Hardening pharaoh’s heart

From Greg Beale's Redemptive Reversals and the Ironic Overturning of Human Wisdom:

A Preincarnate Hitler

The pharaoh of ancient Egypt is one of the best examples of ironic judgment, since in great arrogance he hotly pursued afflicted Israel but was "caught in the plots which [he had] devised" (Ps. 10:2). Pharaoh's first mistake was to claim to be God. He gave to himself such titles as "savior of Egypt," "Lord of the living," "Universal god," and the sovereign "god of heaven and earth." As such he was also held to be the divine judge after death.⁴ This is, no doubt, why Pharaoh responds to Moses's message that begins, "Thus says the Lord" (Ex. 5:1), with an equally authoritative, "Thus says Pharaoh" (Ex. 5:10). But, indeed, such a divine claim was farthest from the truth since, ironically, Scripture identifies the pharaoh of the exodus with Satan, "the dragon" (Isa. 51:9; cf. Ps. 74:13–14 and Rev. 12:3–4, 7–9), and the "sea monster" (Ps. 89:10; cf. also Ps. 87:4; Isa. 30:7; Ezek. 32:2). Pharaoh's obstinate claim to deity, even in spite of the plagues that came upon him in Exodus 7–13, was the reason for his judgment.

Pharaoh's mistaken belief in his divine sovereignty must have led him to issue the edict that the firstborn males of Israel were to be killed by the Hebrew midwives (Ex. 1:16), and when this failed, he ordered the firstborn to be drowned in a river (Ex. 1:22). Not only did Pharaoh's attempts to overcome Israel fail, but his edicts declaring the killing of the firstborn were providentially reversed so that they fell on him in judgment. Not only did God kill the firstborn of every Egyptian family (Ex. 12:29), but he also drowned Pharaoh's army in the Red Sea (Ex. 15:1–12). His sins came back on his own head, since he was punished ironically by the very things he perpetrated against Israel.

No Truth and No Consequences

Before we leave this discussion of Pharaoh, it is further enlightening to understand his role as the purported savior of those who died and faced imminent judgment. The Egyptians believed that after death, people had to go through a trial in the Hall of Judgment to determine whether they were guilty of earthly sin. If found innocent, a person inherited eternal bliss, but if found guilty, he or she suffered judgment. There were two parts to this judgment process. (1) The deceased person arrived at one end of the Hall of Judgment and was presented with a long list of sins characteristic of human life, which he or she categorically denied. (2) While the denial of sin was taking place, the deceased's heart was being weighed on the "scales of judgment" at the other end of the hall in order to see if its testimony supported the person's denial. The Egyptians believed that all people are sinful and that the heart would tell the truth if it were separated from the bad influence of the body, so when the heart confessed the deceased's sins, it would become "heavy" with sin, and the disequilibrium of the scales would indicate guilt and judgment. Therefore, the heart's confession of sin would demonstrate that the deceased's denial was a lie, with the result of impending judgment.

Since the Egyptians believed in the universal sinfulness of humanity, it seems that no Egyptian had a chance for salvation. This was a tremendous theological dilemma. However, the Egyptians also believed that the heart could be stopped from naturally confessing sin so that salvation could still be possible. This was thought to be accomplished by placing a stone scarab beetle, shaped in the form of a heart, either in the mummified clothes encasing the deceased or tied to the chest. The scarab beetle was a symbol of the sun god, of whom Pharaoh was viewed as the incarnation, and they thought it had magical powers to suppress the heart's tendency to confess sin so that salvation could be secured. Thus it was actually the magical power of the divine Pharaoh that imposed this silence upon the heart and was responsible for the individual's salvation.

There were various magical spells written on the stone scarab heart to bring about the silence of the human heart. The magical power of the sun god (and Pharaoh) was believed to transfer the stillness of the stone heart to the deceased so that the heart's movements to confess sin would be transformed into the stonelike stillness of silence. This suppression of the heart's confession apparently came to be seen as a kind of "hardening of the heart."⁵

Could this immoral Egyptian concept of salvation through "hardening of the heart" be the background against which to understand the Lord's hardening of Pharaoh's heart? Moses repeatedly commanded Pharaoh to let the people go, but God repeatedly hardened Pharaoh's heart so that he would not release Israel. But perhaps this was not the only purpose of the hardening of Pharaoh's heart. Whereas the pharaoh's magical hardening caused a nonconfession of sin and an apparent sinless heart, resulting in salvation, the Lord's hardening of Pharaoh's heart appears to have led to his own heart confessing sin (cf. Ex. 9:27, 34; 10:16–17) and acknowledging his sinfully heavy condition, resulting in judgment (cf. Ex. 14:4, 17–28). Whereas Pharaoh's hardening the hearts of others falsely suppressed sin, the Lord's hardening of Pharaoh's heart rightly revealed the monarch's sin.

