Pharaoh’s hardened heart: Another look

“[the Egyptians]…whose hearts He turned to hate His own people,

To treat His servants deceitfully…”

--Psalm 105:25

Psalm 105 is a brief history of ancient Israel, with several verses on the exile and Exodus story.  And in it we come again upon this idea of God making someone obstinate or hateful –for some purpose known only to God. In this image from the Psalm we see God paradoxically turning the hearts of Pharaoh and the Egyptians against His own beloved people. In some unspoken way this turning of the enemy's heart to obstinacy and hate and deceit is presented as necessary for the fulfillment of God's plan; it seems somehow essential for the building up of Israel.  God makes Pharaoh’s heart hard and obstinate, against Pharaoh’s own good and the good of the Egyptians. And God does this (it seems) so that Israel’s ultimate victory can somehow be recognized as even more astonishing; more miraculous.  Israel overcomes her foes who are powerful, obstinately bad, persisting in evil, and who  far outnumber her –but who, in the end, are defeated through God’s miraculous intercession.

But I am left pondering: How is the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart necessary to God’s plan?  Even if this is just a myth (or hyperbole), why did the ancient story teller feel it necessary to put it in these terms? What lesson was God imparting by having His scribes write His story in this way?  If (for instance) God’s hardening of Pharaoh’s heart is a metaphor –then what is it a metaphor of? And what lesson (or insight) was it supposed to teach? What psychological (or spiritual) insight was it intended to reveal?

1.       That God is willful and can do whatever He likes?  Even make our hearts hard and turn our ways to deceit? Sin?  -OR

2.       That God’s plan, the work of a loving God, may even be found in the hardened heart and deceitful ways of our foe…

And, in the end, the key question is: What does a loving God accomplish by changing the hearts of Pharaoh, the Egyptians, all of Israel’s foes “so that they hate His own people?” What is it that He accomplishes through this hardened heart that He couldn’t accomplish otherwise? Why didn’t He change their hearts so that they loved His people?  What part does this hardening of the heart play in God’s plan?  How does it reveal His loving presence?  Those are the questions, the paradox, I am pondering these days. 

Next I want to spend a little time considering this passage, this image, through the lens of the four-fold method; seeking in it the four levels of reading: literal, allegorical, moral & anagogical.

  

Consider the stubborness of Pharaoh

“Pharaoh sent urgently for Moses and Aaron and said:

I have sinned against the Lord your God and against you.

Now forgive my sin, I implore you, just this once, and entreat

The Lord your God to turn this deadly thing away from me.

When Moses left Pharaoh’s presence he prayed to the Lord,

 and the Lord changed the wind into a west wind, very strong,

which carried the locusts away and swept them into the Sea

of Reeds. There was not one locust left in the whole of Egypt.

But the Lord made Pharaoh stubborn, and he did not

let the Israelites go…”  --Exodus 10: 16-20

Boy this Bible reading is kind of tough stuff. I am working my way through Exodus now and coming to the very familiar story of Moses and Pharaoh, I was quite surprised to bump into this verse –a phrase repeated a few times in this story.  What does it mean?  Why would God make Pharaoh “stubborn?”  If, as we are told, God is love –how does making Pharaoh stubborn reveal God’s love?  It is easy to see how it plays out for the Hebrews who receive their freedom and 40 years of wandering.  But consider the stubborn Pharaoh (and all of Egypt); what does he receive? Boils, frogs, locust and the death of his first-born son.  Why does God make the Pharaoh stubborn?

If we assume that God doesn’t literally make Pharaoh stubborn, then we are still left with the question: Why is it in the story? Repeatedly? Starting with God’s assurance to Moses:

“I myself shall make Pharaoh stubborn…” (cf. 7:3)

Even if we assume this is just a story that is trying to explain how the Hebrew people came out of Egypt, we still have to wonder why the ancient author would have chosen to tell it in this way? What is the author telling us about God? And, what is the spiritual or moral lesson that is being imparted?  If Pharaoh is simply an allegorical figure (a symbol of enslavement to sin –for example), we still are left with the fact that God seems to willfully stop Pharaoh from changing his ways.  What does that mean?

To my 21^st century mind, it seems unfair of God to make Pharaoh stubborn. It seems unloving. And so, we might ask, what did it say to the ancient reader? Was there a lesson in Pharaoh’s stubbornness that transcended narrative logic? Or was it a lesson about God’s authority? Was it an assertion that God can make someone do something against their own best interest? Or was it a lesson about how God’s ways are not man’s ways?

I don’t know. But it is perplexing and seems to hold a paradox of some kind at its core. 

If we assume that Holy Scripture is Holy and truly the Word of God then the issue becomes even more complex.  Why would God say such things about Himself?  What is He trying to teach us about Himself and His ways…? And –of course—we may have to ask ourselves whether questions of fairness are meaningful when it comes to God.   And His ways.

Reading Dante & Genesis: Intention vs text

“…if He gives me food to eat
 and clothes to wear, and if I come
home safe to my father’s home, then
the Lord shall be my God…” –Genesis 28: 20-21

     What does Jacob’s attitude and behavior tell us about God’s chosen people?  What does it tell us about God?  Why is Jacob/Israel depicted as such a character: a trickster, a skeptic, untrustworthy? Someone who seems to lack faith? Someone who puts God to the test?  Seemingly so unlike his grandfather Abraham?  Was it intentional?  If so, why? Was it a self-portrait on the part of the story-teller? The community?  What did the author intend?  Does it matter?

     Dr. Novo, a dear friend of mine, will sometimes challenge my latest rereadings of Dante with the argument that the text may not mean what I think it means, because my reading doesn’t seem like something Dante would have intended.  And what he means by that is: my reading of the poem doesn’t make sense in a 13^th century Italian context. He is simply asserting the logical proposition that a 13^th century Italian poet probably wouldn’t have meant what I might be proposing, because a 13^th century Italian wouldn’t have thought like that. And often I have to agree with him; sometimes I am imposing my modern ideas on a medieval text. 
     However, what I now realize is that there is a much more important question than the intention of the author. And so, in the case of Dante, though I am interested in the question:  Does it make sense in the context of 13^th century Italy?  I am even more interested in the question: Does it make sense in the context of the text?

     In a famous letter written during his exile, Dante explained that his poem should be read in the four-fold manner used for reading scripture.  Which means that the poem should be read on four levels: literal, allegorical, moral and anagogical. But, another element of how we read scripture is as a document received from God, but through human hands.  We know human hands wrote it, but we trust that the text itself is speaking to us the word of God. Yes, there may be academic theories about sources, and interpolations, and scribal errors, etc. And on a scholarly level those have importance.  However, our ultimate concern isn’t with the writers (or their errors), but the text itself.
     Would the author of Genesis have seen anything wrong on unseemly in Jacob's skeptical acceptance of God? Would the ancient readers have been troubled at all by Jacob's "ifs"?  If God does this... If God lets me arrive safely... if God gives me clothes and enough food...etc.  

     What the author(s) or compilers intended is certainly a question of interest, but what the text says, is a question of actual importance.  For instance, when we read Genesis, we can ask did the author intend to make Jacob a trickster? But more importantly, we should ask what it means that he is one.

    When I read Dante, I approach it in much the same way: I understand that Dante may or may not have intended some things I discover in his poem.  But my main concern isn’t with his 13^th century Italian intentions, but with his poem. Without imposing my 21^st century bias on it, I try to simply ask the text: What do you have to say? And then I ponder, what does that mean?