For now shall I put forth my hand, and I will smite thee and thy people with pestilence; and thou shalt be cut off from the earth.
Just before the plague of hail, God sends Moses to Pharaoh with the sharpest message the king had yet heard. It tells him what God could already have done to him — and had not done. The words look back, not forward. Pharaoh stands at the height of his power, yet he is alive only because God has held back His hand.
The point of the words is that Pharaoh's survival was never his own achievement. He had defied God again and again, yet God had not carried out the sentence he deserved.
God tells him that his life was completely in God's hands. He could cut him off, but He had not… And why was he kept alive? It was to show him God's power, and to declare God's name throughout all the earth (15-16).
Pharaoh's cruelty did not begin with Moses' visits. He had been crushing Israel for years before God moved to rescue them. Judgment would have been just at any point along the way.
God could rightly have cut him off in his sin against Him at that time. Instead He bore with the wicked king. In the end He hardened his heart in His government of the world, so that Pharaoh rushed headlong into the jaws of death in a way designed to show God's power.
If God did not strike him down, He had a reason. God had raised Pharaoh to that height. The fall of a man so high would carry much further than the fall of an ordinary man.
God knew the stubborn self-will and pride of this man. Working behind the scenes, He raised him up to a place where he could keep mistreating His people, and even step it up, and so bring matters to a head. The time was now right for God to deal with him, and in doing so to display His power in such a way that His name would be declared throughout all the earth. A scripture like Joshua 2:8-11 bears witness that the name of Jehovah was declared that way in those days. And even in our day, 3,500 years later, the fame of it has not died away.
That raises an obvious worry. If God kept Pharaoh alive for His own purposes, was Pharaoh's wickedness God's doing? Commentators are firm on this. The evil was already there. God's part was to expose it and at last to seal it.
God never makes a man bad. Pharaoh was already a bad man, and he grew worse by resisting God's most striking appeals. What God did was put him on show. He had been raised from among men to such a height that his downfall would strike consciences far and wide throughout the world. He was hard from the start, and at last God sealed him up in a judicial hardening.
That distinction matters. God's patience with a man He could have destroyed does not mean the man was ever chosen for ruin.
The wicked are not chosen for eternal misery. Far from it. We find that God bears with them — vessels of wrath — with great patience. They are fitted for destruction not by Him, but by their own deeds.
Pharaoh read God's restraint as weakness. Each pause looked to him like proof that nothing final would ever come. That mistake is what makes this verse a warning, not a comfort.
God showed His power at least in part when His dreadful judgment finally fell on Egypt. It came after much patience and many earlier steps, and through them all Pharaoh clearly told himself that nothing could touch him. God is patient today too, sending warning after warning to a stubborn world. Yet He will show His power, suddenly and terribly, to a world that is startled and still hard.
- Spared. The verse is God telling a king that he is alive on borrowed time. God could have cut him off already. He chose instead to hold back His hand.
- Purposed. God kept him alive for a reason — to show His power in him and to spread His name through the whole earth. That report has still not died away.
- Endured. Pharaoh's cruelty long predates Moses' mission. What looks like slowness is God's patience with a man He could rightly have destroyed.
- Responsible. God never made Pharaoh bad. He exposed a wickedness already there, and at last sealed it in judicial hardening. Their own deeds, not God's choice, fit those who perish for destruction.
- Warned. Pharaoh mistook the delay for immunity. The same patience runs on today, warning after warning — and it ends the same way, when God shows His power suddenly.
And for this very cause have I raised thee up, to shew thee my power; and that my name may be declared in all the earth.
God pauses to tell Egypt's king why he is still alive and still on his throne. The answer has nothing to do with Pharaoh's greatness. These few words also raise one of the hardest questions in the Bible: how do God's sovereignty and human responsibility fit together?
The words follow a warning: God could have wiped Pharaoh out already. So "raised you up" starts with keeping him alive.
God tells him that his life was wholly in divine hands. He might cut him off, but He had not. God, of whom Pharaoh had known nothing at all, controlled his destiny... And why was he kept alive? It was to show him God's power, and that God's name might be declared throughout all the earth.
The height of the throne mattered too.
If Pharaoh had been an ordinary man in Egypt, no one would have seen his stubborn heart in public. But God raised him to a high place... Every fresh show of Pharaoh's stubborn will only brought out a fresh show of the mighty power of God. His pursuit of Israel only put before people the mighty power that could dry up the Red Sea, save His people, and destroy Pharaoh and his army.
The verse says God raised Pharaoh up. It does not say God made him evil. Commentators are firm on that line.
God never made any man bad. But He may give people up to the consequences of their own folly and evil, and in certain cases He does. That is, He hardens in judgment those who disregard and reject His grace... Pharaoh was wicked, and his wickedness grew in proportion to the patience God displayed. In the end the God he had despised blinded him in judgment and made him an example. All are responsible. Sin destroys the capacity, not the responsibility of obeying God.
So the hardening is not God picking a victim at random. It is a sentence that fits the man.
Pharaoh was already resisting God. He was already treating the people of God with cruel brutality. So the hardening of Pharaoh's heart was an act of God's government, and it was deserved. It was not at all an arbitrary use of sovereignty. What is more, we find Pharaoh hardening his own heart again and again. Who can fault God for doing to him what he deliberately did for himself?
Egypt was the leading world power of its day, and its king met God's claim with defiance.
The king stood in proud defiance of the LORD. "Who is the LORD?" he said... But God was carrying on His purpose. He was showing that man at his best was a failing creature, and that when he received power and authority he used it against God. It was right that God should show man for what he is, and set him aside to make room for the only Man who is able to rule. For this reason God raised Pharaoh up, so that in him the power of the world would be set aside.
God aimed at an audience far beyond Egypt, and the fame of it has lasted for thousands of years.
God knew the stubborn self-will and pride of this man. Working behind the scenes, He raised him up to a place where he could carry on the ill-treatment of His people, and even make it worse, and so bring things to a head. The hour was now ripe for God to deal with him, and to display His power in such a way that His name would be declared throughout all the earth. A scripture such as Joshua 2:8-11 bears witness that in those days the name of the Lord really was declared. And even in our day, 3,500 years later, the fame of it has not died away.
Paul's line "the Scripture says to Pharaoh" is itself striking, since no Bible existed in Pharaoh's day — God spoke through Moses, and the record is God's own Word.
The words of Moses would die away as soon as they were spoken, and if there had been no record of them, God's words could not have been recalled; but being recorded, it can be said, "The Scripture says to Pharaoh." This claims for Scripture that it is the Word of God.
Israel deserved judgment as much as Egypt did. Why one received mercy and the other hardening was not a question of merit.
Both were wicked — Israel and Pharaoh. Simple righteousness would have condemned both. He has mercy on one, and hardens the other. This is sovereignty. He proves Himself not only righteous — the day of judgment will prove that — but proves Himself God. This matters for us all: without it none would be saved.
Holding both truths does not mean solving them.
We believe both statements — divine sovereignty and human responsibility — but we are not pretending to reconcile them in a logical way. Perhaps, as finite beings, we are never meant to do so in this world.
- Spared. Pharaoh's life was in God's hands. God could have cut him off, but kept him alive on purpose.
- Raised. God set a stubborn man high, so that everyone could see his defiance and God's answer.
- Not corrupted. God never made him bad. The hardening was judgment on a man who kept refusing grace, and the responsibility stayed his.
- Displayed. God set aside the world's strongest kingdom, showing what man does with power and making room for the only Man fit to rule.
- Declared. God's name travelled far beyond Egypt, and 3,500 years later the fame of it has still not died away.