Why did God harden Pharaoh's heart?

Despite the gracious manner in which God had dealt with Pharaoh, giving him repeated opportunities to accede to His request, Pharaoh hardened his heart, thus displaying his inveterate hatred and antagonism to God and His people. Now this proud adversary is to come under the judicial hardening of God, as these solemn words declare, "And I will render Pharaoh's heart obdurate and multiply My signs and My wonders in the land of Egypt … and I will lay My hand upon Egypt and I will bring forth My hosts, My people the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great judgments" (vv. 3, 4). Unbelief in the first instance is never the consequence of judicial hardening on God's part. But let there be no doubt that there is such a thing as hardening. It would be equally wrong to suggest that this hardening process precedes the giving of God's initial testimony to men, as to deny the righteous exercise of the divine prerogative of sovereignty in hardening after His testimony has been refused. Both are true, as anyone can see whose thoughts are guided and formed by the Word of God.

There are live outstanding instances of this intensely solemn action of hardening on God's part. The Gentile or heathen world, Rom. 1:28; Pharaoh or Egypt, Ex. 9:12; The Kings of Canaan, Joshua 11:20; Israel, Isa. 6; Christendom, 2 Thess. 2. This hardening precedes destruction, but it comes after much long-suffering on God's part, and after man's incurable unbelief and obstinate refusal to accept God's testimony has proved the necessity of this judicial visitation and the display of yet another aspect of God's glory, this time in judgment. God endures with all long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction, as He fashions by His Spirit His own elect vessels of mercy before He glorifies them. "Whom He will He hardens," is surely true: but He wills to show His wrath in this way of hardening only in the case of those whom He has endured in much long-suffering (Rom. 9:11-22). In our own day is there not irrefutable evidence that the "strong delusion" mentioned in 2 Thess. 2 has gone forth? The fruit of this is unmistakably seen in the speech and actions emanating from men in high places reputably great and eminent in this world.

Once more Moses received his commission, and again he hesitated on account of his poor speech. After all the gracious words Jehovah had spoken he pleads again his weakness. It shows what the unbelieving heart is. Twice Jehovah said that Moses should be a god. A god to Aaron (4:16) and a god to Pharaoh (7:1). He received divine authority and power over Pharaoh, while he was to his spokesman Aaron a god, because the word he uttered to him to communicate to Pharaoh was the word of the Lord. "And I will harden Pharaoh's heart." This was stated before in chapter 4:21. Eighteen times we read of the hardening of Pharaoh's heart. However, different words are used in the Hebrew to show an important distinction. One means to "make firm" or "strong." The other, "to make stubborn." These two words show Pharaoh's hardening of his own heart and God's hardening after he continued in his wicked way. After it is five times declared that Pharaoh hardened his heart, then God began His hardening and made Pharaoh's heart stubborn. Pharaoh hardened himself, then God hardened him. Pharaoh had his opportunities and as he refused and continued in unbelief, God made him stubborn. God hardens as a judicial act because man refuses His Word. God never hardens first nor compels a man to be an unbeliever. A solemn warning is contained in this. Thousands harden their hearts now, and ere long apostate Christendom will be hardened by God without remedy (2 Thessalonians 2).

This will explain to us an expression occurring very frequently throughout the earlier chapters of this book. "The Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart." There is no need, whatever, for any one to seek to avoid the full, plain sense of this most solemn statement. If man resists the light of divine testimony, he is shut up to judicial blindness and hardness of heart. God leaves him to himself, and then Satan comes in and carries him headlong to perdition. There was abundant light for Pharaoh, to show him the extravagant folly of his course in seeking to detain those whom God had commanded him to let go. But the real disposition of his heart was to act against God, and therefore God left him to himself, and made him a monument for the display of His glory "through all the earth." There is no difficulty in this to any, save those whose desire is to argue against God — "to rush upon the thick bosses of the shield of the Almighty" — to ruin their own immortal souls.

