Exodus 4b CRF – The hzq of God
Today in the sermon, I teased the coming theological difficulty of Pharaoh’s hard heart. Who hardened it: God or Pharaoh? And how do we reconcile these statements together? Exodus 4:21 was the first verse to bring the issue up: God says to Moses, “I Myself will harden Pharaoh’s heart, so that he will not let the people go.”
What I didn’t get time to dive into was the relationship of this verse to Ex 3:19. The tension between God hardening Pharaoh’s heart and Pharaoh hardening his own heart is already being hinted at in the text.
3:19 reads: [God speaking] “But I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless compelled by a might hand” (ESV). We see in the next verse, verse 20, that it is clearly God’s hand that will compel Pharaoh: “So I will stretch out my hand and strike Egypt with all the wonders that I will do in it; after that he will let you go.”
Author Peter Enns of the NIV Application Commentary on Exodus points out that there is a relationship between 3:19 and 4:21 linguistically in the Hebrew (pgs. 130-131). The verb “harden” in 4:21 and the word “mighty hand” in 3:19 are both formed from the same Hebrew root: Read (qzh).
In 3:19, Pharaoh resists God’s will, and God’s hzq (“mighty hand”) will force him to yield.
In 4:21, Pharaoh resists God’s will because God’s hzq (“hardening”) causes him to resist.
So, strangely enough, God will both prevent Pharaoh from releasing the Israelites until it is time to force him to do so. To put it another way, Pharaoh will both be forced to resist God’s will (his heart will be hardened) until he is forced to be obedient to God’s will (God’s hand will compel him). One implies Pharaoh would have otherwise done God’s will but is forced to stop; the other implies that Pharaoh would have continued being hard-hearted but is compelled to soften.
Of course, this brings up all sorts of theological problems. How can we say that God hardens Pharaoh’s heart and forces him to resist God’s will? How can Pharaoh be blamed for this is God made it happen? (cf. Romans 9:19 – Paul asks the same question!) How can both these statements (3:19 and 4:21) be true at the same time?
I don’t intend to attempt to “solve” all this at this time (I will deal with the issue at more length when we get to the Plague Narrative, starting in Exodus 7, both in the pulpit and here at the Pastor’s Cutting Room Floor). But I also don’t want to leave you in despair (or thinking that I am a heretic!). So I’ll say this much at this time: this is a purposeful tension by the narrator. We will see a lot more of this in the chapters to come, and it will be much less subtle. God hardens Pharaoh’s heart. Pharaoh hardens his own heart. Pharaoh’s heart is hardened. All these statements are set next to each other as equally true. The narrator is forcing us to consider both the sovereignty of God over this supposedly all-powerful Egyptian “god,” and at the same time the narrator is showing us that Pharaoh had a free will and willingly chose to rebel.
Please feel free to comment below. It’s a difficult subject, and I pray that we treat it with humility and that it will produce some very fruitful discussion.
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