Why was Pharaoh so resistant to Moses' pleas to "let my people go"?

But mark, now, that if in Israel we see that blessed effect of the news through Aaron, we see the opposite effect in Pharaoh — this man who solemnly witnesses to the terrible fact that God hardens those who harden themselves against Him. He shuts them up to that which they desire. “Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness” (ch. 5:1). Be (as it were) a fellow-worker with God to that blessed end. What then was the reply of Pharaoh? What the reply of many who hear the testimony of grace, day after day? “Who is the Lord that I should obey his voice?” Terrible reply of a soul who has never stood in aught but unbelief and defiance before Him. “I know not the Lord.” Thus speaks the pride of man, who hardens his neck against the Blessed God — “I know Him not.” For these two things God will take vengeance when Christ returns. He will be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels — taking vengeance on them that know not God; and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ”; and “who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power, when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe in that day” (2 Thess. 1:9-10).

It is evident that from the first Pharaoh boldly challenged the might of Jehovah. He knew very well the many gods of Egypt, but to him Jehovah, God of Israel was the unknown God, and he flatly refused to obey. He adopted the hard and stubborn attitude, which became characteristic of him under the government of God.

The manner in which Moses and Aaron, as sent of God, comport themselves in the presence of Pharaoh, and the form in which the request for the release of God's people from bondage is presented to him, is yet another instance of the perfection of God's ways which are ever sovereign in expression and ever superior to all the circumstances in which they operate. Here we find, as in all things, God acting in perfect consistency with all that He is in Himself, every divine attribute in their individual identities displayed in harmonious completeness as expressive of the nature and character of God. How truly remarkable therefore, the spirit of grace and long-suffering with which He requests the liberation of His people. At once, the heart of the proud Pharaoh is exposed in its inveterate hatred and opposition to God and His people, in those defiant and insolent words, "Who is Jehovah to whose voice I am to hearken to let Israel go? I do not know Jehovah, neither will I let Israel go." We have now come to the solemn moment where we see the inexorable enforcement of the divine assertion in Rom. 9:17, "For this very thing I have raised thee up from amongst men, that I might thus show in thee My power, and so that My name should be declared in all the earth." And so God displays His all-mighty power in those successive judgments which fall with increasing severity upon the land and people of Egypt. His grace and forbearance having been spurned, those inflexible judgments will assuredly bring the knowledge of who He is to Pharaoh, according as He says in Ex. 9:13-14, "Thus saith Jehovah the God of the Hebrews, Let my people go that they may serve me. For I will at this time send all my plagues to thy heart, and on thy bondmen and on thy people, that thou mayest know that there is none like me in all the earth."

Much is said of the hardening of Pharaoh's heart. It is really a simple matter. It has its parallel in the ways of God with man on a large scale; as when He gave up the Gentiles to a reprobate mind, and poured judicial blindness on the Jews. So He will yet do with professing Christendom, sending them strong delusion, because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved. In Pharaoh's case, as in all the others, the will was utterly wrong, and opposed to God from the first; when this was distinctly pronounced, God did harden and covered them with darkness to their merited destruction. God never made Pharaoh, nor any one else, to be wicked; but they, being wicked, had adequate and urgent testimonies which, by God's judgment, served but to blind the king, who from the first scornfully asked, "who is Jehovah that I should obey his voice to let Israel go? I know not Jehovah neither will I let Israel go." In p. 40, Dr. F. seems to speak of the miraculous vouchers which Moses was instructed to work at the commencement of his operations, as being precisely the field on which Pharaoh might be tempted to think he could successfully compete with Moses. But it was forgotten, perhaps, that though one of them — the change of the rod into a serpent, and vice versa — was repeated before the king and the magicians, these signs were primarily intended for Israel rather than for the Egyptians (Exodus 4:1-8, and 29-31). There is no attempt to explain their significance. The first appears to set forth the rod of power, assuming a satanic character, but afterwards restored to its true place; and the second, the deeper ruin of man, as fallen into loathsome uncleanness, cleansed by God's immediate power and goodness. The third, which was more judicial in its nature, does not seem to have been called for by the Israelitish elders, but fell, in a yet more aggravated form, not as a token, but as a plague on the Egyptians — the change of what was originally given for refreshing man and fertilizing the earth into the revolting image of judgment and death.