Before we proceed to analyse these chapters there is one point — inasmuch as it often occasions difficulty to the believer, as well as draws forth the attacks of the enemy — that cannot be omitted. It lies in the words, "And I will harden Pharaoh's heart." (Ex. 7:3.) The doubt that Satan would suggest in connection with this is, Where was the sin of Pharaoh if his heart was thus hardened? Or, How could God righteously destroy one whom He had hardened to resist Him? If the place in which these words occur had been carefully observed, the difficulty would have vanished. The fact is, the practice is so common of citing single verses of Scripture, apart from their context, that difficulties are created which would be dissipated in a moment, if the context were carefully examined. Be it then noted, that this is not said of Pharaoh until after he had contemptuously rejected the claims of Jehovah. He had said, "Who is the Lord, that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I know not the Lord, neither will I let Israel go." (v. 2.) He rejected the word of the Lord, placed himself in open antagonism to Him and His people; and now his heart is judicially hardened. And God still acts upon the same principle. We thus read in 2 Thess. of some on whom He will send strong delusion that they should believe a lie. But wherefore? Because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. (2 Thess. 2:9-11.) Let the warning sink deep into the hearts of any unconverted ones whose eyes may fall upon these pages. There will be a time even for them, if they continue to refuse the gospel of God's grace, when it will be impossible for them to obtain salvation. God has fixed a limit even to His day of grace, even as He did for Pharaoh; and when that limit is overstepped there remains nothing but judgment. "Today," then, "if ye hear His voice, harden not your hearts." (Heb. 3:15.)

There is yet a pause. Moses and Aaron go in unto Pharaoh and present their credentials — attested by a miraculous sign, the sign which the Lord had taught Moses at Horeb. "Aaron cast down his rod before Pharaoh, and before his servants, and it became a serpent." (Ex. 7:10.) The wise men of Egypt, the magicians, did the same with their rods; but "Aaron's rod swallowed up their rods" (v. 12) — the Lord thus vindicating the mission of His servants. As, however, He had foretold, Pharaoh was not convinced; for "He hardened Pharaoh's heart, that he hearkened not unto them; as the Lord had said." (v. 13.) Now God Himself appears on the scene, and a succession of terrible judgments falls upon Pharaoh and his land — judgments which will be known while time shall last as "the plagues of Egypt." They are ten in number. First, the waters of the Nile are turned into blood (Ex. 7:14-25) then follow the plagues of frogs (Ex. 8:1-15), of lice (Ex. 8:16-19), of the swarms of flies (Ex. 8:20-32), of the murrain of the cattle (Ex. 9:1-7), of boils (Ex. 9:8-12), of thunder and hail (Ex. 9:18-35), of the locusts (Ex. 10:1-20), of darkness (Ex. 10:21-29), and finally that of the death of the firstborn of man and beast. (Ex. 11, Ex. 12) The Psalmist recounts them more than once in graphic language when celebrating the mighty works of the Lord in song — describing "how He had wrought His signs in Egypt, and His wonders in the field of Zoan" (Ps. 78:43; see also Psalm 105:26-36).

Pharaoh is a case in point. It is indeed true that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart, but only after Pharaoh had demonstrated extreme and incredible arrogance by saying, ‘Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice …?’ (Ex. 5:2) — and only after he had repeatedly hardened his own heart. As a matter of fact, the Spirit, using two different words in the original language, states no less than seven times that Pharaoh hardened his heart (Ex. 7:13, 14 (JND), 22; 8:15, 19, 32; 9:7) before saying that God hardened the heart of Pharaoh (Ex. 9:12).

The reader may ask, “But what about God hardening Pharaoh’s heart? Was that not sovereignty exerted in the sense of bringing evil upon a man?” The answer is that Pharaoh was already resisting God, already acting with cruel brutality to the people of God, and the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart was governmental, and merited, and not at all an arbitrary exercise of sovereignty. Moreover, we find Pharaoh hardening his heart again and again. What fault can be found with God doing to him what he deliberately did for himself? We repeat it was government rather than sovereignty.

