In our passage God is giving Moses instructions on what to do and expect when he confronts Pharaoh. We remember that Moses is a reluctant deliverer of Israel. He pleaded with God to send someone else, but Moses is God’s choice, so Moses it will be. The weakness of Moses, however, helps us to remember that the main point in the deliverance is God’s glory.
God’s message is powerful apart from the messenger’s ability or style. God Himself is always and only our Savior. He must work, or we must stay lost. He works through his word, so his prophet Moses must deliver wh
at God tells him to say. God gives Moses some encouragement by telling him the people in Egypt who wanted to kill him are now dead, so Moses will not be arrested, imprisoned, or executed upon stepping foot in Egypt.
Moses set off for Egypt with the staff of God in hand (verse 20). This portends a confrontation with Pharaoh. The Egyptians regarded the staff of a ruler as indicative of his power and authority. Pharaoh was considered the manifestation of two powerful gods: Ra, the god of the sun, and Horace, the god of death. Pharaoh’s staff was feared. Behind Moses’ staff would be the power and authority of God, and God wants this confrontation to be open and public.
Moses is warned that no matter how plain it is the living God is behind the miracles and plagues; Pharaoh is not going to comply until the final threat is executed against him. Moses is to tell Pharaoh that if he does not let Israel go, then the Lord will kill Pharaoh’s first born. This was a threat not only to Pharaoh’s family but Pharaoh’s rule. You can imagine what was going on in Moses’ heart and mind when he considers the effects of these words on Pharaoh. Not exactly the text book on how to win friends and influence people.
Yet one of the purposes of God is to harden Pharaoh. God knows this will provoke anger and resistance in Pharaoh. God says, “I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go.” As we go through the story, we will see different ways of Pharaoh’s heart being hardened. Sometimes the condition is simply described, “Pharaoh’s heart was hardened.” Sometimes it is Pharaoh, “Pharaoh hardened his heart.” And other times, as in our text, it is God; “God hardened Pharaoh’s heart.”
We are to see God’s sovereignty in the whole affair. And undoubtedly, God intends for us to see the nature of sin; it leads one to destruction though it is plain that death is the inevitable end of resisting God. Pharaoh’s hard heart is a leading motif of the conflict between God and Pharaoh in this story. Hardening means a determined resistance fueled by malice and vanity.
The difficulty for us is twofold; what this teaches us about sinful human nature, and how are we to understand God hardening Pharaoh’s heart. We must remember that God does not tempt anybody to sin. No one can blame God for their sin or persistent rebellion. However, we understand God hardening Pharaoh’s heart. It does not mean God forced Pharaoh to do something against Pharaoh’s will.
We must also understand that Pharaoh is intrinsically sinful. Sin is worse than we imagine in both guilt and power. Men have different restraints to sin from things like conscience, laws, how they were raised, their circumstances, and so on. Nevertheless, the intrinsic evil of sin is capable of manifesting itself if given opportunity.
Pharaoh is a man with little restraints. His position of power, being worshipped with none to say this or that to correct him makes sin’s power evident. He is confident in his ability to say, “Who is the Lord, that I should let his people go?” His sin is almost entirely unbridled. In hell, sin will be without restraint, and in Pharaoh, God is going to demonstrate what that looks like.
God hardening Pharaoh’s heart is by way of negative causality. He commands what he will and the sin in Pharaoh uses it as an opportunity to resist God. God allows Pharaoh to be Pharaoh. The application is not first of all, don’t be like Pharaoh. Rather, it is … I have a nature as sinful as Pharaoh, so Lord please have mercy on me a sinner. Do not leave me to myself, or give me over to my sin.
In the midst of the bad news, God gives us good news. Christ died for sinners. Christ came into the world to save sinners. You don’t look within for salvation. You look outside yourself, to Christ.
