Read Exodus 10 here or at Bible Gateway.
The Hebrew paragraphs:
10:1-11 {s} Warning of the plague of locusts
10:12-20 {p} The plague of locusts
10:21-29 {p} The plague of darkness
Now YHVH said to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh; for I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his servants, that I may show these signs of Mine before him, and that you may tell in the hearing of your son and your son’s son the mighty things I have done in Egypt, and My signs which I have done among them, that you may know that I am YHVH.” Exo 10:1-2
If YHVH hardened Pharaoh’s heart, does that mean He took away Pharaoh’s free will? I believe that God is sovereign, and that men have free will, and that this is one of the Bible’s seeming conundrums: two concepts which seem to be opposites, so that to man’s finite way of thinking, they are contradictory. Biblical doctrine is full of these seeming opposites: God’s sovereignty or man’s free will; faith or works; grace or Law; the Spirit or the Word, to name just a few.
Scripture teaches us however that it is not one or the other. It is God’s sovereignty AND man’s free will; faith AND works; grace AND Law; the Spirit AND the Word. They are two sides of the same coin. God is so great, in fact, that He can act in perfect sovereignty as this passage shows, while man still acts in perfect free will; so that His will is accomplished in the earth. Pharaoh chose to harden his heart, and God chose to use that characteristic in Pharaoh to show forth His great glory.
If there are questions, these are good resources:
The Distressing Attributes of God – Answers in Genesis
Exodus 10:1-29 Chiastic Structure – Christine Miller
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