Jottings

by J. Miller | Category: Jottings | Sept 1963

Hardness of heart is one of the evils against which we are warned in the Scriptures. It is as great a danger to spiritual well-being as hardening of the physical heart is to bodily health. One of the great examples of hardness of heart is seen in the case of the Pharaoh at the time of the Exodus of the children of Israel We have both phases of hardness of heart in the early chapters of the book of Exodus, the hardening of his heart by Pharaoh himself and the hardening of his heart by the LORD. Nowhere in the Scriptures is there so much said about hardness of heart as in God's dealings with Pharaoh.

When God sent Moses to Pharaoh with the command to let Israel go because they were His people, He said, "I will harden his heart, and he will not let the people go", (Exodus 4.21). The Hebrew word used here is Chazaq - to be firm, strong, to bind. This word is used in a number of places, as in Exodus 7. 18-22 8.19; 9. 12, 35; 10, 20, 27; 11. 10. Then we have the Hebrew word Kabed to be heavy, dull, obdurate, stubborn Exodus 7 14 S 15 82 these verses would show that this was a state of heart for which Pharaoh was himself responsible; 9,7,34; 10.1, (in this last verse God uses the word Kabed to make heavy of His action upon Pharaoh) In 1 Samuel 6.6 we find the Philistines saying to one another, "Wherefore then do ye harden your hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened (Kabed) their hearts? When He had wrought wonderfully among them, did they Rot let the people go, and they departed? It is evident from this verse that it was well known m many lands, and the knowledge lingered for many years in the minds of men, no doubt m many nations besides the Philistines of the Egyptians making stubborn and heavy their hearts against the LORD, against His will and against His people We would gather that the knowledge of Pharaoh's attitude to God and His people was known far and wide among the nations from such scriptures as Exodus 9. 16 and Romans 9.17.

In the light of the fact that God hardened Pharaoh's heart, we might ask the same question as Paul does, "Is there unrighteousness with God?" and the answer Paul gives is "God forbid," or "May it not be" (Romans 9.14). We cannot admit the thought that God can be unjust in any of His dealings with men. He cannot do wrong. Pharaoh of the Exodus inherited the throne of Egypt after the Pharaoh of the oppression, the Pharaoh who knew not Joseph who commanded that all the infant sons of Israel should be thrown to their death in the river Nile. It was at that season and under that edict that Moses was born, who was miraculously saved, and miraculously brought up, and as miraculously enlighted to turn his back on Egypt's pleasure and treasure and to cast in his lot with his race in Egypt's brickfields. Pharaoh of the Exodus carried on the oppressive policy of his predecessor, driving the able-bodied men of Israel to the brickfields and to the building of his store cities. Blood and sweat and tears were the portion of God's chosen people, and He alone could break the Egyptian yoke, take the burden from their shoulder and free their hands from the basket (Psalm 81.6). God dealt with Egypt's proud and stubborn monarch and brought His people out with a high hand.

God hardened Pharaoh's heart to pursue after Israel, to follow them as they were encamped by the Red sea, and hardened the heart of the Egyptians to go into the sea after Israel to capture and recover their lost slaves. God said of this hardening, "I will get Me honour upon Pharaoh, and upon all his host; and the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD" (Exodus 14.4, 17, 18). Here was the answer to Pharaoh's question, "Who is the LORD, that I should hearken unto His voice to let Israel go? I know not the LORD, and moreover I will not let Israel go" (Exodus 5.2).

Job asks the question from his friends, "Who bath hardened (Hebrew Quashan hardened, stubborn) himself against Him, and prospered?" The answer is obvious, no one! (Job 9.4). Later he says, "Who will say unto Him, What doest Thou?" (verse 12). Proud and stubborn Nebuchadnezzar had to find and learn by grievous experience, that "None can stay His hand, or say unto Him, What doest Thou?" (Daniel 4.85). It was said to Israel of Sihon, king of Heshbon, that "the LORD thy God hardened (Quasham) his spirit, and made his heart obstinate, that He might deliver him into thy hand" (Deuteronomy 2.80). "So then He bath mercy on whom He will, and whom He will He hardeneth" (Romans 9.18). Let us each hear and fear!

