Exodus 7:13

And he hardened Pharaoh's heart, that he hearkened not unto them; as the LORD had said.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(13) He hardened Pharaoh’s heart.—This is a mis-translation. The verb is intransitive, and “Pharaoh’s heart” is its nominative case. Translate, “Pharaoh’s heart hardened itself.” It is essential to the idea of a final penal hardening that in the earlier stages Pharaoh should have been left to himself.

That he hearkened not.—Heb., and he hearkened not.

As the Lord had said.—See above, Exodus 3:19; Exodus 7:4

Benson Commentary

Exodus 7:13. And he hardened Pharaoh’s heart — That is, permitted it to be hardened: or, as the very same Hebrew word is rendered in Exodus 7:22, Pharaoh’s heart was hardened.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

7:8-13 What men dislike, because it opposes their pride and lusts, they will not be convinced of; but it is easy to cause them to believe things they wish to be true. God always sends with his word full proofs of its Divine authority; but when men are bent to disobey, and willing to object, he often permits a snare to be laid wherein they are entangled. The magicians were cheats, trying to copy the real miracles of Moses by secret sleights or jugglings, which to a small extent they succeeded in doing, so as to deceive the bystanders, but they were at length obliged to confess they could not any longer imitate the effects of Divine power. None assist more in the destruction of sinners, than such as resist the truth by amusing men with a counterfeit resemblance of it. Satan is most to be dreaded when transformed into an angel of light.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

And he hardened - Or Pharaoh's heart was hardened. See Exodus 4:21.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

12. but Aaron's rod swallowed up their rods—This was what they could not be prepared for, and the discomfiture appeared in the loss of their rods, which were probably real serpents.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

He, the Lord, to whom this act of hardening is frequently ascribed both in this book and elsewhere.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And he hardened Pharaoh's heart,.... Or, "notwithstanding the heart of Pharaoh was hardened" (a); though he saw the rods of his magicians devoured by rod; or "therefore" (b) his heart was hardened, because he saw that the rods of his magicians became serpents as well as Aaron's; in which there was a deception of sight, and which was suffered for the hardening of his heart, there being other wonders and miracles to be wrought, for showing forth the divine power, before Israel must be let go:

that he hearkened not unto them; to Moses and Aaron, and comply with their demand, to dismiss the people of Israel:

as the Lord had said; or foretold he would not.

(a) "attamen obfirmatum est", Junius & Tremellius. (b) "Itaque", Piscator.

Geneva Study Bible

And he hardened Pharaoh's heart, that he hearkened not unto them; as the LORD had said.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

13. was hardened] Heb. was strong. One of the three synonyms used in Ex. to express the idea of hardening of the heart: the three being (1) ḥâzaḳ, ḥizzçḳ, lit. to be and to make strong (i.e. firm, hard, unyielding, cf. Ezekiel 3:7-9 Heb.), used by P (Exodus 7:13; Exodus 7:22, Exodus 8:19, Exodus 9:12, Exodus 11:10, Exodus 14:4; Exodus 14:8; Exodus 14:17), and E (Exodus 4:21, Exodus 9:35, Exodus 10:20; Exodus 10:27); (2) kâbçd, hikbîd, lit. to be and to make heavy (i.e. slow to move or be affected, unimpressionable, cf. of the tongue, Exodus 4:10), used by J (Exodus 7:14, Exodus 8:15; Exodus 8:32, Exodus 9:7; Exodus 9:34, Exodus 10:1); and (3) hiḳshâh, which is properly rendered, to harden (cf. the cognate adj. of the neck, Exodus 32:9 al.), only Exodus 7:3 (P). (1) and (2) are always distinguished in RV. of Ex. by a marg. In these passages, Pharaoh’s heart is itself said to be hard in Exodus 7:13-14; Exodus 7:22, Exodus 8:19, Exodus 9:7; Exodus 9:35; Pharaoh is said to harden it himself in Exodus 8:15; Exodus 8:32, Exodus 9:34; and God is said to harden it in Exodus 4:21, Exodus 7:3, Exodus 9:12, Exodus 10:1; Exodus 10:20; Exodus 10:27, Exodus 11:10, Exodus 14:4; Exodus 14:8 (cf. 17). See further the detached note below.

and he hearkened not to them, as Jehovah had spoken] P’s closing formula (p. 55), as v. 22, Exodus 8:15 b, 19, Exodus 9:12. Had spoken, see v. 4a.

Both in P (Exodus 7:13) and J (Exodus 6:1), the same point has thus been reached: the Pharaoh will listen to no request to let the people go. Accordingly stronger measures are threatened; and the ten ‘Plagues’ follow.

