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I. I shall give some GENERAL OBSERVATIONS from the story; for in the story of Pharaoh we have the exact platform of a hard heart.

1. Between the hard heart and God there is an actual contest who shall have the better. The parties contesting are God and Pharaoh.

2. The sin that hardened Pharaoh, and put him upon this contest, was covetousness and interest of State.

3. This contest on Pharaoh's part is managed with slightings and contempt of God; on God's part, with mercy and condescension.

4. The first plague on Pharaoh's heart is delusion. Moses worketh miracles, turneth Aaron's rod into a serpent, rivers into blood, bringeth frogs, and the magicians still do the same; God permitteth these magical impostures, to leave Pharaoh in his wilful error.

5. God was not wanting to give Pharaoh sufficient means of conviction. The magicians turned their rods into serpents, but "Aaron's rod swallowed up their rods" (ver. 12); which showeth God's super-eminent power.

6. Observe, in one of the plagues Israel might have stolen away, whether Pharaoh would or no (Exodus 10:22, 23): but God had more miracles to be done. When He hath to do with a hard heart, He will not steal out of the field, but go away with honour and triumph. This was to be a public instance, and for intimation to the world (1 Samuel 6:6). The Philistines took warning by it, and it will be our condemnation if we do not.

7. In all these plagues I observe that Pharaoh now and then had his devout pangs. In a hard heart there may be some relentings, but no true repentance.

8. In process of time his hardness turns into rage and downright malice (Exodus 10:28). Men first slight the truth, and then are hardened against it, and then come to persecute it. A river, when it hath been long kept up, swelleth and beareth down the bank and rampire; so do wicked men rage when their consciences cannot withstand the light, and their hearts will not yield to it.

9. At length Pharaoh is willing to let them go. After much ado God may get something from a hard heart; but it is no sooner given but retracted; like fire struck out of a flint, it is hardly got, and quickly gone (Hosea 6:4).

10. The last news that we hear of hardening Pharaoh's heart was a little before his destruction (Exodus 14:8). Hardness of heart will not leave us till it hath wrought our full and final destruction. Never any were hardened but to their own ruin.

II. HOW GOD HARDENS.

1. Negatively.

(1) God infuseth no hardness and sin as he infuseth grace. All influences from heaven are sweet and good, not sour. Evil cannot come from the Father of lights. God enforceth no man to do evil.

(2) God doth not excite the inward propension to sin; that is Satan's work.

2. Affirmatively.

(1) By desertion, taking away the restraints of grace, whereby He lets them loose to their own hearts (Psalm 81:12). Man, in regard to his inclinations to sin, is like a greyhound held by a slip or collar; when the hare is in sight, take away the slip, and the greyhound runneth violently after the hare, according to his inbred disposition. Men are held in by the restraints of grace, which, when removed, they are left to their own swing, and run into all excess of riot.

(2) By tradition. He delivereth them up to the power of Satan, who worketh upon the corrupt nature of man, and hardeneth it; he stirreth him up as the executioner of God's curse; as the evil spirit had leave to seduce Ahab (1 Kings 22:21, 22).

(3) There is an active providence which deposeth and propoundeth such objects as, meeting with a wicked heart, maketh it more hard. God maketh the best things the wicked enjoy to turn to the fall and destruction of those that have them. In what a sad case are wicked men left by God! Mercies corrupt them, and corrections enrage them; as unsavoury herbs, the more they are pounded, the more they stink. As all things work together for good to them that love God, so all things work for the worst to the wicked and impenitent. Providences and ordinances; we read of them that wrest the scriptures to their own destruction (2 Peter 3:16). Some are condemned to worldly happiness; by ease and abundance of prosperity they are entangled: "The prosperity of fools shall destroy them" (Proverbs 1:32); as brute creatures, when in good plight, grow fierce and man-keen. If we will find the sin, God will find the occasion.

( T. Manton, D. D..)

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KJV: And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt.

WEB: I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt.