THIRD QUARTER 2025
SABBATH SCHOOL INSIGHT #4
JULY 25, 2025
"THE PLAGUES."

 

Our lesson this week covers the first nine plagues of Egypt. Plague number 10, Passover and the death of the firstborn, is in next week’s lesson. We will address one important question in this Sabbath School Insight – the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart.

The theme of hardening Pharaoh’s heart occurs twenty times between Exodus 4 and 14. Ten of the twenty occurrences speak of God hardening Pharaoh’s heart. Two of those ten times God speaks prophetically that He will harden Pharaoh’s heart even before the plagues have begun (Ex. 4:21; 7:3). Perhaps it is helpful to parenthetically insert here Ellen G. White’s comment, “It should be remembered that the promises and the threatenings of God are alike conditional” —Evangelism, p. 695. 

 In five of the twenty occurrences mentioning the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart, it is stated that Pharaoh hardened his own heart —all during the first five plagues. During the last five plagues God is spoken of as hardening Pharaoh’s heart.

 Is the Bible contradictory? Did Moses as he was writing Exodus not understand what was happening? Wasn’t the Holy Spirit inspiring Moses as he wrote so that we would not be left in confusion?

 Is there a principle that would allow us to incorporate all the verses regarding the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart? Meaning—can we see a truth that preserves the reality that Pharaoh was the active agent in hardening Pharaoh’s heart, and that God was doing something active that resulted in the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart, and, finally, that there was a causal action of Pharaoh’s heart being hardened?

 I would submit that there is. We understand from 1 John 4:8,16 that God’s fundamental character is love. Thus, all He does should be understood as motivated by a desire for the good of the other – including Pharaoh and the Egyptians–—despite their current state of idol worship, self-indulgence, enslavement of others, and immorality. 

In that state, God has one remedy—to communicate truth. While the communication of truth is the right and loving thing to do, it has the potential for great good if accepted, but also the negative result of “hardening” the one who rejects truth! “If you were blind, you would have no sin” (John 9:41). 

Sin attaches when we see truth, and resist or reject it. A hardening process is occurring in the turning from truth. It is in this sense that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. God sent the truth! God sent the truth about the powerlessness of the Egyptian gods, and the importance of the Israelites being free to commune with Him. That truth was “clearly seen” (Rom.1:20).

So God knew that when He sent the truth through Moses and Aaron, Pharaoh’s heart would be hardened, because God knew Pharaoh’s character and nature. But still, what was the right and loving thing for God to do in this circumstance? To send the truth, for the benefit of all who would respond—the Israelites themselves, the Egyptians who responded, and others from surrounding nations, like Rahab. The right thing for God to do is to send the truth—even though He knows it will result in the hardening of heart for some.

Paul says it this way, “having their own conscience seared with a hot iron” (1 Tim.4:2). It is truth rejected that “sears” the conscience. 

Ellen White, speaking specifically about this story in Exodus 4-14 says:

“God had declared concerning Pharaoh, ‘I will harden his heart, that he shall not let the people go.’ Exodus 4:21. There was no exercise of supernatural power to harden the heart of the king. God gave to Pharaoh the most striking evidence of divine power, but the monarch stubbornly refused to heed the light. Every display of infinite power rejected by him, rendered him the more determined in his rebellion. The seeds of rebellion that he sowed when he rejected the first miracle, produced their harvest. As he continued to venture on in his own course, going from one degree of stubbornness to another, his heart became more and more hardened, until he was called to look upon the cold, dead faces of the first-born.

“God speaks to men through His servants, giving cautions and warnings, and rebuking sin. He gives to each an opportunity to correct his errors before they become fixed in the character; but if one refuses to be corrected, divine power does not interpose to counteract the tendency of his own action. He finds it more easy to repeat the same course. He is hardening the heart against the influence of the Holy Spirit. A further rejection of light places him where a far stronger influence will be ineffectual to make an abiding impression. . .

“Those who are quieting a guilty conscience with the thought that they can change a course of evil when they choose, that they can trifle with the invitations of mercy, and yet be again and again impressed, take this course at their peril. They think that after casting all their influence on the side of the great rebel, in a moment of utmost extremity, when danger compasses them about, they will change leaders. But this is not so easily done. The experience, the education, the discipline of a life of sinful indulgence, has so thoroughly molded the character that they cannot then receive the image of Jesus. Had no light shone upon their pathway, the case would have been different. Mercy might interpose, and give them an opportunity to accept her overtures; but after light has been long rejected and despised, it will be finally withdrawn.” —Patriarchs and Prophets, pp. 268-9, emphasis supplied.

The history of 1888 is another example of many in leading positions who took a position against the Lord’s “most precious message,” and through a series of heart-hardening actions were never able to recover the blessing they lost. May we learn the lessons of our history, and Biblical history, and respond with repentance to every manifestation of  God’s goodness when He presents the truth to us – individually and corporately. 

 

~Robert Hunsaker