Why did God harden Pharaoh’s heart?
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Why did God harden Pharaoh's heart? Was it unjust for God to harden the heart of Pharaoh and then punish Egypt for what Pharaoh did as a result of his hardened heart?
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- Why did God harden Pharaoh's heart? Exodus 7, three through four says, but I will harden
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- Pharaoh's heart, and though I multiply my miraculous signs and wonders in Egypt, he will not listen to you.
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- Then I will lay my hand on Egypt, and with mighty acts of judgment, I will bring out my people, the
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- Israelites. It seems unjust for God to harden Pharaoh's heart and then punish
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- Pharaoh and Egypt for what Pharaoh decided when his heart was hardened. Why would God harden
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- Pharaoh's heart just so he could judge Egypt more severely with additional plagues? First, Pharaoh was not an innocent or godly man.
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- He was a brutal dictator overseeing the terrible abuse and oppression of the Israelites, who likely numbered over 1 .5
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- million people at the time. The Egyptian pharaohs had enslaved the Israelites for 400 years.
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- A previous pharaoh, possibly even the pharaoh in question, ordered that male Israelite babies be killed at birth.
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- The pharaoh God hardened was an evil man, and the nation he ruled agreed with, or at least did not oppose, his evil actions.
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- Second, on at least a couple occasions, Pharaoh hardened his own heart against letting the Israelites go, but when
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- Pharaoh saw that there was relief, he hardened his heart. But this time also, Pharaoh hardened his heart.
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- It seems that God and Pharaoh were both active in one way or another in the hardening of Pharaoh's heart.
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- As the plagues continued, God gave Pharaoh increasingly severe warnings of the final judgment to come.
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- Pharaoh chose to bring further judgment on himself and his nation by hardening his own heart against God's commands.
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- It could be that, as a result of Pharaoh's hardheartedness, God hardened Pharaoh's heart even further, allowing for the last few plagues and bringing
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- God's full glory into view. Pharaoh and Egypt had brought these judgments on themselves with 400 years of slavery and mass murder.
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- Since the wages of sin is death, and Pharaoh and Egypt had horribly sinned against God, it would have been just if God had completely annihilated
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- Egypt. Therefore, God's hardening of Pharaoh's heart was not unjust, and his bringing additional plagues against Egypt was not unjust.
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- The plagues, as terrible as they were, actually demonstrate God's mercy in not completely destroying
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- Egypt, which would have been a perfectly just penalty. Romans 9, 17 through 18 declares, for the scriptures say to Pharaoh, I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.
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- Therefore, God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.
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- From a human perspective, it seems wrong for God to harden a person and then punish the person he has hardened.
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- Biblically speaking, however, we have all sinned against God, and the just penalty for sin is death.
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- Therefore, God's hardening and punishing a person is not unjust, it's actually merciful in comparison to what the person actually deserves.