The Lord's hardening of Pharaoh's heart may have been intended, in part, to show that the Egyptian way of salvation is a sham and was really the very opposite—a way of damnation. In fact, is it not interesting that the dead Pharaoh was the only Egyptian who did not have to go through the judgment process, but now, more than any other Egyptian in the exodus narrative, he is the focus of God's hardening judgment? It is probably no coincidence that one of the Hebrew words used for the Lord's hardening of Pharaoh means "to make heavy." Ironically, the pharaoh who claimed to remove the sinful heaviness of others' hearts could not remove his own. The pharaoh himself had now "been weighed on the scales and found deficient" (Dan. 5:27) and awaited impending judgment at the Red Sea. Pharaoh's heart became literally like the stone heart that symbolized his power and ironically caused him to be hard and insensitive to God's commands, which led to his destruction. Because of his stone heart, he sank like a stone in the Red Sea.

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⁴ For a background of Pharaoh's divine names and functions consult I. Engnell, Studies in Divine Kingship in the Ancient Near East (Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 1967); S. Morenz, Egyptian Religion (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1960); E. L. R. Meyerowitz, The Divine Kingship in Ghana and Ancient Egypt (London: Faber & Faber, 1960); H. Frankfort, Kingship and the Gods (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948).

⁵ For an argument supporting this contention see A. Hermann, “Das Steinhartes Herz,” in Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum 4 (Münster: Aschendorff’sche, 1961), 102–5. I have also argued this in my "The Exodus Hardening Motif of Yahweh as a Polemic," ThM Thesis, Dallas Theological Seminary (1976), 48–52.

The Nile in Bible prophecy

Jonathan McLatchie

  

How should we as Christian evidentialists frame the argument from predictive prophecy? One potential vulnerability of the argument from predictive prophecy is that we take one passage rigidly literally and interpret other prophetic texts as symbolic. For example, we take Ezekiel 26 literally when it talks about the rubble of Tyre being dumped into the sea (fulfilled in 332 BC by Alexander the Great). But then when Isaiah 19 speaks about the waters of the Nile being dried up, that is interpreted symbolically (e.g. Egyptian economy takes such a hit that it's as though the Nile itself had dried up). One objection then could be that we are cherry picking what to take literally (when it fits) and what not to (when a literal interpretation doesn't fit). If the Ezekiel 26 prophecy against Tyre hadn't been literally fulfilled, we might then say that the dumping into the sea is symbolic imagery. How can a Christian assert the argument from predictive prophecy while accounting for this vulnerability?

Here's the relevant section of Isa 19:

5 And the waters of the sea will be dried up,

    and the river will be dry and parched,

6 and its canals will become foul,

    and the branches of Egypt's Nile will diminish and dry up,

    reeds and rushes will rot away.

7 There will be bare places by the Nile,

    on the brink of the Nile,

and all that is sown by the Nile will be parched,

    will be driven away, and will be no more.

8 The fishermen will mourn and lament,

    all who cast a hook in the Nile;

and they will languish

    who spread nets on the water.

9 The workers in combed flax will be in despair,

    and the weavers of white cotton.

While the figurative/economic interpretation of Isa 19 may be correct, there are those who think this was literally fulfilled when the Aswan high dam was built, which had disastrous ecological side-effects. In fact, the Aswan dam was the first thing that occurred to me when I read Jonathan's post. Jonathan probably doesn't make that association because he's half my age; the dam was built in my lifetime, whereas construction was before Jonathan's time, so it's part of my sense of recent history, just through osmosis, by living through that period and seeing news coverage. 

I'm not saying that's necessarily a fulfillment of Isa 19, but it's something to consider:

The Aswan High Dam has produced several negative side effects. Most costly is the gradual decrease in the fertility of agricultural lands in the Nile delta, which used to benefit from the millions of tons of silt deposited annually by the Nile floods. Another detriment to humans has been the spread of the disease schistosomiasis by snails that live in the irrigation system created by the dam. The reduction of waterborne nutrients flowing into the Mediterranean is suspected to be the cause of a decline in anchovy populations in the eastern Mediterranean. The end of flooding has sharply reduced the number of fish in the Nile, many of which were migratory.

