05-25-2024, 02:24 AM
Exodus 6:3 Wrote:Exodus 6:3 Wrote:But I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and I will increase My signs and My wonders in the land of Egypt.
This phrase is repeated in several passages in the Torah--that God hardens the Pharaoh's heart. Why is this? What does it mean? And why would God harden his heart? Wouldn't it be easier to soften his heart such that he is more conciliatory to letting the Hebrews go? Is it just to give God a reason to "increase [His] signs" as a show of his might and therefore prove that he is the Almighty God?
Exodus 6:7 Wrote:And Moses was eighty years old, and Aaron was eighty three years old when they spoke to Pharaoh.
The Bible seems to pick the oddest, seemingly random, points in the text to make a point of mentioning the age of the characters involved.
Exodus 6:9 Wrote:"When Pharaoh speaks to you, saying, 'Provide a sign for yourselves,' you shall say to Aaron, 'Take your staff, [and] cast [it] before Pharaoh; it will become a serpent.' "
I've noticed in this in more than one place--God instructs Moses to instruct Aaron to perform some act or some deed. It seems important who plays to the role of instructing the other and who carries out the instruction.
Exodus 6:11-12 Wrote:11 [Then,] Pharaoh too summoned the wise men and the magicians, and the necromancers of Egypt also did likewise with their magic.
12 Each one of them cast down his staff, and they became serpents; but Aaron's staff swallowed their staffs.
Is there any symbolism to the snake (serpent)? I know this is a recurring theme in the story of Exodus. God showed Moses on Mt. Sinai that he could turn is staff into a serpent. Why a serpent? Also, looking ahead, I know that God sends serpents to plague the Israelites for their wicked ways in the wilderness and instructs Moses to build a brazen serpent propped up on a stick such that he who gazes upon the serpent will be immune to the bite of the actual serpents. What is the symbolic significance of the serpent? The only thing I can think of is that Moses wields power over the serpent (his own staff, that is) and maybe this represents his mastery over the monstrous or the deadly?
Exodus 6:15 Wrote:Go to Pharaoh in the morning; behold, he is going forth to the water, and you shall stand opposite him on the bank of the Nile
Why opposite to Pharaoh? Does this mean on the opposite side of the river?
Exodus 6:28-29 Wrote:28 And the Nile will swarm with frogs, and they will go up and come into your house and into your bedroom and upon your bed and into the house of your servants and into your people, and into your ovens and into your kneading troughs;
29 and into you and into your people and into all your servants, the frogs will ascend.'"
When reading about the plagues that God inflicts on the Egyptians, are we to read into the symbolism of each plague? My previous question about the symbolic significance of the serpents is a case in point. What about in this case? Is the plague of frogs symbolic of something? Or is it just frogs and that's all there is to it?
And why is Pharaoh so stubborn? Surely, if it were me, I would have buckled under the first miraculous seeming plague--the staff that became a serpent (although I would hardly call this a plague)--is it a competition between Gods? The Egyptian Gods vs. The Hebrew God? Is Pharaoh simply holding onto his faith that his gods will win out over the Hebrew God? Is it that he's not yet convinced it's more than a cheap magician's trick? Is God being the puppet master, hardening Pharaoh's heart as is repeatedly mentioned in this chapter?
