Why Would God Harden A Heart? By Randall Price

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crossnote

Senior Member
Nov 24, 2012
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#1
I don't usually post an article but I thought this one quite interesting found in "Israel My Glory"m magazine by Randall Price.

Exodus 4:21 records a statement God made to Moses: “When you go back to Egypt, see that you do all those wonders before Pharaoh which I have put in your hand. But I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go.” Why would God harden Pharaoh’s heart even before Pharaoh heard Moses’ request to let the Israelites go?
While it is true Pharaoh “hardened his [own] heart” (8:15, 32), we must understand God’s purpose in hardening his heart from the outset. The Bible does not provide a direct answer, but the archaeological discovery of an ancient Egyptian funerary papyrus known as the Book of the Dead gives us an indirect answer in the account of the Ten Plagues (called “all those wonders” in Exodus 4:21).
The Book of the Dead reveals the theology of the ancient Egyptian death cult and helps explain how the God of Israel was demonstrating His power against the false gods of Egypt by hardening Pharaoh’s heart.
Egyptians considered Pharaoh the physical incarnation of the three most important gods of Egypt.1 They viewed his word as that of a god who controlled history and the natural elements; it could not be reversed or overruled.2
The Bible does not name the Pharaoh in the Exodus account, perhaps so that the God of Israel could match His power directly against the Egyptian gods via the plagues that upset the Egyptians’ theological dependence on their pantheon of deities.
The Egyptian Book of the Dead explains what the Egyptians believed happened to the souls of pharaohs and other high-ranked Egyptians after their deaths and subsequent embalming in pyramids. They believed that after death, the deceased’s soul faced a trial in the afterlife, called the “Weighing of the Heart,” in a hall of judgment.
There the god of the underworld, Osiris, determined the deceased’s guilt or innocence, resulting in either salvation or destruction; and Anubis, an Egyptian god of the afterlife, was in charge of the test. A great scale held the deceased’s heart on one side and a feather on the other side, the hieroglyphic symbol of Maat, the goddess of truth.
Egyptians viewed the heart as the seat of one’s intellect and emotion and as central to rebirth in the afterlife. Therefore, the deceased’s heart, not the individual himself, was asked to prove his innocence through a number of negative confessions. If the heart revealed it was weighed down with guilt, it would tip the scales against the deceased.
Given this understanding, pharaohs tried to prevent their hearts from contradicting their negative confessions by arranging for heart scarabs to be placed within their chest cavities during embalmment. These scarabs contained an incantation ordering the heart not to witness against the deceased’s testimony before Osiris.3
The Egyptians believed that the stony character of the scarab was transferred to the fleshly heart, making it “hard” and therefore unable to speak,4 resulting in the pharaoh’s salvation, since he was decreed sinless through silence. The Egyptians were so sure this hardening would work that a negative outcome of the trial is never depicted.
This context can help us understand how God’s hardening of Pharaoh’s heart reversed the Egyptians’ theological hope, since Pharaoh’s inability to stop the divinely ordered plagues resulted not only in his but also in Egypt’s destruction. Thus the discovery of ancient Egyptian beliefs as found in the Book of the Dead provides yet another example of how archaeology aids our interpretation of difficult theological texts.
 

Budman

Senior Member
Mar 9, 2014
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#2
I dig Randall Price. He's one smart cookie. :cool:
 

GraceAndTruth

Well-known member
Sep 28, 2015
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#4
God hardened Pharoh's heart so that Pharoh would not let the people go.
Then God showed HIS power over Pharoh's and also taught His people to trust him with the blood on the lintel
 
Sep 3, 2016
6,337
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#5
I don't usually post an article but I thought this one quite interesting found in "Israel My Glory"m magazine by Randall Price.
“21 And the LORD said unto Moses, When you go to return into Egypt, see that you do all those wonders before Pharaoh, which I have put in your hand: but I will harden his heart, that he shall not let the People go. (The hardening of Pharaoh’s heart doesn’t mean that God tampered with Pharaoh’s will, but rather, by foreknowledge, looked at the heart of the Monarch, and thereby knew what Pharaoh would do. God would simply supply the opportunity.)

