What if the Pharaoh's Heart Was Softened?

-Rev Melissa Fain-

But the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he would not listen to them, just as the Lord had spoken to Moses.
Exodus 9:12 NRSV

I've lived with this question for years. I wanted to know how to save Pharaoh. If I want to save them all, I've got to want to save him too, right? Why would God harden Pharaoh's heart? Why would God allow the Plagues to continue when allowing Pharaoh's heart to soften would keep great tragedy from entering the land?

If Pharaoh's heart were allowed to soften the plagues would have ended before the death of the first born. Think of the epic levels of loss on all levels. Crops were wiped out. The cleanup would take away from collecting the crops that were left. God softening Pharaoh's heart means there wouldn't be conflict leading to so much destruction.

If Pharaoh's heart were allowed to soften all those first born children would not have died. I seriously only remember one full Sunday School class from my childhood. It's not that I don't remember pieces, but I can no longer connected them to the specific moment where I learned them. The Sunday School teachers, an older couple that just returned from Jerusalem, asked any first born child to raise his or her hand. I raised my hand. "You're dead," the wife said flatly to a little over half the class. (My younger sister found this hilarious.) Why would God commission death, and specifically death of children? If that heart was softened it would have been avoided. 

If Pharaoh's heart were allowed to soften the Israelites never would have left Egypt.

Yeah, that's it.

God didn't draw the line in the sand.

God wanted the people out. Plague after plague had already happened and, it was the Pharaoh who didn't listen, who drew lines, that was stubborn beyond measure. God didn't harden Pharaoh's heart right away. Pharaoh hardened his own heart six times first. More than that, God didn't send some foreigner into Egyptian court. Moses would have been someone Pharaoh knew, grew up, possibly even loved like a brother. Still he was stubborn. Six times stubborn.

Here's why there is no such thing as a just war. 

War always has a very long fuse. There are historic moments where the fuse can be extinguished. Sometimes months, but more often times years in advance. When the bomb of war finally goes off, the lines are drawn not because God wants those lines to be drawn, but because the options to peace were ignored for years. 

Even if Pharaoh's heart was softened, he wouldn't want peace like God wanted peace. Pharaoh didn't want God's choice. It was Pharaoh who put God on the other side, not God. And guess what? When the people finally left Egypt there were Egyptians that left with the Israelites. God's line is an ideology, not a people. God wanted freedom, and Pharaoh wanted power. ​

How does Israel stay in Egypt?

As slaves. 

That's it.

​Listen, I fully and completely believe the people are not the problem. The system the people use is the problem. The side that was just fine didn't see a problem with slavery. This was because they couldn't see. They were too comfortable to see.

More than that, it didn't matter that at the seventh plague Pharaoh's heart could have softened. He wasn't going to change. It's very difficult to get people who are comfortable to give up their comfort for someone else's discomfort. It's relational. It's ignorance. If they can't feel it, most people don't understand it. Ignorance can drive a world into darkness. Ignorance can silence oppression with false righteousness. It puts fault on the abused, because anything else would change the system, a system where the ones in power want to keep their power. 

That must be left behind if a new people are to find their freedom. Pharaoh's heart had to be hardened, because God was separating the wheat from the chaff. The peoples had already picked their sides by the time the seventh plague came around. They had drawn the lines; not God, but God had chosen a side.

This month I've been reading Walter Brueggemann's "The Prophetic Imagination." Chapter one is a great reading partner with this post.