DID GOD HARDEN PHAROAH'S HEART OR NAH?🤔😫

 

If you've read Exodus, you'll come across the part where God hardened the heart of Pharaoh and the Egyptians. Some of us ignored it while others hated Him (you know yourselves👀), but let's be sincere with ourselves. When we read Exodus 9:12, we all asked,  "Why did God allow them to suffer by hardening their hearts if He's truly a loving God?" Well, I'm going to explain why I believe He did so.

First, you must understand that God is all-powerful and glorious. His power transcends all human and spiritual understanding and cannot be challenged. We all know what happened to the last creation that dared challenge Him (I'm talking about Lucifer by the way🙃). Now that we hopefully understand the depth of His power (I'll talk about His power later) I'll dive into the explanation.

When God appeared to Moses in a burning fire, instructing Him on how to free His people, He said in Exodus 3:19

"I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless compelled by a mighty hand. So I will stretch out my hand and smite Egypt with all the wonders I will do in it and after this, he will let you go" (Pharaoh was really stubborn💔)

God already knew that Pharaoh was as obstinate as a goat and if you refuse to humble yourself before the greatest being that exists, He will humble you with His own hand. That was exactly what He did to Pharaoh. God hadn't hardened Pharaoh's heart the first time he was visited by Moses. He was acting of his own free will and yet, even after the signs and wonders (I believe the rod turning into a snake was cool) he refused to let them go, hardening his heart(Exodus 8:15 But when Pharaoh saw there was respite, he hardened his heart and hearkened not unto them; as the LORD had said.) Moses continuously brought his requests before Pharaoh and when those requests were rejected, the wrath of God came upon Egypt simply because of their stubbornness. God didn't harden Pharaoh's heart in a bid to simply just "destroy children and cities" (although He warned them🤷‍♀️) He did that to show His glory and make their generation and the ones to come understand, as much as their human intellect could allow His power.

Exodus 9:15- "For by now I could have put forth my hand and struck you and your people with pestilence and you would have been cut off from the earth; but for this purpose have I let you live, to show you my power, so that my name may be declared throughout all the earth"

This passage literally proves this and unfortunately many of us today are like Pharaoh. God tell us something, we "harden" our hearts and then when He decides to punish us, He becomes a wicked God.

Sometimes God decides to harden the hearts of some people to show his power and glory in and through them. He's not just loving, He's also a disciplinarian. Try and understand that if you didn't get anything I said at all.

Anyways thanks for reading😙