Bearing this in mind, we are here confronted with a class of facts which we cannot explain—certain arrangements the reasons for which lie back in the sovereign will of God. Moses was placed un- der circumstances which promoted his becoming the leader and lawgiver of God’s people. Pharaoh was born to an inheritance of despotic power and inhaled from his birth the traditions of Orient- al tyranny. These influences went to harden him against God's command. Apparently the circumstances favored Pharaoh’s be- coming a cruel tyrant. Why the difference? We cannot tell. These causes operated according to their natural law. There was also the operation of a psychological and moral law, according to which the indulgence of any evil passion or impulse confirms it and fosters its growth. Pride begets pride; resistance intensifies obstinacy, encourages presumption, blunts susceptibility to better influences. Again, the penal element entered into the case. Per- sistent disobedience and resistance, working their natural result of inflated pride and presumptuous foolhardiness, wrought out a con- dition of heart which invited and insured judgment. A parallel is found in the first chapter of this epistle, where it is said that the heathen, having a certain revelation of God, refused to improve it ; wherefore, as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them up to uncleanness, vile passions, and a reprobate mind (i. 24, 26, 28).
“Tt is psychologically impossible that such determined impenitence could be cherished by the monarch, and yet produce no effects in the sensibilities of his heart. In such necessary working the hand of God must needs be im-
142 WORD STUDIES IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. [Cu. XI
manent. When we impersonally say ‘ must’ and speak impersonally of ‘ ne« cessity ’ in reference to the conditions of the human sensibility, we either ex- pressly or implicitly point to the operation of God. God did harden of old, and still He hardens when sin is cherished.” (Morison.)
And yet the operation of these forces did not exclude moral agency or moral freedom. No irresistible constraint compelled Pharaoh to yield to this pressure toward evil. His power of choice was recognized, assumed, and appealed to. He could not plead ignorance, for God instructed him through Moses. He could not plead doubt of God’s power, for God wrought before his eyes an unexampled series of wonders. If any “visitings of nature” could have power over him, the misery of his slave population was before his eyes. Only when all these influences had been repelled, and all opportunities for yielding scornfully rejected, did God have re- course to judgment. God raised up Pharaoh in order to show His power ; but two opposite exhibitions of God’s power in Pharaoh were possible. If he had yielded, he would have been a co-worker with God in the evolution of the Jewish commonwealth. God's power would have been displayed in the prosperity of his kingdom, as it was through the presence of Joseph. He resisted, and God’s power was terribly manifested in his torment and final destruction.
“No one,” as Miiller observes, “can withdraw himself from the range and influence of God’s revelations, without altering his moral status.”* Hence, though it is affirmed that God hardened Pha- raoh’s heart—the side of the statement which best suits the imme- diate purpose of Paul’s argument—it is also affirmed that Pharaoh hardened his own heart (compare Exod. iv. 21; vii. 3; ix, HD) 6 5x, 20, 27; xi. 10; and viii. 15, 32; ix. 34)+. The divine and the human agencies work freely side by side.
The cases of both Moses and Pharaoh make against the charge of God’s injustice toward the unbelieving Jews, since they show
* “¢ Doctrine of Sin.”
t Cheyne, on Isaiah vi. 9, 10, which should be compared with this passage, says that the phrase ‘‘ hardening of the heart” is only twice applied to indi- viduals in books of the Old Testament ; namely, to Pharaoh, and to Sihon, King of Heshbon (Deut. ii. 380). Jews never have this phrase applied to them, but only the Jewish nation, or sections of it, as Isa. vi. 9, 10; xxix. 10. ‘The Prophecies of Isaiah.” Compare Isa. lxiii. 17.