Exodus 7:3

My Notes

What Does Exodus 7:3 Mean?

"And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt." God declares in advance that he will harden Pharaoh's heart — making the resistance that will produce the plagues, the exodus, and the Red Sea crossing. The hardening is divine: I will harden. Not: Pharaoh will harden himself (though he does that too, in earlier plagues). God takes active responsibility for the resistance that will serve as the stage for his greatest demonstrations of power.

The multiplication of signs and wonders is the purpose of the hardening: a Pharaoh who yields immediately produces no display of divine power. A Pharaoh who resists provides ten opportunities for God to demonstrate his supremacy over every Egyptian deity. The hardening serves the revelation.

Reflection Questions

• 1.How do you hold together God's hardening of Pharaoh's heart with Pharaoh's own self-hardening?
• 2.What does the multiplication of signs (requiring resistance to produce more revelation) teach about how God uses opposition?
• 3.Where might God be using someone's resistance in your life as the canvas for his demonstration of power?
• 4.How does each plague targeting a specific Egyptian deity model God's systematic dismantling of false powers?

Devotional

I will harden his heart. And multiply my signs. God announces the most theologically challenging strategy in the Exodus: he will strengthen Pharaoh's resistance specifically to create the canvas for his greatest display of power.

I will harden Pharaoh's heart. The verb is chazaq — to strengthen, to make firm, to make resolute. God strengthens Pharaoh's resolve to resist. Not: God creates evil in Pharaoh that wasn't there. Pharaoh's heart was already opposed to releasing Israel. God firms up the opposition that already exists — solidifying what was already forming, making permanent what was already choosing.

The hardening raises the hardest theological question in Exodus: if God hardens Pharaoh's heart, how is Pharaoh responsible? The biblical answer operates on two levels simultaneously: Pharaoh hardens himself (7:13, 8:15, 8:32 — in the earlier plagues, Pharaoh is the subject), and God hardens Pharaoh (9:12, 10:1, 10:20, 10:27, 11:10, 14:8 — in the later plagues, God is the subject). Both are true. Both are operating. Pharaoh's self-hardening precedes and enables God's hardening. God doesn't harden an innocent heart. He confirms a guilty one.

And multiply my signs and my wonders. The purpose clause: the hardening produces the multiplication. Each resistance produces another sign. Each refusal becomes another demonstration. The ten plagues are ten opportunities to display divine power — and each one requires Pharaoh's continued refusal. A quick release produces one sign. Sustained resistance produces ten.

The multiplication serves revelation, not cruelty: through the ten plagues, God demonstrates supremacy over every Egyptian deity (12:12: against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment). The Nile-god is defeated by blood. The sun-god is defeated by darkness. The death-god is defeated by Passover. Each plague targets a specific divine claim of Egypt. And each plague requires Pharaoh's resistance to reach the next target.

God's strategy: use the enemy's resistance as the platform for the most comprehensive divine self-revelation in the Old Testament. The hardening that looks like cruelty is actually the mechanism for the most thorough display of God's character the world has seen. Every plague says: I am the LORD. And the resistance that required ten plagues to overcome is the resistance that produced ten declarations of divine sovereignty.

The worst thing about Pharaoh's hardened heart is that it produced his own destruction. The best thing about it is that it produced the world's clearest picture of who God is.

Commentary

Trusted original commentary from respected historical Bible scholars and theologians.

Cross References

Related passages throughout Scripture