IN WHAT SENSE DID THE LORD HARDEN PHARAOH'S HEART?
By Ob. Evan.
It cannot be denied that some minds find serious difficulties in this subject. This fact is a sufficient reason for an effort to relieve the subject of its difficulties, and to set it in the light of reason and of Scripture. It is supposed by some that the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart by an exertion of divine power, that was, first, direct; second, irresistible; and, third, of set purpose to produce this result. Over against this view, we maintain that God's agency in the hardening of Pharaoh's heart was, first, indirect and permissive; second, negative (not positive)—and consisted in leaving him to himself, withholding efforts of mercy to save him; third, that it was not irresistible, but was in perfect harmony with Pharaoh's free moral agency; fourth, that God's agency and policy in the case were judicial—done as a just judgment on Pharaoh for his sin, and under circumstances which fully justified Jehovah in revealing his power, his justice, and his righteous retribution on a persistent sinner. The reader will now very properly inquire, On what grounds do you give the Scriptures the construction you propose? For the Scriptures declare repeatedly that the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart. He first said to Moses, Ex. iv, 21; vii, 3, that he would do it; and after it was done, said more than once (for example, Ex. x, 1; xi, 10) that he had done it. Do you not, therefore, evade the plain sense of Scripture when you interpret God's agency as only indirect, permissive, negative, and not purposing the end of his hardening for its own sake? In reply we have several things to say in support of the construction we give: 1. The known character of God requires it. It is absolutely known that God is good—from which we must infer that he cannot delight in having his creatures sin, and much less (if this were possible) in making them sin, compulsorily. It is certainly known that God is just—from which we must infer that he cannot press, urge, over-persuade one of his creatures to sin, and then punish him for yielding to his own influence. But quite apart from our reasonings on this subject, yet most fully sustaining these reasonings, the Scriptures explicitly teach us that God never tempts men to sin. "Neither tempteth he any man," is the inspired affirmation. James i, 13. Hence he did not tempt Pharaoh to sin. Again, by implication the Scriptures deny that God can ever desire to have men sin, so that he could take measures for the purpose of leading them into sin. He solemnly avers, "As I live, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked," which certainly must imply that he has no pleasure in their sin, for their sin is the thing to be morally hated, even more than their death. The Bible gives us also most emphatic utterances of God's strong desire that men would not ever sin: "O do not that abominable thing which I hate!" We must assume that this is said in sincerity, and hence precludes the possibility of his desiring men to sin, and of his using means and influences to lead them into sin. Yet further, the Bible teaches us that God works both in men and upon men, toward their holiness. Indeed, this is one of the greatest truths of divine revelation. The Bible is richly filled with statements respecting this fact, the means employed, the results, the criteria by which we may identify them, the condition on which we may enjoy this divine power, and the glory due to God for it. Now if it were true that God always works in sinners and upon sinners in the same way, or in any analogous way, toward their sinning—working in them to will wrong and to do wrong; then, by analogy, we ought to find this truth taught also in scripture, in the same or in similar methods, and, for aught that appears, with equal explicitness and fullness. But no such teachings are found in the Scriptures; and hence we must infer that there is no analogous working of God in and upon sinners to make them sin. Besides, apart from Scripture, it is intrinsically absurd and impossible that the same God should love both holiness and sin, and should therefore use similarly direct positive influences to produce one as the other. "Doth the same fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter"—"salt water and fresh?"139 We pass to another and quite different argument, and say, 2. The detailed history of the transaction evinces our position. Very kindly and wisely God has given us a full analysis of the steps by which Pharaoh's heart was hardened. We can trace all their influences and their operations. 1st. He ignored Jehovah and his claims. He said, "Who is the Lord that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I know not the Lord, neither will I let Israel go." This is the common way of sinners when they give themselves up to stubborn resistance against God. But (to our present point) let it be noted, this state of heart is not from God. He does not impel men to ignore himself and thrust away his claims. This ignoring of God, and this repelling of his claims by denying or half denying his existence, is from the Devil, not from God; or it comes up from the foul depths of the sinner's own heart. 