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Well, in my theology class today we were going over our reading of the first 20 chapters of Exodus. Basically, our professor asked us what we thought and many asked why God hardened Pharaoh's heart and killed the first born and made plagues which not only hurt the Egyptians but some Hebrews too. They said this made God look very fallible...a "do as i say not as i do" type of God. Well, I couldn't answer their complaints. I don't know what to say...and I guess it's because i find this very troubling as well.
If someone could help me out that would be great. Thanks.
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From a Christian perspective, one must keep in mind that God is good. Any interpretation of scripture that would lead us to any other conclusion must be, by definition, false. Intuitively, a God that is not all good would be a god not worth worshipping. There will be times in our struggles with God, and our struggles against evil, when our own limited understanding will work against such a defintion.
In the stories of Genesis and Exodus two of the major themes are:
1) that evil came into the world as a result not of the creators
choice, but as a result of the wrong actions of mankind, and
2) that people were not created to be slaves to one another, but to be
companions and friends. In other words, we were created in the image
of God.
Throughout the Bible god is actively working with some people and against others in order that mankind may be brought back into the state of grace that existed at the time of creation. Pharoah-god had already turned away from God's plan when he enslaved the Hebrew nation. While it was in the realm of possibility that God could have softened his heart instead, if the purpose of the Bible is to teach and to reveal God's divine plan then what is needed is an event dramatic enough to engage the full attention of the listener so that we may learn. the story of Exodus is such a story.
The fullness of God's plan is revealed to us through time. As the infant Moses was delivered from the Pharoah's wrath so too was the infant Jesus also delivered from Herod's slaughter of the innocents. Without Moses delivering his nation from the bondage of Egypt to the promised land, the story of Jesus may well have gone unnoticed. And the Hebrew prophet's cry for social justice echoes on to our to our day and can be heard in Matin Luther King's demand to "Let my people go!"
The words of Exodus remind us that our true enemy is not just death and suffering. Instead it is sin and our collective failure to develop a proper relationship with our God and our neighbour. Believing in a benevolent God in a world filled with suffering and injustice is a struggle. And yet, through our faith in the God revealed to us in the Bible, God can do great things. History show this to be true.
