The Hardened Heart

Have you ever watched a film, like Schindler’s List or The Boy with the Striped Pajamas, where you are at the same time shocked and devastated by terrible cruelties and also encouraged and given hope by the love and concern shown in those situations? Reading this chapter brings something of the same experience. Pharaoh’s cruel oppression was awful, but twenty-first- century readers can’t help feeling that the death of all of the Egyptian firstborn was awful too. It is perhaps important to remember that the escape of the Israelites was a vital step in the long process that would lead to the potential for eternal salvation for Israel and Egypt alike.
Pharaoh had steadfastly refused to listen and steadfastly refused to allow the people to go—even for a three-day religious pilgrimage for sacrifice and worship. His heart was certainly hardened. It is sometimes suggested that if God hardened Pharaoh’s heart then surely it wasn’t Pharaoh’s fault and the plagues were unfair, but that is to misunderstand the issues. In these chapters we are told seven times that the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart and three times that Pharaoh hardened his own heart. Romans 1:24–26 speaks of God giving people over to the “sinful desires of their hearts.”
A point comes when God will allow the inevitable consequences of a refusal to listen to him. The conviction of God’s sovereignty often led the Biblical writers to speak of God doing things when they had already made it perfectly clear that human actions had taken place. God is involved in our lives, but his involvement never removes our responsibility for the actions we take. This chapter, like many television drama series, ends with a somewhat negative cliffhanger, but remember—there is still another series to come!

We all sometimes harden our hearts. Do a reality check to see whether you are really listening and responding to God.