Read Exodus 10:1-29 at Bible Gateway.
the teaching tools of scripture
Hebrew paragraph divisions
Exo 10:1-11 {s} Warning of the plague of locusts
Exo 10:12-20 {p} The plague of locusts
Exo 10:21-29 {p} The plague of darkness
Exo 10:1-29 chiastic structure
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.
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