Exodus 10:1–20
The Bible4Jesus.com Podcast
About this episode
We live in a sentimental age, an age that prefers a grandfatherly god who is endlessly affirming and never severe. Our generation wants a deity who is more of a cosmic therapist than a sovereign King. And when we come to passages like this one, where God deliberately hardens a sinner's heart in order to visit his nation with catastrophic judgment, our modern sensibilities are offended. We want to skip these parts, or explain them away as some kind of primitive, Old Testament caricature that Jesus came to correct. The God of the Old Testament is the God of the New. What we see here in Exodus is not divine petulance. God's judgments are not temper tantrums; they are lessons. He is a Father, and He is teaching His children. Here, the classroom is the nation of Egypt, the textbook is a series of escalating plagues, and the lesson is for the eternal benefit of Israel's children and their grandchildren.