On the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart

God is spoken of as ‘hardening’ Pharaoh’s heart by E in Exodus 4:21, Exodus 10:20; Exodus 10:27, by J (or RJE) in Exodus 10:1, and by P in Exodus 7:3, Exodus 9:12, Exodus 11:10, Exodus 14:4; Exodus 14:8, by P also as hardening the heart of the Egyptians so that they followed Israel into the sea in Exodus 14:17 : in Exodus 4:21 and Exodus 7:3 generally, in view of the whole series of coming plagues, otherwise first after the sixth plague Exodus 9:12). In what sense are these passages to be understood? The Hebrews, with their vivid sense of the sovereignty of God, were in the habit of referring things done by man to the direct operation of God; and it is possible that these are merely examples of the same custom: we may notice that the performance of signs and wonders in Egypt, which in Exodus 10:1 is described as a consequence of Jehovah’s having ‘hardened’ the hearts of Pharaoh and his servants, is in Exodus 11:9 represented as a consequence simply of Pharaoh’s not hearkening himself to Moses and Aaron. In this case, the meaning will be that God ‘hardened’ Pharaoh just in so far as he hardened himself. But even supposing that the passages mean more than this, we must remember that, especially in His dealings with moral agents, God cannot be properly thought of as acting arbitrarily; He only hardens those who begin by hardening themselves: though the reasons for His actions are not always specified, it would be contrary to His moral attributes, and inconsistent with the character of a righteous God, if He were to harden those whose hearts were turned towards Him, and did not wish to harden themselves. The Pharaoh—whatever he was in actual history—is depicted in Exodus as from the first a self-willed, obstinate man who persistently hardens himself against God, and resists all warnings: God thus hardens him only because he has first hardened himself. And even here we must remember that the means by which God hardens a man is not necessarily by any extraordinary intervention on His part; it may be by the ordinary experiences of life, operating through the principles and character of human nature, which are of His appointment: the man who has once begun to harden himself, may thus find in the experiences of life, and even in the approaches made by God or His messengers to him, occasions and excuses for hardening himself yet more (cf. Psalm 18:26 ‘with the crooked thou shewest thyself tortuous’).

The question arises again, in a slightly different form, in connexion with Exodus 9:16, where Jehovah is said to have made Pharaoh continue in life, in order that he might experience His power. Does He, in so doing, act arbitrarily with Pharaoh? The passage is quoted, together with Exodus 33:19 (see the note), in Romans 9:15-18, in order to shew that God has absolute liberty of choice in selecting whom He will, either as examples of His hardening judgement, or as the recipients of His mercy. But although St Paul says (v. 18) ‘He hath mercy on whom he will, and whom he will he hardeneth,’ we have no right to interpret this ‘will’ in a sense inconsistent with God’s righteousness, or to suppose that He is actuated in His choice by the motives of a despot, responsible not to a law of righteousness, but only to His own caprice. The apostle is arguing against those who maintained that because God had once chosen the Jewish nation, His hands were, so to say, tied, and, whatever they did, He could not reject them, except by being unrighteous. Against such a contention St Paul quotes two passages of the OT. in which Jehovah asserts His right to shew mercy and judgement to whom He will. But we must not exalt God’s sovereignty at the expense of His justice; and so we must think of God as ‘willing’ to shew mercy and judgement, not arbitrarily, or where either would be unmerited, but according to character and deserts. As Bp Gore says, in the course of an illuminative discussion of the whole question (Ep. to the Romans, ii. 3–13, 31–43), ‘The liberty asserted for God is wholly consistent with His being found, in fact, to have “hardened” those only who have deserved hardening by their own wilfulness. It was for such a moral cause that God hardened the hearts of the Jews, that “seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not hear.” We can feel no doubt that some similar moral cause underlay the hardening of Pharaoh’ (p. 38).

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 13. - And he hardened Pharaoh's heart. Rather, "But Pharaoh's heart was hard." The verb employed is not active, but neuter; and "his heart" is not the accusative, but the nominative. Pharaoh's heart was too hard for the sign to make much impression on it. He did not see that Moses had done much more than his own magicians could do. As the Lord had said. See ver. 4.