2d. Pharaoh was encouraged by the apparent temporary success of the magicians. This is twice indicated—to wit, in the account of rods turned to serpents, Ex. vii, 11-13, and in the miracle of water becoming blood. Verse 22. But this work of the magicians was by instigation and help of the Devil, and not God. 3d. Pharaoh prodigiously desired the unpaid labor of this great nation of operatives. His heart was set on these mountain masses of brick they were making—these cities they were building. He sought this in the spirit of real oppression. But this spirit cannot be from God; never! whether in Egypt or in "Secessia"—it never can be from the Lord. He hates oppression with the utmost intensity of his soul. 4th. Human nature stands out again most palpably in the fact that while the plague oftentimes softened Pharaoh's heart, its removal in mercy hardened it. Under the plague of frogs, Pharaoh had said, "I will let the people go;" but when he saw there was respite, he hardened his heart. Ex. viii, 8, 15. Under the hail he begged for mercy and promised to let the people go; but "when he saw that the rain and hail and thunders were ceased, he sinned yet more, and hardened his heart, he and his servants." Ex. ix, 27, 28, 34. Who does not know that this is the way of all stubborn sinners? One is sick, nigh to death; he begs for mercy and promises to forsake his sins forever, if God will only spare his life. God spares him, and he hardens his heart and sins yet the more. The softening is due to divine mercy and to God's own Spirit; the hardening is not God's work, but the sinner's own. 5th. Pharaoh was apparently irritated and mad because the magicians failed and frankly acknowledged God's hand. After the lice-plague they said to Pharaoh, "This is the finger of God, and Pharaoh's heart was hardened." Ex. viii, 19. This too is human nature. 6th. Pharaoh hardened his own heart by allowing himself to banter, parley, and debate the question with God. He had three seasons of this, narrated in Ex. viii, 25-28; x, 8-12; x, 24. The demand being, "Let my people go that they may serve me," he plead successively that they would sacrifice in the land (of Egypt); in the wilderness, only very far way; that the men only should go, leaving behind the women and the little ones; and that finally all might go, save their cattle. Just so sinners sometimes banter and try to drive a sharp bargain with Jehovah—every thought of which goes to harden the heart against God. Yet who could say, This is God's influence? 7th. In one case, Pharaoh seems to have hardened his heart because he saw a discrimination made between his people and Israel. After the plague on cattle, "Pharaoh sent, and behold, there was not one of the cattle of the Israelites dead. And his heart was hardened," etc. Sinners are often hardened when they see more mercy shown to others than to themselves. This is the fruit of their proud, jealous, rebellious, hearts. 8th. In the one case the hardening seems specially occasioned by the nervous irritability produced by acute suffering, to wit, the plague of boils. Here the effect needs no direct agency from God for its philosophical explanation. 9th. In many of these cases Pharaoh seems to have been under the influence of a dogged committal to his wicked course. He had said: should not a king stick to it? He had taken his ground; his pride and his stubborn will, as well as his love of such power, held him to his purpose. This too is human nature. It is not wrought by God's Spirit on men's hearts. 10th. More than once Pharaoh not only relents, but even confesses his great sin. See Ex. ix, 27, 28; x, 16, 17. "I have sinned this time; the Lord is righteous, and I and my people are wicked." "I have sinned against the Lord your God, and against you. Now therefore, forgive, I pray thee, my sin only this once," etc. This is a fact of prime importance to our main question, since it gives us the testimony of Pharaoh's own consciousness. Pharaoh knew that God had not put sin into him in any such way as would throw his moral responsibility off from himself and upon God. He was conscious of no compulsory hardening of his heart. In plain words, he knew that all his sin was his own act and doing—his own thinking, feeling, and willing, and that he had none to blame for it but himself. And what testimony can be more decisive to our point than this? 11th. With the utmost propriety, therefore, and with the clearest reason, the historian repeatedly avers that Pharaoh hardened his own heart. See Ex. vii, 23; viii, 15, 32. "Pharaoh turned and went into his house, neither did he set his heart to this also." "When he saw that there was respite, he hardened his heart." "And Pharaoh hardened his heart at this time also." Now it needs no argument to show that if God hardened Pharaoh's heart by any direct, positive, resistless power, Pharaoh did not do it himself. In such agency of God he must work alone. Its very nature precludes human co-operation. You might as well say that man co-operates with God in the lightning and the earthquake, or in gravitation. 12th. The entire history of the hardening of Pharaoh's heart shows that God's agency in it was in no respect peculiar, as compared with the hardening of sinners' hearts in all ages. It did not differ from the million cases that fall under observation in these days. This history is so written that in nearly or quite every instance of hardening stated, we can see how the thing was done; we can trace the influence under which Pharaoh rallied his courage, strengthened his purpose, and once more set a bold and yet bolder front against God. All through, it was the Devil and his own human nature; nowhere is it any other power or agency. The well-known laws of wicked sinning cover the whole ground, and provide for all the influences necessary for the results. Hence it is altogether unphilosophical to introduce any other agency. With reverence we say it: There is no room here for any direct, positive agency from God's Spirit; no room for any other agency from God, save that of the external events, the providences, the surroundings, within which Pharaoh acts. 3. We pass to a third general argument in favor of our construction: The laws of language allow it. 1st. And first let it be noted that the Bible makes more account of God's agency than any other book in the world. None other teaches us as this does that God feeds the ravens, and clothes the lilies, and lets not a sparrow fall without his hand in it. It should be expected therefore, that in this Bible, very great and special prominence would be given to an agency put forth by God, though it were only the very indirect agency of his providence. These hints, if faithfully carried out, would suffice to show that Bible usage—in other words, the laws of language as employed in the Bible—allow the construction we maintain. 