One of the mysteries of the Bible is the way in which G-d explains his actions in relation to Pharaoh and the exodus from Egypt. It would be a lot easier to deal with if the Torah said that Pharaoh’s heart was hard and therefore he kept denying Moshe and the Israelites the right to leave.
But that’s not quite how it’s worded. Look at Sh’mot (Exodus) 10:1a:
Adonai said to Moshe, “Go to Pharaoh, for I have made him and his servants hard-hearted…”
And again, at Sh’mot 10:20:
But Adonai made Pharaoh hard-hearted, and he didn’t let the people of Is’rael go.
It’s a recurring theme, repeated throughout the Sh’mot narrative until finally the children of Israel are allowed to leave Egypt. And when you notice it, it can be a bit disturbing.
Why would Adonai claim responsibility for Pharaoh’s stubbornness? Sure, as the old saying goes, the L-rd loves whom he loves and hardens who he hardens. But considering the severity of the final plague on Egypt, the slaying of the first-born, it makes one wonder why Adonai didn’t just let Pharaoh give in sooner, and spare lives.
Some of these things we may never fully understand. Could it be a translation difficulty, with a meaning we don’t fully appreciate in English? Could it be that Pharaoh had chosen his hard-heartedness long ago, but Adonai is simply laying claim to ultimate control over Pharaoh’s actions?
These are all possibilities, I suppose, but I prefer to wrestle with the meaning rather than explain it away conveniently. Perhaps there is another possibility.
It’s clear that Adonai knows what’s going to happen with Moshe, Aahron and Pharaoh; he promises the outcome long before Moshe ever returns to Egypt to begin the process of deliverance. Maybe it’s more a case, therefore, of Adonai simply knowing what Pharaoh is like, the way a parent knows a child’s tendencies. Rather than intervening, Adonai had allowed Pharaoh to become so hardened because Pharaoh had rejected obedience to the one true G-d so many times before.
That seems a bit more understandable than the typical idea that Adonai purposely hardened Pharaoh’s heart just to make it clear that Adonai was their deliverer, and not a beneficent Pharaoh. HaShem set yard markers for Pharaoh to follow all his life, and each time Pharaoh refused to meet them, he grew a bit more distant from haShem each day.
Which is not all that different from how believers fall away from obedience to haShem, Y’shua and Torah even today. A bit at a time.
Tags: Moshe, Pharaoh, yard markers