CHAPTER 7:14-21 Exodus 7:13

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The negotiations of Moses and Aaron as messengers of Jehovah with the king of Egypt, concerning the departure of Israel from his land, commenced with a sign, by which the messengers of God attested their divine mission in the presence of Pharaoh (Exodus 7:8-13), and concluded with the announcement of the last blow that God would inflict upon the hardened king (Exodus 11:1-10). The centre of these negotiations, or rather the main point of this lengthened section, which is closely connected throughout, and formally rounded off by Exodus 11:9-10 into an inward unity, is found in the nine plagues which the messengers of Jehovah brought upon Pharaoh and his kingdom at the command of Jehovah, to bend the defiant spirit of the king, and induce him to let Israel go out of the land and serve their God. If we carefully examine the account of these nine penal miracles, we shall find that they are arranged in three groups of three plagues each. For the first and second, the fourth and fifth, and the seventh and eighth were announced beforehand by Moses to the king (Exodus 7:15; Exodus 8:1, Exodus 8:20; Exodus 9:1, Exodus 9:13; Exodus 10:1), whilst the third, sixth, and ninth were sent without any such announcement (Exodus 8:16; Exodus 9:8; Exodus 10:21). Again, the first, fourth, and seventh were announced to Pharaoh in the morning, and the first and fourth by the side of the Nile (Exodus 7:15; Exodus 8:20), both of them being connected with the overflowing of the river; whilst the place of announcement is not mentioned in the case of the seventh (the hail, Exodus 9:13), because hail, as coming from heaven, was not connected with any particular locality. This grouping is not a merely external arrangement, adopted by the writer for the sake of greater distinctness, but is founded in the facts themselves, and the effect which God intended the plagues to produce, as we may gather from these circumstances - that the Egyptian magicians, who had imitated the first plagues, were put to shame with their arts by the third, and were compelled to see in it the finger of God (Exodus 8:19), - that they were smitten themselves by the sixth, and were unable to stand before Moses (Exodus 9:11), - and that after the ninth, Pharaoh broke off all further negotiation with Moses and Aaron (Exodus 10:28-29). The last plague, commonly known as the tenth, which Moses also announced to the king before his departure (Exodus 11:4.), differed from the nine former ones both in purpose and form. It was the first beginning of the judgment that was coming upon the hardened king, and was inflicted directly by God Himself, for Jehovah "went out through the midst of Egypt, and smote the first-born of the Egyptians both of man and beast" (Exodus 11:4; Exodus 12:29); whereas seven of the previous plagues were brought by Moses and Aaron, and of the two that are not expressly said to have been brought by them, one, that of the dog-flies, was simply sent by Jehovah (Exodus 8:21, Exodus 8:24), and the other, the murrain of beasts, simply came from His hand (Exodus 9:3, Exodus 9:6). The last blow (נגע Exodus 11:1), which brought about the release of Israel, was also distinguished from the nine plagues, as the direct judgment of God, by the fact that it was not effected through the medium of any natural occurrence, as was the case with all the others, which were based upon the natural phenomena of Egypt, and became signs and wonders through their vast excess above the natural measure of such natural occurrences and their supernatural accumulation, blow after blow following one another in less than a year, and also through the peculiar circumstances under which they were brought about. In this respect also the triple division is unmistakeable. The first three plagues covered the whole land, and fell upon the Israelites as well as the Egyptians; with the fourth the separation commenced between Egyptians and Israelites, so that only the Egyptians suffered from the last six, the Israelites in Goshen being entirely exempted. The last three, again, were distinguished from the others by the fact, that they were far more dreadful than any of the previous ones, and bore visible marks of being the forerunners of the judgment which would inevitably fall upon Pharaoh, if he continued his opposition to the will of the Almighty God.

In this graduated series of plagues, the judgment of hardening was inflicted upon Pharaoh in the manner explained above. In the first three plagues God showed him, that He, the God of Israel, was Jehovah (Exodus 7:17), i.e., that He ruled as Lord and King over the occurrences and powers of nature, which the Egyptians for the most part honoured as divine; and before His power the magicians of Egypt with their secret arts were put to shame. These three wonders made no impression upon the king. The plague of frogs, indeed, became so troublesome to him, that he begged Moses and Aaron to intercede with their God to deliver him from them, and promised to let the people go (Exodus 8:8). But as soon as they were taken away, he hardened his heart, and would not listen to the messengers of God. Of the three following plagues, the first (i.e., the fourth in the entire series), viz., the plague of swarming creatures or dog-flies, with which the distinction between the Egyptians and Israelites commenced, proving to Pharaoh that the God of Israel was Jehovah in the midst of the land (Exodus 8:22), made such an impression upon the hardened king, that he promised to allow the Israelites to sacrifice to their God, first of all in the land, and when Moses refused this condition, even outside the land, if they would not go far away, and Moses and Aaron would pray to God for him, that this plague might be taken away by God from him and from his people (Exodus 8:25.). But this concession was only forced out of him by suffering; so that as soon as the plague ceased he withdrew it again, and his hard heart was not changed by the two following plagues. Hence still heavier plagues were sent, and he had to learn from the last three that there was no god in the whole earth like Jehovah, the God of the Hebrews (Hebrews 9:14). The terrible character of these last plagues so affected the proud heart of Pharaoh, that twice he acknowledged he had sinned (Exodus 9:27; Exodus 10:16), and gave a promise that he would let the Israelites go, restricting his promise first of all to the men, and then including their families also (Exodus 10:11, Exodus 10:24). But when this plague was withdrawn, he resumed his old sinful defiance once more (Exodus 9:34-35; Exodus 10:20), and finally was altogether hardened, and so enraged at Moses persisting in his demand that they should take their flocks as well, that he drove away the messengers of Jehovah and broke off all further negotiations, with the threat that he would kill them if ever they came into his presence again (Exodus 10:28-29).

