Why did God harden Pharaoh's heart?

[PeteZaHut]

Why did God harden Pharaoh’s heart?

 

[Garyjohn2]

That is a good question…I’m not entirely sure of the answer.

I want to say that it was so God could show his glory later. If Pharoh was a softy, and said “ok, i’ll let your people go,” there would be no miracles, and God’s glory (and his wrath) would not be revealed. We would know less about God, and we wouldn’t have the teachings and lessons we get from the accounts in Exodus.

There could be more reasons for this too though. I’m curious to see how others respond!

 

[Ne_OrangeKnight]

Think of it this way: If you get a big promotion with a big raise, and a co-worker really wanted it instead, he could say, “You make me so jealous.” This is not to say that you have actively worked to effect envy within him; rather, your existence and circumstances are passively before him and he react to it in an envious way.

With this in mind, Pharaoh saw that the Israelites were worshiping the Lord and having miracles performed on their behalf, and here comes Moses demanding that the Lord’s people be released from slavery. Pharaoh didn’t like that. Therefore, his heart was hardened ‘by God’ in a passive manner.

Sam, the Neon Orange Knight

 

[Garyjohn2]

Think of it this way: If you get a big promotion with a big raise, and a co-worker really wanted it instead, he could say, “You make me so jealous.” This is not to say that you have actively worked to effect envy within him; rather, your existence and circumstances are passively before him and he react to it in an envious way.

With this in mind, Pharaoh saw that the Israelites were worshiping the Lord and having miracles performed on their behalf, and here comes Moses demanding that the Lord’s people be released from slavery. Pharaoh didn’t like that. Therefore, his heart was hardened ‘by God’ in a passive manner.

Sam, the Neon Orange Knight

Nice explanation! I was actually thinking that as well, but I couldn’t think of how to say it.

 

[mfj]

Maybe I’m just adding on to His Glory?

I want to believe the Egyptians were as important to Gd as the Jews. Gd could not condemn the Egyptians had they not had the same chance to choose Him over the other gods of the time. If Pharoah had just given in, what would the news headlines read? Pharoah let all our slaves go what’s wrong with him? Silly? Probably! But Gd had to prove Himself to all, in a loud statement with proofs that were more than conjurings from magic.
Also, Gd and only Gd knows when people have gone so far evil that they can not be returned. So He then has the responsiblity to the rest no matter what the cost.
And remember this life is hardly real compared to eternity.

 

[peeteyg]

God raised up Pharaoh to demonstrate his glory. When he hardened his heart he did not violate his free will he only allowed/pushed him to do what was already in his heart. He already wanted to destroy israel but he had to be out of his mind to have witnessed all of gods power and might and thought to himself " I’m gonna go after them right into the red sea !"

 

[ausculta]

It is interesting to note that the author of Exodus complicated this question by posing a contradiction.

We are familiar with this:

"But* the LORD** hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he did not listen to them; as the LORD had spoken to Moses" * (Exodus 9:12).

But earlier we are told:

“But when Pharaoh saw that there was a respite, he hardened his heart, and would not listen to them; as the LORD had said” (Exodus 8:15).

So who hardened Pharaoh’s heart???

Thus, we have a mystery: The interplay of God’s sovereign will/omniscience and human free decision.

Pax et Bonum,

A

 

[Cristian_B]

It is interesting to note that the author of Exodus complicated this question by posing a contradiction.

We are familiar with this:

"But* the LORD*** hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he did not listen to them; as the LORD had spoken to Moses" (Exodus 9:12).

But earlier we are told:

"But when Pharaoh saw that there was a respite, he hardened his heart, and would not listen to them; as the LORD had said" (Exodus 8:15).

So who hardened Pharaoh’s heart???

Thus, we have a mystery: The interplay of God’s sovereign will/omniscience and human free decision.

Pax et Bonum,

A

I never thought of that. Maybe Pharaoh hardened his own heart by refusing to believe, and God helped him a bit.

 

[Joe_Kelley]

This reminds me of Luke 7:30

When they heard this all the people and the tax collectors justified God, having been baptized with the baptism of John; 30 but the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected the purpose of God for themselves, not having been baptized by him.

The Pharisees rejected the call to repentance; so were unable to receive the rest of the message. Pharaoh ignored the evidence and refused Moses request

Still Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he would not listen to them; as the LORD had said. 14 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Pharaoh’s heart is hardened, he refuses to let the people go.

effectively hardening his own heart. God left it hard and went on to demonstrate His Power unmistakeably to all.

Just my speculation.

 

[newlight]

Why did God harden Pharaoh’s heart?

Exodus Chapter 10:1
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants, that I may show these signs of mine among them, 2 and that you may tell in the hearing of your son and of your grandson how I have dealt harshly with the Egyptians and what signs I have done among them, that you may know that I am the Lord.”

 

[minion]

This always troubled me.

Instead of God freeing the Israelites, couldn’t God have just shown a sign to the Egyptians for them to realize their worshipping false gods, and convert the Egyptians instead?

