One story from the Bible that always disturbed me was the story of the plagues in the book of Exodus. No matter how grueling the plagues were and how much chaos they created, I was more disturbed by the fact that God was making Pharaohs heart hard. I though to myself, “If this is a loving God, then why would he force a man who seems to be repenting of his sin to keep his heart hard and punish his innocent people?” I know that I am not the only person who thought this. One day when I was reading this for my Old Testament class, multiple details hit me as I asked these questions.
1. Why are the Israelites even in this position if God loves them so much?: The answer to this question is that God was disciplining his people. They turned away from him, worshipped other Gods and did things that any parent would consider to be disrespectful from their child if they were to do it to them. So what did he do? Disciplined them. It eventually came to a point where he needed to punish them and remind them that he is their parent. Just as a good parent will discipline their child because they love them and want to save them from hurting themselves, God did that to the Israelites. It was only temporary, not meant to be permanent. But that meant that eventually they had to be freed from Egypt.
2. Why were the Egyptians punished for what Pharaoh was saying or doing? You have to understand, the ancient civilizations did not exactly practice freedom of religion. This was a nation that worshipped their king and worshipped many other Gods, none of which were Yahweh. It wasn’t like they were going to support the survival of the Israelites, rather the exact opposite was more likely to happen. If the Israelites remained in Egypt they could have been annihilated. To prevent that, God punished the Egyptians for their abuse of his chosen people. If Israel was destroyed, then the Savior would have never come to pass.
3. Why did God have to use the plagues that he did? That will be my next post, but in short, God was conquering the Egyptian “Gods.” You see, in ancient warfare, when one tribe conquered another tribe, they destroyed their opponents God or Gods to demonstrate victory. Since this section has a ton of personal application, I will talk more about it later!
4. What was it that Pharaoh did to deserve his heart getting hardened over and over again? When you look at Exodus 5:2, Pharoah asks, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey him and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord and will not let Israel go.” Did you catch that? He asked who the Lord was in an arrogant tone… and that opened him up to a whole world of trouble. With that, the Lord gave him a full demonstration of his power as he conquered all of Pharaoh’s gods and then went after his livestock and first born. God ultimately bankrupted him for his arrogance. Pharaoh was the premier king of his time, and had the most powerful empire... and God showed Pharaoh that his empire is no match against the power of the God of Israel.
5. But wasn’t he going to submit, if so, why didn’t God give him grace? If you notice, there were times in the story where God hardened Pharaohs heart. Why did God not relent? Because he wanted to fully discipline the King. He wanted him to fully understand the consequences of his actions. It would be like a parent bailing their child out of every traffic violation or credit card debt. Instead of having to fully face the consequences, the child will realize that their parents are there to bail them out. Second, if you ever put someone in a tight spot, often times they will submit to make the pain stop. Knowing that people are weak like that, God made sure that Pharaoh would endure the consequences of his actions.
I know that God’s wrath or punishments are not exactly the easiest of subjects to discuss, but it helped bring me peace. It helped me understand God’s love for his people a little bit better, and it helped me understand why he would do something that looks terrible. Ultimately, it reminded me that God is sovereign and he is willing to thoroughly answer the simple question of “who is the Lord?” to the most power leader of the time.
My next post, I am going to talk about the different gods and idols that the Egyptians had, and how it applies to us today. So stay tuned for the next part of this two part series!
