The Ten Plagues (Exodus 7-12)

The fearsome happenings that led up to Pharaoh's helpless relent and Israel's liberation from Egypt...

I can't bear to imagine to the finest detail the blood-curdling sight of bloody rivers, the pests' malicious ambush, the ravaging of fruitful land, the loss of livestock, the ferocious unleashing of natural disasters and the wailing Egyptians upon death of their firstborns. The plagues must have been very traumatising for any human being experiencing their disasters firsthand - and I am thinking particularly of those mothers in labour, nursing mothers, young children and the infirm.

Disaster after disaster, Egypt's destruction unfolded.

Sojourning Israel had suffered initially in their labour as slaves - but it seems to me that Egypt suffered more under the rule of their insecure and prideful Pharaoh, who would not back down to God's words through Moses, leader of the Israelites. I don't think that the Israelites knew God far more than Egyptians did. However, Moses obeyed God and he led the people well; because of that, they were spared from Egypt's destruction. Of course, they were also the chosen people of God - but did the Egyptians really have to suffer as they did during the ten plagues?

What if Pharaoh had relented earlier? Bible skeptics argue that he could not, because the Bible maintains that "God hardened the heart of Pharaoh" ( Ex 7:3; 9:12; 10:1,20,27; 11:10; 14:4,8). But then again, the Bible also mentions that Moses hardened Pharaoh's heart, Moses' words hardened Pharaoh's heart and Pharaoh hardened his own heart! What then does such "hardening" mean? Is it supposed to be literal or figurative/idiomatic? Was the "hardening" a colloquial feature of the Hebrew language familiar to its native users? In E.W. Bullinger's 1898 work on the biblical figures of speech, he gathers that certain active verbs were used to denote permission of a certain occurence rather than the actual carrying out of an action. He supports that God permitted or allowed Pharaoh to harden his heart, rather than actually turning Pharaoh's heart into stone. Additionally, D. R. Dungan in an earlier book on Hermeneutics (1888) attributes the "hardening" to a sort of metaphorical language which the Bible often uses. I am definitely in favour with Bullinger's (and to some extent, Dungan's) argument. God certainly does not act unjustly. (Ps 33:5) Neither does He usurp human free will to choose (cf. Deut 30:19-20).

I guess, great lessons on godly leadership could be drawn through contrasting Moses with Pharaoh - but I don't really want to go into that. More importantly,  I am reminded today that we have a responsibility to keep our hearts soft, tender and open to God so that His words may teach, liberate us and grant us life. We sojourn in a world that perceives God's ways as foolishness and therefore, opposes them. Obedience is thus walking on the narrow path that spares us from destruction (Matt 7:13-14).