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Yesterday we looked at the first two scenes in what we might call the “Red Sea Narrative”.  In the first scene, God communicates with Moses, re-directing the people of Israel toward the Red Sea – and confrontation with Pharoah, stating that he will harden Pharaoh’s heart “so that I will gain glory for myself over Pharaoh and all his army . . .”  As the New Interpreter’s Bible commentary puts it:

Yahweh arrranges the confrontation as an exhibition of enormous power, not for the sake of Israel.  The final, decisive intention is not Israelite freedom, but Yahweh’s glory, which is decisive.  The outcome of the power struggle (which Yahweh will win!) is that Pharaoh in all his recalcitrance shall come at last to know “I am Yahweh”.  NIB, Vol. 1, page 792

In the second scene, we see the same story from Pharaoh’s perspective.  In the comments following yesterday’s post there was legitimate concern expressed about how the God of love could decide to harden Pharaoh’s heart in order to . . . well, to make a point.  But in the Genesis narrative the point is made more drastically isn’t it?  God destroys the world (only deciding to allow Noah to salvage a chance at new beginning at the last moment); God scatters the people when they decide to build a tower to the heavens; God destroys Sodom and Gomorrah.  You don’t have to accept these as historical fact to realize that these episodes are telling commentary on the nature of God: that he will not have other gods placed before him (including our own petty gods of ego).  It is telling commentary on the nature of humankind as well.  We have a tendency to place ourselves at the center of the universe instead of placing God there.

So, when God says he will harden Pharaoh’s heart, he is simply saying how Pharaoh (and the Egyptians) are likely to respond and that he will use the opportunity to reveal his superiority – the absolute and ultimate authority – of God over not only Egypt, but nature itself.  In Exodus (Interpretation, a Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching), Terence Fretheim writes:

Before God proceeds with the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart (v.8), Pharaoh is pictured as having already changed his mind (=heart).  He knows what is finally at stake here, voicing the theme recurrent from the beginning of this struggle (1:13-14): Will Israel serve Pharaoh or someone else?  God’s hardening activity does not occur in a vacuum; it is not contrary to Pharaoh’s (or the Egyptians’, 14:17) own general will about the matter.  God intensifies a well-ingrained proclivity . . . In effect, God uses existent human stubbornness against itself by closing down available options. Fretheim at p. 155.

In other words, if Pharaoh wants to be God, then let him try!

This brings us to today’s lesson scripture, which is the third scene in the narrative and involves neither God nor the Egyptians, but Moses and the people of Israel:

10 As Pharaoh drew near, the Israelites looked back, and there were the Egyptians advancing on them. In great fear the Israelites cried out to the Lord.
11 They said to Moses, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us, bringing us out of Egypt?
12 Is this not the very thing we told you in Egypt, ‘Let us alone and let us serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.”
13 But Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid, stand firm, and see the deliverance that the Lord will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians whom you see today you shall never see again.
14 The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to keep still.”  Ex 14:10-14 (NRSV)

 Although verse 10 says the people cried out to Yahweh, they don’t petition God for deliverance.  Instead, they throw accusations at Moses.  Notice that God (the LORD, Yahweh) is not mentioned by the people of Israel in verses 11 and 12, but the name Egypt is invoked five times.  Moses’ answer is to call for faith not fear and he tells the people to “keep still”, that God will fight for them.  This too is hard for us to accept – we think that we have to fight our way into God’s grace, when all we have to do is accept and let him do the work.  It is a matter of surrendering and allowing God to lead – something that we’ve had trouble with since Eden.