Exodus 7:8-13

Attestation of the Divine Mission of Moses and Aaron. - By Jehovah's directions Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh, and proved by a miracle (מופת Exodus 4:21) that they were the messengers of the God of the Hebrews. Aaron threw down his staff before Pharaoh, and it became a serpent. Aaron's staff as no other than the wondrous staff of Moses (Exodus 4:2-4). This is perfectly obvious from a comparison of Exodus 7:15 and Exodus 7:17 with Exodus 7:19 and Exodus 7:20. If Moses was directed, according to Exodus 7:15., to go before Pharaoh with his rod which had been turned into a serpent, and to announce to him that he would smite the water of the Nile with the staff in his hand and turn it into blood, and then, according to Exodus 7:19., this miracle was carried out by Aaron taking his staff and stretching out his hand over the waters of Egypt, the staff which Aaron held over the water cannot have been any other than the staff of Moses which had been turned into a serpent. Consequently we must also understand by the staff of Aaron, which was thrown down before Pharaoh and became a serpent, the same wondrous staff of Moses, and attribute the expression "thy (i.e., Aaron's) staff" to the brevity of the account, i.e., to the fact that the writer restricted himself to the leading facts, and passed over such subordinate incidents as that Moses gave his staff to Aaron for him to work the miracle. For the same reason he has not even mentioned that Moses spoke to Pharaoh by Aaron, or what he said, although in Exodus 7:13 he states that Pharaoh did not hearken unto them, i.e., to their message or their words. The serpent, into which the staff was changed, is not called נחשׁ here, as in Exodus 7:15 and Exodus 4:3, but תּנּיּן (lxx δράκων, dragon), a general term for snake-like animals. This difference does not show that there were two distinct records, but may be explained on the ground that the miracle performed before Pharaoh had a different signification from that which attested the divine mission of Moses in the presence of his people. The miraculous sign mentioned here is distinctly related to the art of snake-charming, which was carried to such an extent by the Psylli in ancient Egypt (cf. Bochart, and Hengstenberg, Egypt and Moses, pp. 98ff. transl.). It is probable that the Israelites in Egypt gave the name תּנּיּן (Eng. ver. dragon), which occurs in Deuteronomy 32:33 and Psalm 91:13 as a parallel to פּתן (Eng. ver. asp), to the snake with which the Egyptian charmers generally performed their tricks, the Hayeh of the Arabs. What the magi and conjurers of Egypt boasted that they could perform by their secret or magical arts, Moses was to effect in reality in Pharaoh's presence, and thus manifest himself to the king as Elohim (Exodus 7:1), i.e., as endowed with divine authority and power. All that is related of the Psylli of modern times is, that they understand the art of turning snakes into sticks, or of compelling them to become rigid and apparently dead (for examples see Hengstenberg); but who can tell what the ancient Psylli may have been able to effect, or may have pretended to effect, at a time when the demoniacal power of heathenism existed in its unbroken force? The magicians summoned by Pharaoh also turned their sticks into snakes (Exodus 7:12); a fact which naturally excites the suspicion that the sticks themselves were only rigid snakes, though, with our very limited acquaintance with the dark domain of heathen conjuring, the possibility of their working "lying wonders after the working of Satan," i.e., supernatural things (2 Thessalonians 2:9), cannot be absolutely denied. The words, "They also, the chartummim of Egypt, did in like manner with their enchantments," are undoubtedly based upon the assumption, that the conjurers of Egypt not only pretended to possess the art of turning snakes into sticks, but of turning sticks into snakes as well, so that in the persons of the conjurers Pharaoh summoned the might of the gods of Egypt to oppose the might of Jehovah, the God of the Hebrews. For these magicians, whom the Apostle Paul calls Jannes and Jambres, according to the Jewish tradition (2 Timothy 3:8), were not common jugglers, but חכמים "wise men," men educated in human and divine wisdom, and חרטתּים, ἱερογραμματεῖς, belonging to the priestly caste (Genesis 41:8); so that the power of their gods was manifested in their secret arts (להטים from להט to conceal, to act secretly, like לטים in Exodus 7:22 from לוּט), and in the defeat of their enchantments by Moses the gods of Egypt were overcome by Jehovah (Exodus 12:12). The supremacy of Jehovah over the demoniacal powers of Egypt manifested itself in the very first miraculous sign, in the fact that Aaron's staff swallowed those of the magicians; though this miracle made no impression upon Pharaoh (Exodus 7:13).