22 And you shall say unto Pharaoh, Thus says the LORD, Israel is My son, even My firstborn (Pharaoh would understand this terminology fully, for he, himself, was called “Son of Ra”):”

“23 And I say unto you, Let My son go, that he may serve Me: and if you refuse to let him go, behold, I will kill your son, even your firstborn. (So, at the outset, Moses was to tell Pharaoh that if he didn’t let the Children of Israel go, his firstborn would die. So, the Monarch was not without warning. At any point he could have repented, and his firstborn would have been spared, as well as the destruction of Egypt.)

24 And it came to pass by the way in the inn, that the LORD met him (met Moses), and sought to kill him (threatened to kill the child; this was Eliezer, the infant; concerning this, Williams says: “Moses was commanded to announce to Pharaoh that Jehovah, the God of Israel, was about to slay his [Pharaoh’s] son; but Moses had to learn that disobedience and rebellion in him was just as hateful as in Pharaoh; and that God, because of His nature, must judge with death sin wherever found”).”

“25 Then Zipporah (the wife of Moses) took a sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his feet, and said, Surely a bloody husband are you to me. (We find here that the wife of Moses was not too very much in sympathy with the things of God. So, Moses, not desiring to create a family problem, had evidently acquiesced to his wife, and had neglected to circumcise the baby boy.)

26 So He (God) let him (the child) go: then she said, A bloody husband you are, because of the circumcision. (Even though Zipporah circumcised the child, she, with anger and passion, declared that her husband’s religion was a religion of blood, i.e., “of blood-stained rites.” Thus, Moses had to learn that God would judge him before He judged Pharaoh, and that rebellion in the one was the same as rebellion in the other; and this lesson must have enabled Moses to proclaim this dreadful truth with the force of a personal experience — Williams.)”
Exodus 4


Excerpt From
The Expositor's Study Bible
Jimmy Swaggart
https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/the-expositors-study-bible/id399697870?mt=11
This material may be protected by copyright.
 

crossnote

Senior Member
Nov 24, 2012
30,704
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#6
God hardened Pharoh's heart so that Pharoh would not let the people go.
Then God showed HIS power over Pharoh's and also taught His people to trust him with the blood on the lintel
Sorry, I didn't realize this was a Romans 9 thread. lol
 

GraceAndTruth

Well-known member
Sep 28, 2015
2,031
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#7
Sorry, I didn't realize this was a Romans 9 thread. lol
I guess its just impossible to talk about God without adoring his majesty!
Siince God did everything for His own purpose, its kind of hard to use any scripture without seeing His sovereignty.
.........you saw it and I never mentioned His omnipotence.
 

crossnote

Senior Member
Nov 24, 2012
30,704
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#8
I guess its just impossible to talk about God without adoring his majesty!
Siince God did everything for His own purpose, its kind of hard to use any scripture without seeing His sovereignty.
.........you saw it and I never mentioned His omnipotence.
I'd jump in on a 'Sovereignty' thread but they quickly build up to 20-25 pages by the time I get to them. I like the compatabilist view...i.e. God is 100% sovereign but in a way that keeps our choices !00% intact. Sort of like Jesus being 100% God and 100% man. Boggles our human reason but keeps in accord with Scripture.
 

GraceAndTruth

Well-known member
Sep 28, 2015
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#9
I'd jump in on a 'Sovereignty' thread but they quickly build up to 20-25 pages by the time I get to them. I like the compatabilist view...i.e. God is 100% sovereign but in a way that keeps our choices !00% intact. Sort of like Jesus being 100% God and 100% man. Boggles our human reason but keeps in accord with Scripture.
Sort of a foot in both camps?
Like the double minded man?

Nice try and one that has been tried many times.
But.........there is no sovereign God if man has a free will. Logically it cannot exist side by side.

Our God is not like human "sovereigns" who have SOME authority over the limited regions they control - limited sovereignty is not true sovereignty Our God is the Creator of all and all are under His authority. The UNIVERSE is His "region" and He rules it all totally.
 

crossnote

Senior Member
Nov 24, 2012
30,704
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#10
Sort of a foot in both camps?
Like the double minded man?

