Exodus 14:1-4

 

I have commented before that God made us with free will, and then it says in Exodus that Yahweh made Pharaoh even more obstinate, so he would be punished later for opposing God, and that leads to letting the world know that God is great, that God protects the children of light, and that evildoers are to be and will be punished for their intransigence. That all is fine, but how can Yahweh influence Pharaoh’s mind to sin even more in defiance of God—with accompanying divine retaliatory punishment, which leads to glorifying Yahweh, and yet punishment against Pharaoh is meted out for his free-willed, consistent rebellion against Yahweh?

 

I think I have an answer. God did allow Pharaoh, always to freely will to sin, oppose and disobey God, or to be virtuous, succumb to God’s will and obey divine commands.

 

When Pharaoh, the slave-owner and dictator of Egypt, already so steeped in evil as an unrepentant tyrant, slave-owner, exploiter and oppressor, is so customarily and habitually sinful and militant about his sinful rebellion against Yahweh, and he has done this of his own free will, at that point God can telepathically influence his mind, to make him even more radically militant about continuing his unjust, sinful ways, and that mental influence by the divinity upon a wicked, accustomed sinner, is not denying Pharaoh his free will, but is something else: a retributive punishment underway, sent by Yahweh into the mind of Pharaoh, to set him up for the fall, and do so, in such a way as to let the world know that God exists, God is just, God will reward pious, moral followers, and will punish severely impious, immoral rebels against Divine Will.

 

I believe that is take of mind resolves the contradiction between the axiom that God made us with free will, and yet in Exodus, Yahweh repeatedly admits that he is interfering inside of Pharaoh’s mind telepathically. Pharaoh has already freely willed to sin, and God’s entering his mind is not violating God’s own self-restriction against denying human beings free will, but is divine justice unleashed when it is obvious that Pharoah will never, ever change his mind about opposing God’s will. And, I believe, Pharaoh well understood that the Hebrews were God’s chosen people, so his enslavement and abuse of them was an exceptionally bold, defiant, self-conscious rebellion by Pharaoh against this foreign God that he knew existed, and whom had sent messengers many times ordering Pharaoh to let “MY PEOPLE GO”. That level of defiance of the divinity was not to be tolerated, and Yahweh was sending the world and the Hebrews and Egyptians a strong, clear, tangible message that such worldly rejection of God would not be tolerated nor go unanswered by Yahweh.

 

Here is the passage from The New American Bible: “Then the Lord said to Moses, “Tell the Israelites to turn about and camp before Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea. You shall camp in front of Baalzephon, just opposite, by the sea. Pharaoh will then say, ‘The Israelites are wandering aimlessly in the land. The desert has closed in on them. Thus will I make Pharaoh so obstinate that he will pursue them. Then I will receive glory through Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know I am the Lord.”

 

My response: God makes Pharaoh more obstinate so to speak, setting him higher in self-exaltation so that his fall or public humbling will be more painful, more excruciating. Then Egypt will know that Yahweh is the Lord, the monotheistic Lord, not just for the Hebrews but is reaching out to the Egyptian “Gentiles,” just as Christianity through Paul would be sent beyond Israel to the world, a precedent.

 

Note that there is no mention of a need for democracy or constitutional republicanism by Yahweh or his Prophets against corrupt, tyrannical Pharaoh that tyrannizes his own people, as well as the Hebrews. It would seem that Yahweh allowed corrupt government at that time to be uncommented on because, at that time in human development, people were not ready to live without kings. It provides credence to current conservative thought that we cannot judge what happened back then, but our greater moral understanding today (Human nature is as evil as it was back then, and does not improve, but, despite our moral horrors of the 20^th century inflicted upon people, there has been slow, grudging progress in human moral thinking. We do not live up to the now superior moral standards, but the standards are being devised and revised as egoist-individualism now as I write this.) is not something we can impose on these ancient ancestors. That subjective, arrogant self-smugness that we are superior is a lie; we need a near omniscient sense of objective knowing, not to take ourselves to seriously today, or to be too harsh on ancient peoples trying to live well, and trying to gain skill morally on how they should conduct themselves.

 

Here is that same passage from the Holy Bible (KJV): “And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, that they turn and encamp before Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, over against Baalzephon: before it you shall encamp by the sea.

 

For Pharaoh will say of the children of Israel, They are entangled in the land, the wilderness has shut them in.

 

And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, that he shall follow after them; and I will be honored up Pharaoh, and upon all his host; that the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord. And they did so.”

 

My response: the Hebrews were trapped in the desert and could not get across the Red Sea, so Pharaoh was tempted to go and recapture them before they got away, and that was what Yahweh knew would happen, and Pharaoh should have stayed away if he had learned to fear Yahweh, which he had not, so he charged in to his dismay.