That way, the Egyptians and the Israelites get along fine and are freed from unequal servitude, Egypt isn’t left behind to continue its idolatry.

Instead, God angers the Pharaoh even more, who then treats the Israelites WORSE, reluctantly releases them after every firstborn is killed, and then, understandably angry his firstborn son has just died, the Pharaoh purses the Israelites with this army, just to have them drown.

I have heard that the nature of the Ten Plagues represented something significant. That each plague represented each false god the Egyptians worshipped, that God was demonstrating to the Egyptians He had power over each God they worshipped, and each one was false. Maybe even if the Pharaoh finally believed in the Israelite God, he never would’ve converted out of anger of being proved wrong in his beliefs (pride)?

^Don’t know if it’s true, because I’m unfamiliar with the pantheon of gods the Egyptians worshipped in the OT, but it sounds interesting.

 

[Garyjohn2]

This thread gives me hope that are the end of time, when our bodies are resurrected, some threads may be resurrected too.

 

[Herringbone]

Did God actively harden Pharaoh’s heart or did He allow Pharaoh’s heart to be hardened?

I am going to take a shot at this by using an example of an oven baking a loaf of bread. The longer the dough is exposed to the heat of the element in the oven, the more hardened it gets. Like bread baking in an oven, more exposure means a harder crust. This happens to the soul whenever we sin and do not repent. Even to the point of a “seared conscience”, this is one that can’t even recognize sin as sin anymore. God tells Pharaoh over and over to let his people go and worship him. Each time the Pharaoh refuses he is exposed more and more to the power of God. So it is not directly the will of God to harden pharaoh’s heart as much as the reality of what Pharaoh’s pride did to him. Resistance to humility and lack of contrition will do this (hardening of heart) to you too if you refuse God’s will to confess your sins and be forgiven.

But if you are hung up on the overall fairness of the situation and want to know maybe why Pharaoh seems like more of a puppet or pawn in the grand plan. As in, Did God take away his ability to agree to let his people go? I think it helps to look at the Gospel of St. John.

Think of the example in the New Testament in John 9
A Man Born Blind Receives Sight ] As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. …

It was not the sins of the man’s parents, or his own sins that caused him to be born blind. It was so that the glory and works of God might be revealed in Jesus for the sake of the disciples. It probably seems unfair to us that this poor guy had to suffer the inconvenience of a life of blindness (he would have been subjected to ridicule and scorn because it would have been assumed he or his parents sinned somehow) until Jesus comes and heals him. But when Jesus heals him he becomes a great part of the story. Imagine him in Heaven today. Do we think he is mad at God for having spent the first part of his life as a blind person? Or can we see that The glory and works of God were seen in him in a way that we still read about his life 2000 years later. His healing is part of the proof that Jesus was the messiah predicted by the prophet Isaiah. Who said the blind would see, the deaf hear, and the lame would walk. Also, who knows what sins the blind man might have been saved from by having the glory of God revealed in him through his healing? Certainly he knew Jesus was the Christ better than most having been the one healed by him. So, I think you can see that God is fair in his allowing something bad to exist (or happen) so that a greater good may come from it.

With Pharaoh his inability to recognize The God of the Israelites, and give in to God’s demands to free his people results in prolonged exposure to God’s power which if resisted hardens the heart (Causes greater self- pride). If God hardened Pharaoh’s heart (meaning, he took his free will from him and made him resist) then I’m sure God would have forgiven him and he would be with God now because he would not have been able to resist the hardening of his heart. But I have to think that he had free will too or else we would basically be saying God was not just or fair in hardening Pharaoh’s heart. It seems to me that in God’s big plan he either saved Pharaoh in a way we don’t get told about (maybe like Divine Mercy) or he allowed Pharaoh to make his own decisions with his free will and thus be liable to the consequences of choosing against God.

It’s a great question to ask but I think we must assume God is fair and it was Pharaoh’s own free will that caused his hardened heart.

God may have been making it known to Moses through his omniscience. When he speaks in the futuristic sense saying he will harden Pharaoh’s heart, but knowing something will be, is not the same as causing it to be.

Just my two cents worth! Hope it helps!

 

[fred_conty]

Why did God harden Pharaoh’s heart?

Sin is what hardens the heart. Pharoah’s heart was stone because he made it that way thru his crimes against the chosen people, and probably thru his other sins.

The only sin that is unforgivable is the sin against the Holy Spirit, meaning that the Holy Spirit works if a person asks for forgiveness. But a person steeped in sin hardens their heart … dosen’t want to change … then the Holy Spirit does not operate in such a soul. Then the soul is described as hard … unrepentent,unchangable. We know that for a person to change he must have grace to change. Which in this case Pharoah was not given.

So the condition of hardness was the work of Pharoah himself by his own sinning. And it is said that God hardened his heart by leaving him in his unrepentent sins and withholding grace to repent.

Obviously we know that God could change his heart even when someone’s heart is like stone. God can perform miracles. But God chose not to.

The question then becomes why did God not give him grace to change? What was God’s purpose in doing this? For with grace Pharoah would have graciously let the people go.