So on the other side, in the case of Pharaoh, God was shewing His power and making His name known, and Pharaoh is set up as one in whom it is to be done. He was already a wicked man who defied Jehovah: "Who is Jehovah that I should obey him? I know not Jehovah." Well, says Jehovah, you shall know, and all the earth too; and hardens him, that he may be a monument of His judgments to those that defied His power. Both were wicked - Israel and Pharaoh. Righteousness would have condemned both. He has mercy on one, and hardens the other. He has mercy on whom He will have mercy, and whom He will He hardens, where simple righteousness would simply have condemned both. This is sovereignty. He proves Himself not merely righteous (the day of judgment will prove that), but proves Himself God; and this is of all importance for us all: without it none would be saved.

What would come next? Who could tell? God's summons could not be set at nought by Pharaoh for ever refusing compliance. A creature resisting its Creator! Human will overcoming the Divine will! That could not be. God therefore again communicated with Moses, and told him what He would do, and charges His servant with a fresh message to the obstinate ruler of the land of Egypt. "Go in to Pharaoh: for I have hardened his heart, and the heart of his servants, that I might show these My signs before him: and that thou mayest tell in the ears of thy son, and of thy son's son, what things I have wrought in Egypt, and My signs which I have done among them; that ye may know how that I am the Lord" (Ex. 10:1-2). Generations then unborn should hear of the works of the Lord, and of His interposition on behalf of Israel; and should know that He is the Lord. Egyptian obstinacy should further the display of the glory of God.

Again the Lord reminds Moses that He Himself had hardened Pharaoh's heart and the hearts of his servants in order that He might publicly show His signs before them, as well as that God's great works of power might have very real effect on Israel's present generation and on generations to come, that they might realize that it was indeed the living Lord of glory who was dealing with them (vv. 1-2).

The case of Pharaoh is another which men speak of much. God says of Pharaoh: "For this same purpose I have raised thee up, that I might show in thee My power and that My Name might be declared in all the earth." But what does He mean by this? If God is going to declare His Name, for what purpose is it? In fact, when God did thus raise up Pharaoh, the world at large was sunk in idolatry. Pharaoh was the head of the most idolatrous nation, probably, upon the face of the earth. He was also in a place in which that which was done to him, the manifestation of God's sovereign power in his case, would go far and wide amongst the nations. Was there no goodness manifest in that very fact, that "against all the gods of Egypt" He was executing judgment? We find that it did indeed speak, and the song of Israel at the Red. Sea shows what was the effect amongst the nations. Not indeed, that they were brought to God by it; not necessarily that any were. Of this we have no knowledge. Yet in the case of Rahab, supplemented, no doubt, by other testimonies, we see how much it wrought. Thus, if God raised up Pharaoh and made him a monument of His judgment, it was mercy, nevertheless, that made him so, and that mercy had been displayed with regard to Pharaoh himself, as it is very easy to see. Nay, the hardening of Pharaoh's heart was largely wrought by the very mercy shown him. "Because judgment is not speedily executed against an evil work, therefore the heart of the sons of men is thoroughly set in them to do evil." But shall not God show mercy then? He does show it, again and again, removing the judgment threatened or brought about in the ease of Pharaoh, and when the king finds relief from that which had for the moment terrified him, his heart hardens itself against God. One may say that we are told that it was God who hardened it; certainly not by any putting forth of His power to do this. It was rather the very mercy that was displayed, by which the hardening was effected, and thus God's goodness remains all the way through, whatever might be the effect upon a human heart in opposition to Him. The sun which melts the ice may harden the clay. It is the same sun that does both. Thus, while it is true that "on whom He will He showeth mercy, and whom He will He hardened)," and although we may be little able to follow out in detail the mystery of God's ways in this, we are not in the least called to justify Him. The day will come when everything will be fully manifest; and then He will be "justified in judgment and clear when He is judged."