Romans 9:18 does not tell us that God hardens all evil humans; it only
informs us that "he hardens whomever he wills" (ESV). Jehovah (YHWH) hardens
Pharaoh's heart in a sense by permitting circumstances to occur that
result in Pharaoh ultimately hardening his own heart (Exodus 7:3-4; 8:11; 9:12; 10:1; 14:4). These points are
detailed in Rotherham's Emphasized Bible and Gesenius' Hebrew grammar.
The Complete Word Study: New Testament (by Spiros Zodhiates) makes this
observation on Rom.
9:17:
"It is not that Pharaoh was 'beyond' the help of God's mercy, nor that
God made him wicked, but simply that God withheld his mercy and left him
to his own wickedness" (page 522).
Exod. 8:15, 32; 9:34 show that Pharaoh hardened his own heart. See Gen.
3:16ff for an example of God permitting things which the Hebrew Bible
says that he causes. Compare 2 Samuel 12:11-12; Jeremiah 8:10.
Monday, April 10, 2023
Romans 9:18: God Hardens "Whomever He Wills"
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Exodus ch.7:18NIV"But when Pharaoh saw that relief had come, he became stubborn.c He refused to listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the LORD had predicted."
Romans ch.2:4NIV"Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?"
So actually it is JEHOVAH'S kindness/patience that hardens the hearts of the wicked.
Let's say that JEHOVAH had instead said to Pharaoh "when the last of my people and their substance is out of Egypt then you'll get relief from this plague and not a second before," likely this contest of wills would have been a lot shorter but JEHOVAH showed more compassion for the people of Egypt than their supposed God-King did and his patience Pharaoh mistook for a lack of resolve, and that misconception is what hardened his heart.
Those are some good points. To me, Romans 9 and its use of Exodus is a demanding chapter. Additionally, Paul writes in that chapter: "What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? 23 What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory—" (ESV)
The NWT translates Rom. 9:18: "So, then, he has mercy on whomever he wishes, but he lets whomever he wishes become obstinate."
John ch.6:64NIV"Yet there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him."
Revelation ch.20:3NIV"He threw him into the Abyss, and locked and sealed it over him, to keep him from deceiving the nations anymore until the thousand years were ended. After that, he must be set free for a short time."
2Peter ch.3:9"The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance."
JEHOVAH'S self restraint causes the hearts of righteous and wicked alike to be exposed.
Another set of verses that appear to communicate a similar idea is 2 Thessalonians 2:11-12 (NRSV):
"For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion, leading them to believe what is false, 12 so that all who have not believed the truth but took pleasure in unrighteousness will be condemned."
See NWT2013 for a comparison.
Would you say this is a purely exegetical point? Or is it a theological point?
In other words, is this a reading that one can draw purely from the text in its historical context? Or is it the result of a reading of the bible as a whole with the full implications of who and what Jehovah is?
Genesis ch.15:16NIV"In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.”" So An irreversible moral and/spiritual rot had set in the Canaanite civilisation yet JEHOVAH patiently waited until this rot reached an advanced stage before executing Judgment on it.
Genesis ch.22:12NKJV"12And He said, “Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for NOW I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.” The contrasting effects of JEHOVAH'S self-restraint on the righteous and the wicked are a theme that runs throughout the bible from Genesis to revelation.
Roman: I don't know that it's purely exegetical but when I first learned the "Jehovah causes" sometimes = "Jehovah permits" view, I was taught that it's a Hebrew idiom, so one has to get beyond the surface structure to the deeper meaning (underlying representation) of the words. Rotherham expresses this view, and so does Bullinger. They both claim the usage is idiomatic, which would take it beyond theology. And it would seem that if what they say is true, then historical context would impinge on understanding texts that speak about Jehovah hardening the ruler of Egypt's heart. In answer to your last question, I don't see how a Christian exegete (Judeo-Christian) cannot take the nature of Jehovah into account at some point, if he wants to be faithful to the text. However, I sometimes separate conceptually the exegetical process from theology.
One question I have is that if we read some of these verses as God causing X, what are the implications of such a reading? Use Job 42:11 as a case example. Or try the verses I referenced above from 2 Samuel and Jeremiah. What about Jehovah sending a "bad spirit" to Saul or a deceitful spirit to Ahab?
Servant: yes, we see this a lot in the Bible. Vessels of mercy contrasted with vessels of wrath.
Roman, see http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1010-99192017000100009
Here's a valid argument that I believe is equally sound (i.e., true):
1) God always acts justly.
2) It is unjust to strike a righteous person with a loathsome disease.
3) Therefore, God does not strike righteous persons with loathsome diseases.
1Samuel ch.1:6NIV"Because the LORD had closed Hannah’s womb, her rival kept provoking her in order to irritate her."