Nice try and one that has been tried many times.
But.........there is no sovereign God if man has a free will. Logically it cannot exist side by side.

Our God is not like human "sovereigns" who have SOME authority over the limited regions they control - limited sovereignty is not true sovereignty Our God is the Creator of all and all are under His authority. The UNIVERSE is His "region" and He rules it all totally.
I probably have studied more on God's sovereignty and man's will more than years you have been aliveas well as having been in the Reformed/Calvinistic camp.You seem to assume too much (like I hold to 'free will"?). Learn to listen before jumping to conclusions.
 

GraceAndTruth

Well-known member
Sep 28, 2015
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#11
I probably have studied more on God's sovereignty and man's will more than years you have been aliveas well as having been in the Reformed/Calvinistic camp.You seem to assume too much (like I hold to 'free will"?). Learn to listen before jumping to conclusions.
Read what you wrote and don't know how YOUR knikcers got in that twist.
Your post wasn't all that specific and I don't know you or your doctrine. I clarified mine.
And I'll bet I am older than you, sonny.
 
Apr 15, 2017
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#12
God is fair to all people, but he knew Pharaoh would not change, and knew his heart of the type of person that he was, so God used him to show his power on earth to not only free the Jews, but to show the earth that He is the one true God.

God is not going to toss someone aside that is well meaning, and has a decent care for people to show his power, but He will use someone whose heart He knows will not change to show His power.

The Bible says many are called, but few are chosen, and no one can come to the Son unless the Father draws them, and no person says Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost, so no one can come to the truth unless God calls them and intervenes in their life to make this happen.

The Bible says not many wise after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called, for they are in positions of power, and like to rule, and exert authority over other people lacking love to a big degree.

So if they have been called they can never be chosen to be saved, but that was because of their heart condition.

Which Pharaoh was that type of person, especially with the belief concerning Pharaoh's position on earth as someone great, which caused him to afflict the Jews, so God used him to show his power on earth.
 

Nehemiah6

Senior Member
Jul 18, 2017
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#14
God hardened Pharoh's heart so that Pharoh would not let the people go.
That is not the PRIMARY REASON for why God hardened Pharaoh's heart.

The ultimate plan was for God to display His power and glory worldwide, through the deliverance of the Israelites and the destruction of the Egyptians.

For the scripture saith unto 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. (Rom 9:17; Exod 9:16)

At the same time a careful study of the Bible shows us that:

1. God has no pleasure in the death and damnation of the wicked, therefore He allowed Abraham to plead for Sodom multiple times.

2. God gives the wicked many opportunities to repent, therefore He gave wicked Pharaoh multiple opportunities to repent, just as He did for the whole earth through Noah.

3. The Holy Spirit pleads with sinners to NOT harden their hearts, but to respond to the voice of the Spirit, as we see in Hebrews.

4. God even makes special provision for the wicked to be saved, as in the case of Jonah at Nineveh, and the many pleadings with the kingdoms of Israel and Judah before their destruction.

5. God and Christ pleaded with Israel over and over again to repent and return to God, as Jesus said to Jerusalem before it was wiped out in 70 AD.

6. It is only when all means have been exhausted that God hardens the hearts of the wicked.

We could go into the details of Pharaoh's life to see that this is true. However, some will always deceive themselves into thinking that God decrees eternal damnation for some before they are even born (which is TOTAL RUBBISH).
 

crossnote

Senior Member
Nov 24, 2012
30,704
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#15
It's often over looked that long before (about 80 years previously) God told Moses that He would harden Pharaoh's heart (Exodus 7:3), Pharoah had already hardened his own heart...

Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. And he said to his people, “Behold, the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and, if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.”
(Exo 1:8-10)
 

Nehemiah6

Senior Member
Jul 18, 2017
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#16
It's often over looked that long before (about 80 years previously) God told Moses that He would harden Pharaoh's heart (Exodus 7:3), Pharoah had already hardened his own heart...
Exactly my point. There was nothing arbitrary or unexpected in the later developments.