborns of the land of Egypt to finally convince Pharaoh of the futility of further resistance.