April 30, 2024, Day 3 of Week 5 Daily Dose of Hope

Daily Dose of Hope
April 30, 2024
Day 3 of Week 5
 
Scripture – Exodus 7-9; Psalm 105; Ephesians 1
 
Welcome to the Daily Dose of Hope, New Hope Church’s devotional that complements our Bible reading plan.  I hope you are having a great Tuesday.  Please know I pray for all of you.  If you have any specific prayer needs, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me directly at vicki@findnewhope.com.  I want to be there for all of you.  Okay…let’s get into today’s Scripture.
 
Today begins the real showdown between Pharoah and Moses, or might we say Pharoah and God.  Moses and Aaron demand that Pharoah release the Hebrew people on the command of God Almighty.  Pharoah doesn’t really care about God Almighty and he continues to refuse.  Even after all these horrible plagues, Pharoah refuses to comply. 
 
But one piece of the story that has always puzzled me is the hardness of Pharoah’s heart.  I mean God told Moses ahead of time that he would hardened the ruler’s heart and we can see that throughout each plague.  Sometimes, it seems to indicate that God hardened his hard and other times, it appears that Pharoah does it on his own.  How it’s worded will differ depending on which translation you are using.  But it leads to these questions:  How much free will does Pharoah have in this situation?  Who is actually calling the shots?  And why does the situation have to escalate into such destruction and violence? 
 
The first thing I discovered in learning more about this passage is that Pharoah is not one singular person.  Remember, there were many pharaohs in Egypt.  From what I can deduce, this passage probably refers to a sequence of pharaohs over a long period of time.  And while the author could have named the pharaohs specifically (I mean, they all have names we recognize – Rameses I or II, Thutmose, etc.), he chose not to.  Pharoah here simply represents the evil ruler of Egypt, but more generally is a symbol of human rebellion and sin.  Pharoah is an example of what happens when one person puts their own desires/values/well-being over another.  Pharoah is what you get when a person and society decides what is right and wrong apart from God’s wisdom and direction.  You find yourself with a nation, in this case Egypt, building it’s resources on the backs of a persecuted and enslaved people.  As the story progresses, we even find Pharoah putting his pride above the welfare of his own people.  Pharoah truly defines the human condition.
 
But what about the whole hardening of the heart issue?  In the first five plagues, we are told that Pharoah’s heart becomes hard.  In his arrogance and greed, Pharoah refuses to comply with God.  Pharoah thinks he has more power and authority.  I can’t help but think about how the pharaohs considered themselves to be gods.  Think about that for a minute.
 
But there are certainly some plagues in which it appears that God hardens Pharoah’s heart.  Why would God do such a thing?  Well, I’m not an ancient Hebrew scholar in any way, shape, or form, but my understanding of this text is that the hardening of the heart is not passive but active.  That means Pharoah’s heart hardens (not “was hardened” by someone else).  God didn’t harden it, Pharoah hardened his heart on his own free will.  This is one reason I like the NIV translation because it does leave this ambiguous. 
 
While I’m not going to spend much time discussing Psalm 105, please do read through it.  I think as you read it, you will recognize how the psalmist included so many of the passages and themes we’ve been reading about in Genesis and Exodus. 
 
Today, we are starting another New Testament book, Paul’s letter to the Ephesians.  Paul's letter to the church at Ephesus is quite extraordinary!  The prose is both beautiful and powerful.  It speaks to who we are in Jesus, new life in Christ, and what we must now do about it.