But God will maintain His own glory, whatever man's attitude may be — in fact will display His own power by the very means of those who harden their hearts against Him. Scripture had testified to this before the law was given, and Jews were well acquainted with God's using the stubborn opposition of Egypt's monarch for the purpose of showing His absolute power over the strongest force man could muster. We ought to tremble at the greatness of His glory when we hear His word to Pharaoh — “Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew My power in thee, and that My name might be declared throughout all the earth.” God Himself had allowed Pharaoh to become great, though to Pharaoh it was a matter of personal pride and the occasion of displaying his will in independence of God. What then? In the face of this independence God would show His own power. Indeed, Pharaoh had been allowed to be raised to this very height, in order that the higher power of God might be shown. Not that God is to be blamed for the stubbornness of Pharaoh. For while verse 18 insists “Therefore hath He mercy on whom He will have mercy, and whom He will He hardeneth” — yet we must take care to inquire, whom does He will to harden? Does Scripture say that God hardened Pharaoh's heart before Pharaoh had any sense of responsibility? Far from it. Pharaoh had first boldly disdained and insulted God when faced with the responsibility of letting Israel go — “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” (Ex. 5:2). So we see that Pharaoh's wilful hardening of his own heart preceded God's judicial hardening, which is first seen in Ex. 7:13. Dare we then quarrel with God's will to harden such a character?

The king of Egypt was a thoroughly selfish, cruel, and profane man when God first sent him a message by Moses and Aaron. The effect of the summons on such a spirit was to bring out his blasphemy against Jehovah and more savage oppression of Israel. And as sign and his miracle told on his conscience, but evil desires and counsels prevailed, Pharaoh became incomparably worse till the obduracy of the king shocked his servants, and even after the concession was wrung out, false hopes of vengeance on Israel lured him and them to find a grave within the opened waters of the Red Sea. God thus made a most striking example of Pharaoh, not a mere exposure of his malice, but of His own power on that background, so that His name might be thus told abroad in all the earth. Never does God make a man bad; but the bad man Pharaoh, made yet worse by his resistance of the most striking divine appeals, He made manifest, raised up as he was from among men to such a height, that his downfall might tell on consciences far and wide throughout the world. Hard at first, God sealed him up at length in a judicial hardening. Such He warned the Jews by Isaiah should be the case with their impenitent hearts, and so He executed it when they rejected Christ (John 12) and the Holy Ghost's appeal in the gospel. (Acts 28:25-28.) "So then to whom he will he shows mercy, and whom he will he hardens." In both cases the unrighteousness is solely with man, who is, as far as he is concerned, irremediably evil and ruined; before God acts either in grace or in judgment for the display of His own great name to the wide, rich, and endless blessing of all who heed His word. He is always holy but always free. On the other hand fallen man is always evil and deserves condemnation. God freely acts in grace here, freely acts in judgment there, that any soul may beware of provoking His indignation and learning what He is in his own destruction, and that the guiltiest of sinners may know that no man is too far gone to be beyond reach of His mercy. I speak of man as such, not of such as have believed through grace.

All this detail of judgment doubtless establishes the people in their separation from Pharaoh and the Egyptians. Indeed, their exemption from what falls upon their oppressors is a foretaste of that complete deliverance which they are soon to enjoy. On the other hand, in Pharaoh we see the gradually increasing hardness of heart which turns the very mercies, as well as the judgments of God, into fresh occasions for despising Him. The apparent relentings in which he cries for mercy are followed by a fresh insult, while his proposals to grant Israel a partial emancipation are in reality followed by renewed determination not to do so. The demand of Moses was for emancipation. God's message was, "Let My people go that they may hold a feast unto Me in the wilderness." Three days' journey was to separate them, all of which was typical of the breaking of the links between themselves and Egypt of the full deliverance which was to be effected. Pharaoh evidently saw that if such a breach was made, it would be followed by the complete emancipation of the people from his sway.

