Catholic apologist Mark Shea offers this insight:
Quote:"...the biblical authors are themselves struggling to understand the meaning of the revelation they themselves reveal. One of the things they struggle with is how to describe the relationship of God with the sin and evil we commit. On the one hand, they know God is sovereign. On the other hand, they know he is good. And so one of the ways the ancient Israelite mind speaks is of God "hardening" Pharaoh's heart. But we must always read such texts in light of the fullness of revelation we have received in Christ, which shows us that God never ever wills for any person to do evil and never compels anybody to do what is sinful:
Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted with evil and he himself tempts no one; but each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin; and sin when it is full-grown brings forth death. (James 1:13-15).
So Exodus is not saying, "God needed a villain for the story of Exodus, so he magicked Pharaoh, who was actually a really nice guy, into hardening his heart, like in those movies when an evil magician turns somebody into a zombie who does horrible things against his will, or when Jean-Luc Picard is taken over by the Borg and can't stop himself from destroying the Federation fleet." God never wills evil and never wills that we do it either.
So what is Exodus getting at? Well, it's getting at the fact that God, not we, is the center of the story and that he will go on being and doing what he is and does. There's no point in the wet clay telling the fire to change its nature. Fire will go on being and doing what it is and does, and our God is a consuming fire. If the wet clay willfully confronts the fire, the wet clay will become hard, not because the fire is putting mind control whammy on the clay, but because the fire is what it is. Pharaoh's heart is hardened by his confrontation with God, not because God gave him no chance to repent, but despite the fact that God gave him ten chances to repent and he willfully refused each time."
Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/blog/mark-shea...z44h5RAaA1