2d. But again, it seems plain that in the cases where the Lord is said to have hardened Pharaoh's heart, the language looks rather to the certainty of the event, or to the incidental results God would educe from Pharaoh's sin by over-ruling and punishing it, than to the nature of the agency by which it was done. Phrases sometimes take their shape from their first use. The first use of this is prophetic. Ex. iv, 21, spoken to Moses while yet in Midian, and manifestly having reference to the certainty of the event, and not to the particular kind of agency employed in producing it. 3d. We give to the words all the meaning they naturally call for, when we explain them to refer to that permissive and providential agency whereby the Lord sent Moses to Pharaoh with his own commands; brought plagues on him and his people; let his wicked heart have its own way, withheld all divine restraining influence, and gave some, more or less, scope to Satan's temptations. This done, any sinner hardens his heart fast enough. There is never occasion for any other influence from God to make men sin. 4th. There is no detailed account of the operation of any direct influence from God. The detail of the history shows us very fully how Pharaoh's own mind worked; how under judgments he relented, yielded; but under respite, rallied his proud, rebellious spirit again. Now if the history had expanded the account of God's agency, and if it had shown some direct power working irresistibly on Pharaoh's heart, then the exigencies of the case would compel us to put more and other significance than we have into the words, "The Lord hardened his heart." But no such exigency exists. Its absence confirms our interpretation. 5th. Yet once more. The several allusions to the objects which the Lord would accomplish by hardening Pharaoh's heart, such as to make his own great power known in all the earth; to read to all kings and to all sinners indeed, solemn moral lessons on the peril of hardening their hearts against God, do not call for any other agency from God than that permissive, negative one which our construction assigns. If the case were otherwise; if God had objects in view which required some direct power of his, then the exigencies of the case would perhaps demand that this be given to his language. Thus, for example, if the object had been to glorify his grace by converting Pharaoh to a holy man, then, leaving him to a merely external providence and an indirect influence, were not enough. For the occurrence of any amount of sin and hardness of heart, a very remote and merely permissive agency from God is sufficient. Hence it appears manifest from various points of view, that the construction we give the words, "The Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart," is amply allowed by legitimate laws of interpretation. It meets all the known exigencies of the case. 4th. It only remains now to urge, fourthly, in support of our construction, that the principles and ends of God's moral government confirm it. We allude to such principles as these—that this government is properly moral—over free intelligent agents; that it never interferes with human freedom; never abrogates personal responsibility; brings down no coercive power upon human hearts; and above all, never includes any agency from God which tempts men to sin—that is, which leads, draws men to sin by its natural, legitimate influence, and with intent on God's part that it should make men sin. These principles forbid us to suppose any direct, positive influence from God to harden Pharaoh's heart. Consequently they confirm the view we have taken. As to the ends of God's moral government, illustrated in this case of Pharaoh, God would teach all sinners that he does not hold himself responsible for placing them amid such surroundings that they cannot sin. He does not try to frame this world to such a result. Even when he sends judgments in discipline, he cannot forestall the possibility of their being abused to yet greater sin. God would show sinners that it is a fearful thing to harden their hearts against him—that every step in it is guilt, and its certain end is fearful ruin; and that there is in truth no escaping from its moral responsibility by attempting to throw it over upon their Maker and Ruler. Perhaps we may add that in this whole history we may see that the Lord seems not to be specially careful to shield his own ways against cavilers. Those who choose and who try to blame God, can do so. They are free to do this—even as Pharaoh was free to harden his heart under the respite granted from the plagues in answer to his imploring cry. Sometimes it may seem to us that scripture language leaves the ways of God unguardedly open to cavil. Let us rather say, Their tone is that of perfect honesty, and of a full and peaceful consciousness of integrity. The entire Bible history reveals a God whose absorbing concern it is to be, not merely to seem, right; and who throws upon all readers the responsibility of being candid and fair-minded as toward God. If they will not be fair and unsuspicious;—if they will not dispel from their souls all prejudice against God's ways and character, they must bear their own responsibilities.