The Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart?

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Remember also that in Exodus, before we are told that the Lord hardened Pharoah’s heart, he hardened his own heart. See here. So as God confirms Pharoah in his stubbornness, the Scriptural writer uses language that says God hardened Pharoah’s heart. In a sense, Pharoah hardened his own heart. And in another sense, God hardened His heart because God is ultimately sovereign and even gave Pharoah the free will to operate.
 
Chelsea111 said:
Why did the Lord harden Pharaoh’s heart?
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There are a few Jewish scholarly interpretations of this passage. One is that G-d hardened Pharaoh’s heart in the sense of STRENGTHENING it after the first five plagues. If G-d hadn’t done this, Pharaoh would have LOST his free will to resist the disasters caused by the following plagues and capitulated to Moses and G-d, but without sincere repentance for his behavior. Instead, G-d was maintaining Pharaoh’s free will by strengthening his resistance. A second, more straightforward, interpretation is that G-d punished Pharaoh by depriving him of his free will for repentance due to his prior behavior. It has been noted by scholars that the deprivation of free will was also caused by the Mount Sinai revelation of G-d’s Law to the Jewish people. It is much easier to obey G-d when one is granted eyewitness revelation of G-d Himself. But since G-d’s plan incorporates giving Man the free choice to obey or disobey Him, G-d did not remove Man’s ability to turn away from G-d and be tempted by sin, while subsequently overcoming the temptation. Hence, the Golden Calf was built AFTER the Mount Sinai revelation. In the case of Pharaoh, G-d punishes him by not giving him the opportunity to exercise his free will, and this punishment is based on Pharaoh’s previous free choice to disobey G-d.
 
Chelsea111 said:
Why did the Lord harden Pharaoh’s heart?
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Pharaoh was one of those guys God knew would freely choose the path to Hell. Consequently God withdrew grace from him, and let him follow his free will.
 
Chelsea111 said:
Why did the Lord harden Pharaoh’s heart?
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The Egyptian Pharaoh saw himself as a god. When the real God hardened Pharaoh’s heart, Pharaoh and all who knew about what happened (inclusive all who have come to “hear about it” by reading the Bible) get to know that there is no other God then the God who has created us.

To me this is a story about how believers are taken care of by God (the Jews were helped out of Egypt) and how those who exult themselves, make themselves like God, more or less , (like Satan Did) , one day will lose all their glory. God is God and whoever wants to take His place will be stripped for everything one day.
 
Chelsea111 said:
Why did the Lord harden Pharaoh’s heart?
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I think there comes a time when God can give up on people. Pharaoh had hardened his own heart up to that point. Since he was not going to co-operate willingly with God, then God would make him co-operate unwillingly. But he had several opportunities to change his mind.

I think some hard line atheists fall into this category. They’re given opportunity to repent, people are praying for them, but they refuse to take it, and if anything they harden their own hearts even more. Could for example Christopher Hitchens or Richard Dawkins repent at this stage, or are they past the point of no return?

It’s what CS Lewis described when he spoke about the reversal of the phrase in the Our Father, “Thy will be done…”. It can get to the stage where God says to the person, “All right! Your will be done!”
 
Bob_Crowley said:
I think there comes a time when God can give up on people. Pharaoh had hardened his own heart up to that point. Since he was not going to co-operate willingly with God, then God would make him co-operate unwillingly. But he had several opportunities to change his mind.

I think some hard line atheists fall into this category. They’re given opportunity to repent, people are praying for them, but they refuse to take it, and if anything they harden their own hearts even more. Could for example Christopher Hitchens or Richard Dawkins repent at this stage, or are they past the point of no return?

It’s what CS Lewis described when he spoke about the reversal of the phrase in the Our Father, “Thy will be done…”. It can get to the stage where God says to the person, “All right! Your will be done!”
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Allowing one to persist in their own state is not the same as God giving up on people.

I’m living proof that God never gives up on anyone.

-Tim-
 
God gave Pharaoh plenty of chances and Pharaoh refused to take what was on offer. God will not deny a person’s free will, and so God “cooperated” with Pharaoh by using him as an example to be made of in all history: “But I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth” (Exodus 9:16).

This is evidence for the Thomist theodicy of the “problem of evil” in light of God’s omnipotence - God can bring good out of evil. It is also proof of compatibilism (the philosophical belief that combines free will and determinism), which again reaffirms God’s omnipotence in the face of the problem of evil. For, we see that God created Pharoah for a specific purpose (even if it was evil), but Pharoah himself still had free will. This is reiterated later by Daniel when he said “[God] changes times and seasons; he sets up kings and deposes them” (Daniel 2:21).
 
meltzerboy said:
There are a few Jewish scholarly interpretations of this passage. One is that G-d hardened Pharaoh’s heart in the sense of STRENGTHENING it after the first five plagues. If G-d hadn’t done this, Pharaoh would have LOST his free will to resist the disasters caused by the following plagues and capitulated to Moses and G-d, but without sincere repentance for his behavior. Instead, G-d was maintaining Pharaoh’s free will by strengthening his resistance. A second, more straightforward, interpretation is that G-d punished Pharaoh by depriving him of his free will for repentance due to his prior behavior. It has been noted by scholars that the deprivation of free will was also caused by the Mount Sinai revelation of G-d’s Law to the Jewish people. It is much easier to obey G-d when one is granted eyewitness revelation of G-d Himself. But since G-d’s plan incorporates giving Man the free choice to obey or disobey Him, G-d did not remove Man’s ability to turn away from G-d and be tempted by sin, while subsequently overcoming the temptation. Hence, the Golden Calf was built AFTER the Mount Sinai revelation. In the case of Pharaoh, G-d punishes him by not giving him the opportunity to exercise his free will, and this punishment is based on Pharaoh’s previous free choice to disobey G-d.
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Interesting, do you have references on free will interpreted from Biblical passages in something like the Talmud or other Jewish interpretive docs…I think one is called Peshitta and another one is Peah or something. I hope that makes sense. Are any of the Biblical interpretive Jewish texts B.C.?
 
It’s good to know I was pretty much on the right track. I thought it might have to do with free will, but then my friend brought up “but it says God hardened Pharaoh’s heart…”

Meltzerboy–just out of curiosity, why is it that you don’t put the “o” in God?
 
Because God, the Potter, has the right over the clay to make one into a vessel used for honor and another for dishonor. God was preparing Pharoah for destruction, in order to make the riches of His mercy known to those vessels which He had prepared beforehand for glory-even us whom He had called. As explained by Paul, Romans.9:21-24
 
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