Solomon in many things in the Proverbs puts two opposites in juxtaposition, as he does in 28.14,

"Happy is the man that feareth alway:

But he that hardeneth his heart shall fall into mischief."

"Mischief" is from the Hebrew word Ra, which signifies "bad or evil", and means "calamity, adversity, affliction". Alas, for the man with a hardened, stubborn (Quashak) heart. But he is a happy man who is in the fear of the LORD all the day long (Proverbs 23.17). A God-fearing man is not a spineless, jelly-fish creature, who wants to be everybody's friend, whether such are doing right or wrong, and who will not raise his voice against what he knows to be wrong. Such were not the Lord and His apostles; such were not the reformers and the martyrs. These were such as spoke out against the moral and spiritual evils of their time, whose very presence was a condemnation of wrong-doing. It will be a thousand pities if the salt loses its savour, if the presence and preaching of brethren, which should ever agree, lose their corrective power. But woe to any man who has a hard, stubborn heart! such a man is on the road to calamity; and any community or group of people who is led by him is likewise on the way to calamity.

David, in Psalm 95.7,8, at the time of the bringing up of the Ark to Zion, recalled the tragedy which overtook and overwhelmed the numbered men of the twelve tribes of Israel at Kadesh-barnea, when they rebelled against the Loan and refused to enter the land of Canaan. He said,

"Today, Oh that ye 'would hear His voice! Harden not your heart."

Paul makes great use of this passage in this psalm in Hebrews 3 and 4. He says that God spoke in David after so long a time, from the days of Moses and Joshua, and defined a certain day, saying in David, "Today," the ever present day of opportunity to hear God's voice and to respond thereto. With great power Paul applies David's words to the Hebrew saints of his time, lest they should be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin, and lest they should have in them an evil heart of unbelief in falling away from the living God (Hebrews 3.12-19).

The Greek words used a number of times for hard and hardness are Skleros and Sklerotes (from which the English word sclerotic, hard, is derived) and we have also Sklerokardia - hardness of heart, and also Sklerotrachelos - hardness or stiffness of neck. Of the former of the last two words the Lord accused the Jews in Matthew 19. 8, likewise He upbraided the apostles for the same in Mark 16. 14. And of the latter Stephen accused the Jews on the day of his martyrdom.

Solomon strikes a warning note when he says,

"He that being often reproved hardeneth his neck

Shall suddenly be broken, and that without remedy" (Proverbs 29.1). The words "without remedy" mean without cure or healing. The same words

"without remedy" are used in Proverbs 6.14, 15,

"He soweth discord.

Therefore shall his calamity come suddenly

On a sudden shall he be broken, and that without remedy."

Some are ready to blame God when adversity and calamity come their way, without considering the trend they have been following which has led to the calamity in which they are involved.

Of the Jewish people in the synagogue in Capernaum it says, "When He had looked round about on them with anger, being grieved at the hardening of their heart, He saith unto the man, Stretch forth thy hand. And He stretched it forth:

and his hand was restored" (Mark 3.5). How terrible has been the calamity which has come upon that people because of their hard hearts and necks, and their calamity is not yet past.

But of disciples also it is said, that "their heart was hardened" (Mark 6.52), and again the Lord asked them, "Have ye your heart hardened?" (8.17).

As Paul reasoned in the synagogue in Ephesus with the Jews concerning the kingdom of God, it says, "Some were hardened and disobedient, speaking evil of the Way before the multitude" (Acts 19.9). It becomes us when the word of God comes to us to receive it with meekness, for it is able to save our souls (James 1.21),

"Today if ye shall hear His voice,

Harden not your hearts" (Hebrews 3.7, 8).

J. Miller | Sept 1963
Jottings