I am looking for some kind of reasoning as to why god found it necessary to repeatedly harden pharohs heart against letting the Hebrews go...and why he found it necessary to slaughter thousands of innocent egyptian children?
2007-02-06 06:04:46 · 5 answers · asked by David W 3 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
Thesis I dont know what version of the bible you read (or didnt) but I do quote here from Exodus 11:10
and the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart, so that he would not let the children of Israel go out of his land.
2007-02-06 06:35:32 · update #1
It took 10 plagues before Pharaoh would let the Israelites go and still he went after them to kill them.
Jehovah tried asking nicely, but Pharaoh would not listen. He is the one to blame for any deaths that took place, because of his hard heartedness.
Didn't the Pharaoh have all the male children of the Israelites killed.
2007-02-06 06:17:52 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 0⤋
God did not harden Pharoah's heart.
He let Pharoah harden his own heart.
God could have acted upon Pharoah's heart and influence it to allow the Israelites to depart.
However, he let Pharoah be Pharoah.
God let Pharoah show his true colours.
Each plague was a challenge to a certain Egyptian god.
Be it the god of weather, rivers, harvest, etc.
Pharoah was considered a god.
This was the culminating point!
Imagine, in the minds of the ordinary egyptian, when the future pharoah (the son and future god) AND ALL THOSE IN HIS CATEGORY lost life because of the God of the Hebrew slaves.
Holy mackeral .....what a blow!
It is because of that, that a large number of egyptians went with the Israelites when they departed.
Basically they were saying:
"The true God is with you."
2007-02-06 06:17:22 · answer #2 · answered by Uncle Thesis 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
If you go back and look at the 7 pronouncements of Moses, the first three times Pharoah hardened his own heart, the fourth time no reference is made, and the final three times God hardened Pharoah's heart.
As far as slaughtering thousands of innocent Egyptian children . . . Wasn't it the Egyptians that were killing thousands of Jewish children when they were born? Or didn't you actually READ the story?
.
2007-02-06 06:09:23 · answer #3 · answered by s2scrm 5 · 1⤊ 1⤋
Hm....I suppose the same could be said about Slave-owners in America....that God was hardening their hearts against letting their slaves go.
BUT....I personally think it's just good PR...I doubt that the Pharaoh's heart felt "hardened", he was just wanting hard workers who were willing to work for dirt cheap (or nothing at all).....same thing happens in America today....
And about slaughtering children, doesn't that make sense to you? I mean, after all, the Bible says that we inherit the "original sin" of Adam and Eve, so wouldn't it make sense that, in the same book, that Egyptian kids are blamed for their parents' enslaving of others?
This is one of the myriad reasons that I don't follow the Abrahamic God any longer.....
2007-02-06 06:14:35 · answer #4 · answered by jlene18 3 · 1⤊ 1⤋
Simple answer he didn't there is no archaeological evidence for Exodus or even for Hebrews being in Egypt at the time.
I
2007-02-06 06:20:04 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