Read: Exodus 5, 6 and 7
God sent Moses on a mission to Egypt to deliver the Israelites from their bondage, to tell Pharaoh to let His people go (Exodus 3:10). When God told Moses what He wanted him to do, Moses felt inadequate and questioned Him. Moses asked God to send someone else to talk to Pharaoh (Exodus 4:13), which angered God. Instead of agreeing, God decided to appoint Aaron, Moses’ brother, as Moses’ mouthpiece.
Moses and Aaron’s mission proved difficult. They meet resistance from Pharaoh and their own people. At first, the Israelite elders believed Moses when he told them what God wanted to do, but soon discouragement and hard labor eroded this belief (Exodus 6:9). However, through God’s display of power, strength, and resolve against Pharaoh, the Israelites began to believe that God was faithful to His word. Not only can we learn from God’s faithfulness to the Israelites but from Pharaoh’s response to God, hardening his heart and refusing to let the Israelites go.
God Makes Himself Known
Pharaoh did not know or understand who God was because he would have heeded God’s command to let the Israelites go if he had. But instead, when Moses and Aaron approached him, Pharaoh responded with this: “Who is the Lord that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, and besides, I will not let Israel go.” (Exodus 5:2)
Similarly, the Israelites did not fully know God. Sure, they knew God in the sense that they knew He was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but they didn’t know Him as their LORD, a personal, promise-keeping God. This would soon change. God would reveal Himself as the great “I AM,” not only a promise-maker but a promise-keeper.
God made Himself known to both the Egyptians and the Israelites. To the Egyptians, He demonstrated His power by raining down judgment on them in the form of ten plagues (Exodus 7:3-5) and to the Israelites by rescuing them from the yoke of the Egyptians, redeeming them with mighty acts of judgment, and bringing them to the promised land (Exodus 6:6-8).
God, the One True God
God gave Pharaoh a chance to repent and turn to Him. Ten times Pharaoh refused to submit to God because of his pride, and as a result, each time he refused, God sent a plague that was more severe than the previous one. God used the plagues to show that He was the one true God.
Each plague corresponded to an ancient Egyptian god or goddess and was meant to expose the gods as powerless compared to the LORD, the one true God. After all, God is the creator; why would anyone worship something God created and not the creator Himself? The Psalmist echoes this sentiment in Psalms 96:5: “For all the gods of the peoples are idols, but the Lord made the heavens.” Similarly, the Prophet Nehemiah reminds us that God is the one true God when he says, “You alone are the Lord. You have made the heavens, the heaven of heavens with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. You give life to all of them and the heavenly host bows down before You” (Nehemiah 9:6). Ultimately, the 10th plague was so severe, that Pharaoh had no choice but to acknowledge God’s power and let God’s people go.
Do Not Harden Your Heart
Even today, Pharaoh’s character offers us much insight into humanity’s flawed nature. He is more than just an evil ruler; he represents us at our worst. Today, we are still asking the same question that Pharaoh asked thousands of years ago: Who is the Lord that I should obey His voice…? I do not know the Lord. After all, if we really knew the Lord, wouldn’t we ALWAYS obey his voice?
Sure, most of us are willing to “tolerate” the idea of God if He minds His own business, if He doesn’t require us to obey, or if He doesn’t have any actual power or authority over every aspect of our lives. Pharaoh’s reactions to God’s exposure of his gods as false and powerless are not unlike our responses when God exposes our sin.
Like Pharaoh, instead of submitting to God, we go around God looking for our own way. Or we try to bargain with God and dictate the terms of how we will and won’t do what God is asking us to do. Or we halfway repent to get what we want, but we fall right back into sin as soon as we get it. Sound familiar? Like Pharaoh, these reactions don’t usually work out well for us.
Ten times God gave Pharaoh a chance to repent and turn to Him. Ten times Pharaoh refused. God provided Pharaoh mercy time and time again, but Pharaoh hardened his heart. How many times has God given you to give up that sin in your life? How many times have you refused and hardened your heart?
When we harden our hearts and refuse to obey God, we drive a wedge between ourselves and God. Jesus died for our sins, and we are eternally saved when we believe in His name, but God wants more than that for us. He wants a relationship with us and to have us close. God wants us to draw near to Him and shed the sin that so easily entangles us and weighs us down. So, as the author of Hebrews implores: “Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts…” (Hebrews 3:15) but instead be obedient to His Word and thank Him that His mercies are new every morning.