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/aswan-high-dam-completed

The Egyptians Will Know The Lord

The reversal of Egypt's role in Matthew 2 is striking. Instead of the Israelites leaving Egyptian bondage, Jesus goes into Egypt for refuge.

"It will become a sign and a witness to the Lord of hosts in the land of Egypt; for they will cry to the Lord because of oppressors, and he will send them a Savior and a Champion, and he will deliver them. Thus the Lord will make himself known to Egypt, and the Egyptians will know the Lord in that day." (Isaiah 19:20-21)

"Take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt" (Matthew 2:13)

In His hour of infant exile,
Once the Son of God in thee
Found a refuge from the tyrant,
Underneath thy sheltering tree.

And for this thou art remembered;
This great debt shall be repaid.
In earth's age of promised glory,
Israel's God shall lift thy head.
(Horatius Bonar, "Dead Egypt", Hymns Of The Nativity [London, England: James Nisbet & Co., 1879], 136-37)

“Axis of Reason” vs Muslim Brotherhood

Photo: NPR

Israel has allied itself with some of the more “moderate” middle eastern states, and indeed, with the Egyptian government that is “cracking down” on the Muslim Brotherhood protests. The members of this alliance are calling themselves the “axis of reason”. Apparently they have come to the conclusion that the best or only way to deal with Islamists is to crush them with military power:

The U.S.'s closest Middle East allies are undercutting American policy in Egypt, encouraging the military to confront the Muslim Brotherhood rather than reconcile, U.S. and Arab officials said.

The parallel efforts by Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have blunted U.S. influence with Egypt's military leadership and underscored how the chaos there has pulled Israel into ever-closer alignment with those Gulf states, officials said.

A senior Israeli official called the anti-Muslim Brotherhood nations "the axis of reason."

The Obama administration first had sought to persuade Egyptian military leader Gen. Abdel Fattah Al Sisi not to overthrow the elected government of President Mohammed Morsi and then to reconcile with his Muslim Brotherhood base.

Gen. Sisi has done the opposite—orchestrating the president's overthrow and a crackdown in which over 900 people have been killed since Wednesday—reflecting his apparent confidence in the Egyptian government's ability to weather an American backlash, U.S. and Arab officials said….

Israel is pushing Washington not to cut off military support to Egypt, arguing that would jeopardize counterterrorism cooperation and the 1979 Israeli-Egyptian peace accords.

"Only after stability is restored, only after law and order is enforced, only then can you start to talk about launching a process that leads to more democratic processes," said the senior Israeli official….

Saudi King Abdullah has stepped up the Kingdom's support for what he called Egypt's fight against "terrorism and extremism." President Barack Obama has criticized the crackdown, a message repeated by Mr. Hagel on Monday….

Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323423804579023213295900596.html (Subscription required)

Independence Day News of the World: New World Record for Eating Hot Dogs; Meanwhile, “Military Crackdown in Egypt”

Joey Chestnut eats 69 hot dogs, sets new world record:



ESPN commentator Bob Ley tweeted this:

America, the world is watching you! Meanwhile in Egypt:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324399404578586002194558298.html

Stratfor: Egypt Military Coup Bodes Ill for Future Stability

What we are seeing is the military in Egypt, which has stable roots going back to Nasser in 1979, forcibly ejecting a democratically-elected president, Mohammed Morsi, of the radical "Muslim Brotherhood".

http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/egypt-military-coup-bodes-ill-future-stability

When I first started reading about this, Stratfor was suggesting that because the the Egyptian military had such continuity, they would lend an element of stability in the face of whatever changes were happening politically. However, with this more recent article, they are suggesting that there will be less stability because of the nature of the change:

The Muslim Brotherhood, which has effectively been thrown out of power, must now figure out how to respond. The group probably will not respond violently, but it will engage in civil unrest that will lead to violence. Though the Brotherhood is unlikely to abandon the path of democratic politics, Morsi's ouster will lead elements from more ultraconservative Salafist groups to abandon mainstream politics in favor of armed conflict.

The overthrow of Egypt's moderate Islamist government undermines the international efforts to bring radical Islamists into the political mainstream in the wider Arab and Muslim world. Ultimately, within the context of Egypt, Morsi's ouster sets a precedent where future presidents can expect to be removed from office by the military in the event of pressure from the masses. In a way, this was set in motion by the ouster of former President Hosni Mubarak, and it does not bode well for the future stability of Egypt.

There are links to other (and newer) articles at the link given above, including statements from Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood.