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Moses'unbelieving fears (4:1), but God's gracious promise (3:18), had in this respect
also been amplyrealized. Neither their long stay in Egypt nor their bondage had
extinguished their faith in the God oftheir fathers, or their hope of deliverance.
However grievously they might afterwards err and sin, thetidings that "Jehovah had
visited" His people came not upon them as strange or incredible. More thanthat, their
faith was mingled with humiliation and worship.
Before we pass to an account of the wonders by which Moses was so soon to prove
beforePharaoh the reality of his mission, it may be convenient here briefly to consider
a very solemnelement in the history of these transactions - we mean, the hardening of
Pharaoh's heart. Not that wecan ever hope fully to understand what touches the
counsels of God, the administration of Hisgovernment, the mysterious connection
between the creature and the Creator, and the solemnjudgments by which He
vindicates His power over the rebellious. But a reverent consideration ofsome points,
taken directly from the text itself, may help us at least, like Israel of old, to "bow
ourheads and worship." We have already noticed, that before Moses had returned into
Egypt, (Exodus4:21) God had declared of Pharaoh, "I will harden his heart," placing
this phase in the foreground,that Moses might be assured of God's overruling will in
the matter. For a similar purpose, only muchmore fully expressed, God now again
announced to Moses, before the commencement of the tenplagues, (Exodus 7:3)
"I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and multiply My signs and My wonders in the land
of Egypt."
These are the two first statements about the hardening of Pharaoh's heart. In both
cases the agencyis ascribed to God; but in both cases the event is yet future, and the
announcement is only made inorder to explain to Moses what his faith almost needed
to know.
Twice ten times in the course of this history does the expression hardening occur in
connection withPharaoh. Although in our English version only the word "harden" is
used, in the Hebrew original threedifferent terms are employed, of which one (as in
Exodus 7:3) literally means to make hard orinsensible, the other (as in 10:1) to make
heavy, that is, unimpressionable, and the third (as in 14:4),to make firm or stiff, so as
to be immovable. Now it is remarkable, that of the twenty passageswhich speak of
Pharaoh's hardening, exactly ten ascribe it to Pharaoh himself, and ten to God,
andthat in both cases precisely the same three terms are used. Thus the making "hard,"
"heavy," and"firm" of the heart is exactly as often and in precisely the same terms
traced to the agency of Pharaohhimself as to that of God. As a German writer aptly
remarks, "The effect of the one is the hardeningof man to his own destruction; that of
the other, the hardening of man to the glory of God."
(^)