Because this whole story of their release is a part of salvation history, pointing to the lamb of God, Christ, the Last Supper, Calvary, the Promised Land. And this story would not succeed in this higher meaning if the people had just simply walked out of Egypt.

 

[bmullins]

Even though this thread is three or so years old I wanted to chime in. My understanding is that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart by removing his grace from it. We all need grace in order to be able to do good right? God pours out his grace on all of us. We have free will though. What I was taught is that in order to manifest his glory, and to free his children, God remove his grace from Pharaoh’s life… this made Pharaoh hard of heart. God did not physically change Pharaoh. The Hebrews of the time it was written though were still fleshing out who God is, they believed he controlled things, both good and bad. You know, evil comes from God etc. As we began to understand later that changed the outlook of it… God did not force Pharaoh or change him, but rather their relationship was broken.

 

[fred_conty]

Even though this thread is three or so years old I wanted to chime in. My understanding is that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart by removing his grace from it. We all need grace in order to be able to do good right? God pours out his grace on all of us. We have free will though. What I was taught is that in order to manifest his glory, and to free his children, God remove his grace from Pharaoh’s life… this made Pharaoh hard of heart. God did not physically change Pharaoh. The Hebrews of the time it was written though were still fleshing out who God is, they believed he controlled things, both good and bad. You know, evil comes from God etc. As we began to understand later that changed the outlook of it… God did not force Pharaoh or change him, but rather their relationship was broken.

From your post it seems you see it as God hardening Pharoah. I would agree with this, but to me there also seems to be an additional element coming from man.

The Jews were in Egypt for about 5 centuries. And when they first moved there under Joseph, who was made second in command, they were treated well. But 5 centuries later we find them as slaves, who had to make bricks but find their own straw. Their boy babies were killed. They were wipped during work, and on and on. So that after 5 centuries, the abuses of these people were taken for granted by Pharoah who thought nothing of it, and considered it the norm of buisness…he was hardened to their condition because over time he saw nothing wrong with it.

So he, along with the other Egyptians were responsible for the treatment of the Jews and they became accustomed to their poor condition. So God just didn’t move them and Pharoah to see differently.

It is much the same with this country, women’s rights/voting, children working in factories, slavery, chineese poverty/mistreatment, … We are and were hardened by these conditions because they became customary. Sins, over time, make evil seem ok, and the way out of this tunnel is either man himself take a good look at the abuse and change it, or God lends his help to open people’s eyes to the evil going on around them.

In the case of Pharoah, he became hard(blind) after 5 centuries of comfort which evil provided. And God did nothing to open his eyes.

 

[littlestsouls2]

"As to why some people are hardened, I answer: Pharaoh’s hardness of heart was his own fault, not mine, because he did not want to conform himself to my divine will. Hardness of heart is nothing other than the withdrawal of My divine grace, which is withdrawn when people do not give Me, their God, their free possession, namely, their will."

• Jesus to St. Bridget of Sweden (Book 5, Interrogation 13)

 

[fred_conty]

"As to why some people are hardened, I answer: Pharaoh’s hardness of heart was his own fault, not mine, because he did not want to conform himself to my divine will. Hardness of heart is nothing other than the withdrawal of My divine grace, which is withdrawn when people do not give Me, their God, their free possession, namely, their will."

• Jesus to St. Bridget of Sweden (Book 5, Interrogation 13)

“…when people do not give Me,…”

I see this clause in the private apparition as very important.

This is the condition people have put themselves into first. Then, on this condition, after the fact, God withdraws. Not giving of their will is sin. So personal sin ignites God’s withdrawal which results in hardness.

What would be the point of God giving more grace when a person refuses grace given? The person is still in that condition of sinning. So grace is no longer offered to them and hardness results.

Off hand, I don’t know of any incident where God hardened someone’s heart who first didn’t warrant it by first sinning. Pharoah being a prime example in his long years of abuse of the Chosen People.

Further it could be said that repeated sin can so weaken the will and darken the intellect that a person can be said to be in a certain kind of hardness to that sin. So they no longer think it is that wrong or at least downgraded and sometimes justified. We see this especially in social issues.

 

[littlestsouls2]

I see this clause in the private apparition as very important.

This is the condition people have put themselves into first. Then, on this condition, after the fact, God withdraws. Not giving of their will is sin. So personal sin ignites God’s withdrawal which results in hardness.

What would be the point of God giving more grace when a person refuses grace given? The person is still in that condition of sinning. So grace is no longer offered to them and hardness results.

Off hand, I don’t know of any incident where God hardened someone’s heart who first didn’t warrant it by first sinning. Pharoah being a prime example in his long years of abuse of the Chosen People.

Further it could be said that repeated sin can so weaken the will and darken the intellect that a person can be said to be in a certain kind of hardness to that sin. So they no longer think it is that wrong or at least downgraded and sometimes justified. We see this especially in social issues.

True. Resistance to grace hardens us more.

“God is infinitely good; He is never the first to depart. It is His peculiar property to be ever merciful and to spare. Yes, He is my hope and my salvation.”

• St. Crescentia