“But the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he was unwilling to let them go. Pharaoh said to him, ‘Leave me! Make sure you never see my face again, for on the day you see my face, you will die.’ ‘As you have said,’ Moses replied, ‘I will never see your face again.'” (CSB – Read the chapter)
We’ve danced around this idea several times now over the course of our talking through the various plagues God unleashed on the Egyptians because of Pharaoh’s refusal to let the Israelites go worship in the wilderness. (Have you noticed that a three-day trip to the wilderness to worship God is still all Moses has been asking for and not total emancipation?) Today, it’s time to tackle it head on. This is a deeply uncomfortable idea, but it has been repeated now several times. What does it mean that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart? Did Pharaoh harden his own heart? What is going on here? Let’s see what kind of sense we can make of out this.
Read the rest…
The Nexus 