Does God Harden Pharaoh's Heart ?????
The age old question " Did God harden Pharaoh's heat?
Exodus 7:3.... But I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and though I multiply my miraculous signs and wonders in Egypt, 4 he will not listen to you.
No ! And here is why .
In their perpetual quest to find discrepancies in the Bible , to determine biblical ethics , and to find fault with the actions of God , sceptics have charged that God mistreated Pharaoh by over riding his free will and forcing him to resist the demand of Moses to allow the Israelites to exit Egypt . The sceptics focus on the verses about Pharaoh's heart , demanding that the God of the Bible is unjust and cruel . But according to 1 Samuel 6:6.... God didn't harden Pharaoh's heart ; Pharaoh did it himself.
The Hebrew language uses active verbs to express the agent's design to attempt to do anything , even though the thing was not actually done. Verbs , therefore , can have idiomatic usages that may convey something other than a strict , literal meaning . Active verbs were used by the Hebrews to express , not the doing of the thing , but the permission of the thing which the agent is said to do . These active verbs can express permission and not direct action.
In the case of Pharaoh , God provided the circumstance and the occasion for Pharaoh to be forced to make a decision . God sent Moses to place His demands before Pharaoh . Moses merely announced God's instructions . Pharaoh made up his own mind to resist God's demands . Of his own accord , he stubbornly refused to comply . If God had not sent Moses, Pharaoh would not have been faced with the dilemma of whether to release the Israelites . So God was certainly the initiator . But He was not the author of Pharaoh's defiance.
The age old question " Did God harden Pharaoh's heat?
Exodus 7:3.... But I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and though I multiply my miraculous signs and wonders in Egypt, 4 he will not listen to you.
No ! And here is why .
In their perpetual quest to find discrepancies in the Bible , to determine biblical ethics , and to find fault with the actions of God , sceptics have charged that God mistreated Pharaoh by over riding his free will and forcing him to resist the demand of Moses to allow the Israelites to exit Egypt . The sceptics focus on the verses about Pharaoh's heart , demanding that the God of the Bible is unjust and cruel . But according to 1 Samuel 6:6.... God didn't harden Pharaoh's heart ; Pharaoh did it himself.
The Hebrew language uses active verbs to express the agent's design to attempt to do anything , even though the thing was not actually done. Verbs , therefore , can have idiomatic usages that may convey something other than a strict , literal meaning . Active verbs were used by the Hebrews to express , not the doing of the thing , but the permission of the thing which the agent is said to do . These active verbs can express permission and not direct action.
In the case of Pharaoh , God provided the circumstance and the occasion for Pharaoh to be forced to make a decision . God sent Moses to place His demands before Pharaoh . Moses merely announced God's instructions . Pharaoh made up his own mind to resist God's demands . Of his own accord , he stubbornly refused to comply . If God had not sent Moses, Pharaoh would not have been faced with the dilemma of whether to release the Israelites . So God was certainly the initiator . But He was not the author of Pharaoh's defiance.