Who hardened Pharaoh's heart? God or Pharaoh himself?

tonychanyt · Apr 8, 2024

Who hardened Pharaoh's heart? Was it God or Pharaoh himself? If your answer is one or the other, you are only half-right. Even before the hardening of the heart happened, Exodus 4:

21 The LORD said to Moses, "When you return to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders I have given you the power to do. But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go."

So, from a prophetic and vertical point of view, it says here that God is going to harden Pharaoh's heart. However, humanly or horizontally speaking, four chapters later on in Exodus 8:

15 But when Pharaoh saw that there was relief, he hardened his heart and would not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the LORD had said.

Now, it says that Pharaoh hardened his own heart while the hardening was happening. Note the sequence of events:

God prophesied that He was going to harden Pharaoh's heart.
God hardened Pharaoh's heart.
Pharaoh hardened his own heart.
God let us know: See, I told you so. Pharaoh's heart was hardened. God knew that Pharaoh would harden his heart.

This is a basic idea of the Co-Reality Model. The vertical and the horizontal events interact and intertwine to produce a coherent and unified reality. If you ignore either the vertical or the horizontal perspective, you only know half of the truth. Reality can only be understood properly by looking at it from both perspectives.

God is almighty and just, Romans 9:

14 What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! 15 For he says to Moses,
“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”
16 It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. 17 For Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” 18 Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.

God created Pharaoh for his purpose. Yet, at the same time, Pharaoh was responsible for what he did.

The case of Pharaoh was not unique. See Co-Reality Model.

com7fy8 · Apr 21, 2024

I would say "both", with God's part different than Pharaoh's.

If a plant grows from the ground, it seeks sunlight by growing toward the sun. It goes where it grows. And if it is healthy, in the sun it grows and gets stronger and maybe healthier.

I mean, if it has healthy roots, this can work very well.

But what if the plant's roots get infected with a fungus? Then is when the plant can't get the water it needs, and it begins to become dried by that warm and so-loving sunshine *without which it can not stay alive*.

But because of the plant's own nature of not being moist because of its rotten roots, it will get more and more dry in that sunshine; and as it dries more and more, it hardens. So, the sunshine now is hardening the plant, right while the plant is hardening itself.

I guess you could say it is a shared process, of the character of the sunshine interacting with the character of the plant which lacks water.

One thing I would note is, that the process is based in character, not really in choice.

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Who hardened Pharaoh's heart? God or Pharaoh himself?

tonychanyt

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com7fy8

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