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.

How can we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?

Friday 26 June 2015

“…the life I live is not my own; Christ is living in me…”  Galatians 2:19

“…I will make you a light to the nations
that my salvation shall reach to the ends of the earth…”  Isaiah 49:6

          Today the US Supreme Court decided in favor of a right to same-sex marriage.  And this decision, whether one approves or disapproves, is a clear signal of our nation’s further move from what was once considered a “Christian nation” toward a more and more secular nation divorced from any spiritual or faith-based influences.  Again, one may approve or disapprove of such a movement; in fact individual Christians, Jews and Muslims, members of all faiths, may sincerely disagree on the importance and societal value of this movement. But, it seems pretty clear that today we no longer live in a “Christian nation.”  And I think, as a Christian we will find very shortly that we are no longer at home in this nation, in our homeland, but instead we are in exile (whether spiritual, political or societal –I don’t know, perhaps all three). 

            Last night (Thursday) in our theology class we were studying the Hebrew prophets (mainly Isaiah and Jeremiah) and our professor offered us a series of passages from Isaiah as an example of the prophet’s style and theology.  When he came to 49:1-6 and introduced it by discussing the scholarly tradition that this passage was probably written by a second writer during the Babylonian captivity and at some point attributed to Isaiah, I became very curious about the image of Israel as a “light to the nations.” I began to wonder why would this image come to mind while a people is in exile?  Why a light to the nations and not just the Jews? Why that transition would occur in exile –during captivity.

            The professor emphasized the change in theology implied by the image, from we are the chosen people to we are a light to the nations, that all people may come to God; He’s not just for the Jews anymore.

   And I still wondered why they would come to this idea in exile? And then he went on to elaborate that some think that it was possibly in exile (in captivity) that the Jews actually gained their identity.

   And still I wondered why this change in teaching and why during captivity?

   Then I began to wonder: is it because of the captivity, because in captivity, in exile, in defeat they had to grapple with: Why? Why did this happen to us? To God’s chosen people and why would a good and loving God who made a covenant with us let this happen to us? This seems terrible! Horrible! Evil! But then someone (Isaiah or Duetero-Isaiah) had the flash of inspiration OR the Holy Spirit inspired him (or his redactors) to see that if God is good and God is love or loves us in a special covenantal way then there must be some good in this; some good in the exile and captivity and defeat and destruction of the temple, etc etc.  And not just some good (i.e. –we might as well look on the bright side) but…If we are God’s people and He loves us and this happened to us there must be a good in this that we can’t or don’t see, there must be a good intended by this that we can’t see—and that good, Isaiah somehow realized, was to become the “light to the nations…”

  The Jews were to become “…so marred…beyond human semblance…despised and rejected… a [people] of suffering and acquainted  with infirmities…” (52:13-53:3) not as a sign that God rejected them or was punishing them but as a sign to the world, a light to the nations.  Dispersed so that they could finally discover what it was God really wanted of them: a home –not in a temple—but within them, within each one of them, within the “lowly and afflicted…” (66:2) and that they could in their suffering (and perhaps only through their suffering) become truly a light to the world –a lamp not hidden behind temple walls or hidden in a bushel, but put where it can be seen –every day by any and every one. They were to become truly chosen people, but it didn’t look like what anyone expected. With no temple save their own humble and contrite hearts, they were each and every one being called to become the dwelling place of the Lord.   The land was finally truly theirs –the Holy Land was finally theirs and the covenant complete –because the Holy Land was right beneath their feet always and everywhere, wherever they stood all they could do was go from one piece of Holy ground to the next.

  And so we Christians now, (once again?), are being called to go through the refining fire of exile and captivity, that we too may finally become (once again?) truly a light to the world.  And it seems to me that our light will glow through the way we live our exile; how we live this exile will determine how bright our light glows because the glow will in fact be not ours, but a reflection of God’s love dwelling in us—and the love we reflect to the world will be reflected not in acts of confrontation and political activism, but in the love we show, the love we feel for the world, the love we will toward the world. 

  Do we act with love and compassion when we meet difficulties and feel oppressed? Or do we meet these moments with clenched teeth and forced smiles –pretended tenderness?  If so, then we won’t reflect much of God’s love. But if we meet our exile with gentleness, with sincere and tender compassion; if we are open and vulnerable and willing to embrace even our oppressors, then we will reflect God’s love more brightly and maybe through us, through our exile we will become a light that shines His glory to all the nations –drawing people to Him.  We shall see.  It won’t be easy; for many this exile in our own land will be terribly hard and bitter, as if they are being led out of Jerusalem through a hole in the wall, bound and chained, a hook through their lip, dragged away to see their home no more.  The world will never again be the same, they fear... I too suspect that the world will never again be the same, not in my lifetime… But I'm not sad about that. I know God is good, therefore out of this sea change, this fearful exile, good is coming…somehow, someday, someway…

and I know this, because the life we live now is not our own… therefore when people ask me how I think we should react to this national transformation, I can only say: do not be afraid, He is with you always. Let go of your need to prove anything, let go of your need to be right,  speak the truth with humility and compassion and be vulnerable; you may be a stranger living in a strange land, but don't be afraid --let God make of you a light for the nations, a light that will reach to the ends of the earth.