Divine judgments do not soften the human heart. Pharaoh called for Moses and said, "Go ye; serve Jehovah. Only let your flocks and your herds be stayed." But upon these terms being rejected he was enraged. He dwelt in the darkness, and was as dark as it. Even in earthly things, evil men do not become converted to that which is good and lovely by a term of imprisonment. Pharaoh remained unchanged. He would not humble himself. He had developed impiety upon impiety, and, though he fain would have spared himself further suffering, he was determined in his resistance to the divine word, and only said to Moses, "Get thee from me; take heed to thyself; see my face no more, for in that day thou seest my face thou shalt die." (Ex. 10:28.)

It will be well at this point to notice the process of heart-hardening which Scripture applies to Pharaoh. There are three words used in the Hebrew, which are rendered "harden" in relation to the king. Seven times it is said, "He hardeneth his own heart," or "His heart hardened itself" (chap. 8:13 — where it should read, "Pharaoh's heart resisted" — and vers. 14, 22; chap. 8:15, 19, 32; and chap. 9:7). After this sevenfold obduracy, and not till then, is it said, "The Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart." This is said four times (chap. 9:12, 34, 35; and 10:1), and on the last occasion the hearts of Pharaoh's servants are included in the judgment. It has been pointed out in this chapter how Pharaoh's court intervened when the locusts were threatened; they would not, however, yield to Jehovah, they preferred the favour of Pharaoh, so that this hardening of their hearts on that occasion is very striking. A definite and wilful obduracy is stamped upon Pharaoh's spirit, and a determined rejection of the divine warnings, becoming deeper and deeper with sevenfold intensity; after that climax he and his court, which also rejected God, were delivered over to their doom.

Unhappy Pharaoh. No rest was allowed him. The God of the Hebrews could neither be bribed nor be slighted. Unconditional submission was demanded, and must sooner or later be admitted. Plagues, sore plagues had been sent. More could follow, and would, if the king remained intractable. "All My plagues" (14) said God. What would they be? One by one was sent, and the next was only foretold when the last had failed to break down the monarch's obstinacy.

Pharaoh does not openly reject the demand of Moses; he temporizes, dissembles, to obtain the removal of the stroke. His cry is, "Entreat for me." (Ex. 8:28.) Moses assents, but adds the solemn warning, showing that he saw through the king's flimsy veil of hypocrisy, "Let not Pharaoh deal deceitfully any more in not letting the people go to sacrifice to the Lord." (v. 29.) But the trouble gone, the usual record is made, "And Pharaoh hardened his heart at this time also, neither would he let the people go." (v. 32.) Thereon followed another judgment; but Pharaoh was impervious to the stroke. At least there was no outward sign of any relenting. This led to a most solemn and, we may say, awful message as a preface to the next infliction — the plague of thunder and hail. (Ex. 9:13-19.) The king staggered under the blow, and again besought relief. He even confessed that he had sinned, and. that the Lord was righteous, etc., and once more promised that he would let the people go, provided there might be no more mighty thunderings and hail. (Ex. 9:27-28.) The iniquity of Pharaoh is thus brought to light. He sees and avows his guilt, and yet persists in his evil course — his open antagonism to the Lord. For, spite of his confession, no sooner had the Lord answered the entreaty of Moses than he reverted to his hardened ways. But again and again are we reminded that this was no surprise to God. All this happened "as the Lord had spoken by Moses." (v. 35.) He saw the end from the beginning; but He removed His hand at the intercession of Moses on behalf of the Egyptian king. God is never impatient even in the presence of open rebellion. He waits His own time — bearing with the wickedness and impiety of men in long-suffering and grace. If He is thus forbearing, we surely might learn to be so also — turning our eyes to Him, confident that in His own time He will vindicate His righteous government before the eyes of the world. "Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him." (Ps. 37:7.)