Our sister Hannah was a righteous Woman and likely she was not inclined to view JEHOVAH as being directly responsible for her distress, but for a time he seemed to be ignoring her supplication.
And I think most (all?) ervants of Jehovah can relate to Hannah's plight. Paul wrote about entreating the "Lord" three times to remove his thorn in the flesh, but the answer was, "my undeserved kindness is sufficient for you." However, Paul called the thorn, an angel of Satan that kept slapping him.
Even NWT renders 1 Sam. 1:6: Moreover, her rival wife taunted her relentlessly in order to upset her because Jehovah had not given her children.
In this regard, I'm intrigued by the words of Naomi (Ruth 1:20-21 NWT): She would say to the women: “Do not call me Na·oʹmi.* Call me Maʹra,* for the Almighty has made life very bitter for me. I was full when I went, but Jehovah made me return empty-handed. Why should you call me Na·oʹmi, when it is Jehovah who opposed me and the Almighty who caused me calamity?”l
And what of JEHOVAH'S own words
Exodus ch.4:11NIV"The LORD said to him, “Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, the LORD?"
Certainly no less intriguing .
Yes it is. And there are times in the Bible when Jehovah seems to make people blind or mute physically or blind mentally. But at the same time, there is no unrighteousness in Jehovah.
What makes no sense to me is when people believe that God afflicts some creatures with cancer or hypertension to bring about some greater good. How is that idea biblical?
Thanks brother Foster,
Yeah that it is a Hebrew idiom certainly would factor into a pure exegesis.
About a Christian exegete, this is something I wonder about, in terms of historical reconstruction. Personally when I read historical exegesis (not theology), if I can tell the author's religious commitments within the exegesis itself I find myself suspicious, I would think that the methods of historical reconstruction, for the most part, ought to be the same for any historical reconstruction. When it comes to miracles that's a different issue, but a historian should be able to just lay out the data, and the reader can bring his own metaphysical and theological commitments in.
So when it comes to the nature of the God of the bible.
as a Christian I believe God inspired the bible, and thus taken as a whole (i.e. not taking each document as a mere historical artifact), the bible reveals God as he wishes to be revealed, but for this one requires a theological reading.
However, when one is doing historical exegesis, one is not trying to figure out what God is revealing, but what the human author is trying to communicate, what his original audience would have understood, and what phenomena can be reconstructed historically. In that case different authors, different audiences, and so on may have had different conceptions of God (more or less transcendent, etc etc), and insofar as they experience God, they would interpret it within their framework.
So I think perhaps that would be the distinction.
BUT, there are cases where these two worlds clash and interact, where they cannot be separated. In that case I would say the metaphysical truth of theism would way heavier than the methodological concerns of a historian ... what do you think?
Most religious people have a very simplistic understanding of the bible's position on JEHOVAH'S foreknowledge/foreordination.
You're welcome, brother Montero. When I studied church history, I was taught that there is no one way to do it and much of church history seems to coincide with what authors believe/think although I greatly respected the work of WHC Frend and Jaroslav Pelikan (among others). On the other hand, historical exegesis looks at what Paul was trying to get across to the Corinthians, what their sociocultural context was like, what things were happening in their congregation, etc. However, you mention writers potentially having different conceptions of God or interpreting God according to their own framework.
But I tend to believe that we must have some kind of objective standard when studying the Bible or else we could miss the thrust of the biblical text altogether. Furthermore, the biblical writers spoke from God as they were borne along by holy spirit.
As I said earlier, I find nothing wrong with historical exegesis per se or other forms of biblical scholarship (e.g., biblical theology), but it seems that certain principles should guide a Christian exegete's reading of the Bible. Now I'm not saying that we should read things into the text or force a text to mean something that it doesn't. Nevertheless, it's hard for me to believe that any Bible writer communicated the idea that Jehovah acts unrighteously or is not the greatest being in existence (ens realissimum). IMO, no Bible writer would affirm such things.
Someone might say that such principles are theological rather than exegetical. That might be true but I think one way those principles arose was from the work of exegesis and lexical-grammatical analysis.
As for the text in Job 42:11 that I mentioned, while some people have no trouble believing that Jehovah brought calamity/evil on Job, I find it hard to swallow that Jehovah wiped out Job's wealth, struck him with a loathsome disease, killed every one of his children, and turned family/friends against him, just to test his integrity. Furthermore, I don't think that is what the book of Job teaches.
Maybe what I wrote answered your last question as well. I was also thinking about history is that it's an attempt to reconstruct the past: the historian can never arrive at a completely accurate view of what occurred in the past, but he/she only tries to reconstruct past events. As NT Wright said, there is a difference between historia and the res gestae themselves. Studying past events, then writing about them (historiography) differs from the events themselves (res gestae).
See Wright's New Testament and the People of God.
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