For the week of February 4, 2017 / 8 Shevat 5777

Bo
Torah: Shemot/Exodus 10:1 – 13:16
Haftarah: Jeremiah 46:13-28

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But for this purpose I have raised you up, to show you my power, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth. (Shemot/Exodus 9:16)

Last week, I mentioned that I was not satisfied with how I answered my Bible class students’ recent question about the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart. I had given my standard answer that God responded to Pharaoh’s attitude by taking him further down the road of his own stubbornness. But looking more carefully at the biblical material, it appears that God had purposely manipulated Pharaoh in order to cause certain events to occur. But however logical that conclusion might seem, it still isn’t correct. Let me try to explain:

First, if God ran the universe by manipulating it like this, then why doesn’t he manipulate everything accordingly? One might conclude that this is exactly what he does, but that makes most of the Bible absurd. God continually calls people to respond willingly to him. He patiently teaches them his ways and we are held responsible for our actions. The workings of God within human affairs is viewed as a remarkable thing. From the beginning, we were designed to be his co-laborers, not his pawns or puppets (See Bereshit/Genesis 1:26-29, cf. 1 Corinthians 3:9). When David writes, “The LORD is my shepherd,” (Psalm 23:1) for example, he extolls God’s loving intimate care, not his manipulations of himself or his circumstances.

It wasn’t so much that God was manipulating the will of Pharaoh as he leveraged it. God knew his opponent and maximized the situation by drawing out his weaknesses. He indeed devised a plan to rescue his covenant people from Egypt. So, in his wisdom, God was aware that Pharaoh’s pride and selfishness would lead him to stubbornly refuse to allow his economy to crumble by losing his slaves, thus setting the stage for the signs and wonders that resulted in Israel’s liberation.

To conclude that God manipulated Pharaoh against his will runs against the overall teaching of Scripture. Paul, who apparently supports this wrong teaching didn’t believe that. How could he, if in the same section of Romans where he speaks of God’s mercy and hardening, he warns the arrogant mercy recipients that they were in danger of God’s rejection if they didn’t smarten up, and that those who were hardened could receive God’s mercy if they would turn to him in faith (compare Romans 9:14-18 with 11:17-24)?

God is powerfully at work to fulfill his purposes; something that should invoke awe within us. As Paul writes elsewhere:

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. (Philippians 2:12-13).

These words of exhortation do not flow from an understanding that God manipulates human life. Paul calls us to respond. Can we do so on our own without God’s help? Of course not! As Yeshua said, “Apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). But his help is freely available to us, and he turns no one away (see John 6:37).

Tragically, however, how many of us are stuck in a theological or philosophical prison that we cannot get out of, as we wait for God to soften our hardened hearts, when all along he has been waiting for us to call out to him for mercy? You don’t have to accept the state you are in as if God has appointed you to a hellish existence against your will. Whatever your need might be, cry out to him now and receive his love and mercy.

Perhaps that’s a better answer to my students’ question.

All scriptures, English Standard Version (ESV) of the Bible