Why should you harden your hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts? After he had dealt severely with them, did they not send the people away, and they departed?
The ark of God spent seven months in Philistine hands, and disease and ruin followed it from city to city. Now the Philistine priests give advice, and their argument is history: do not repeat what Egypt did, because Egypt's stubbornness cost it everything.
A Warning Spoken by Israel's Enemies
The striking thing about this verse is who says it. The Exodus had happened centuries earlier, in another country. Yet the priests of an enemy nation treat it as settled fact, and as a verdict on Pharaoh.
The Bible TreasuryThis is a witness to the fact of the Exodus three hundred and fifty years later. It is more than that. It is an admission from the priests of a foreign nation that Pharaoh's conduct was stubborn and wrong. Israel's natural enemies reached this conclusion: God was right to judge the king, because he had hardened his heart against the God of Israel. They said this whatever the Lord's secret purposes may have been — purposes Moses knew.
The Lesson They Drew From History
The priests' reasoning is practical. Pharaoh resisted. God worked wonders among the Egyptians. In the end the people left anyway, and all the resistance bought was more pain.
Leslie M. GrantVerse 6 shows they knew Israel's rescue from Egypt well, and Pharaoh's cruel opposition to it. They also knew that God's many miracles brought great suffering on Egypt and broke Pharaoh's stubbornness in the end. So history warns them that if they harden their hearts they will prolong their suffering.
How a Heart Becomes Hardened
The verse assumes hardening is something people do — "why should you harden your hearts". That raises the old question about Pharaoh, since Exodus also says God hardened him. The order of events settles it.
Edward DennettThe difficulty lies in the words, "I will harden Pharaoh's heart." (Ex. 7:3.) Notice that this is not said of Pharaoh until after he had rejected the LORD's claims with contempt. He had said, "Who is the LORD, that I should obey His voice and let Israel go? I do not know the LORD, and moreover, I will not let Israel go." (Exodus 5:2.) He rejected the word of the Lord, set himself in open opposition to Him and His people. Only then did God harden his heart in judgment. And God still acts on the same principle... God has fixed a limit even to His day of grace, just as He did for Pharaoh. When that limit is passed, nothing remains but judgment.
There is a further turn to it. God's kindness itself can leave a man worse, not better.
Numerical Bible NotesWith Pharaoh, what hardened his heart was simply God's patient mercy (Ex. 8:15; Ex. 9:34). So what should do good turns to evil again and again, because man's will rebels against his Maker.
Taking the Warning Without Changing the Heart
The Philistines listened to their priests. They sent the ark back. But taking a warning to escape pain is not the same as being sorry for sin.
Samuel RidoutThe warning to the Philistines is not to harden their hearts in the same way. That is how nature works. It can take a warning and steer its course to escape the worst of judgment, without ever softening into real repentance. This is just another form of selfishness. It saves itself. It takes enough interest in God's past ways to learn how it can go on ignoring Him and despising Him with the least danger to itself.
Mercy for a Conscience With Little Light
These men had no Scripture. They had only a conscience — and God answered even that. One writer notes both the mercy in this and its limit.
William KellyIt is a very striking and instructive fact that God meets men where they are, though He refuses to meet His own people except according to His word... Where souls are outside any real knowledge of the truth of God, God's tender mercy meets them in their conscience with astonishing compassion. But conscience will not do where the word of God is known. Conscience matters in its own place, where there is nothing else.
Another writer notes what God does with a conscience that has little light.
H. L. RossierAll this shows conscience at work without the light that revealed truth brings. God always takes account of conscience, even a darkened conscience, and He gives a clear answer.
Summary
- Hardening starts with you. Pharaoh rejected God's claim first. Only then did God harden his heart in judgment. God still works on that principle.
- Hardening feeds on patience. God's patience should have melted Pharaoh. Instead it was the very thing that hardened him.
- Hardening costs you. The Philistine priests read the Exodus right. Resistance never changed God's purpose. It only stretched out the suffering.
- Hardening can dodge judgment. Nature will avoid the worst of judgment while still ignoring God. A warning taken is not a heart softened.
- Softening is what God answers. God met a dim conscience here with compassion, though these men had no Scripture. But conscience is no substitute where God's word is known.