This part of the Book of Exodus is, in figure and shadow, the history of God's dealings with us all. Pharaoh is the type of the prince of this world, the devil, and of the wicked world itself. As he kept the children of Israel in slavery, so does the evil spirit keep all God's people, so long as they are in their natural lost condition.
"The Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart" is a very remarkable and startling expression, and it is repeated in this history no fewer than ten times. It is startling, for it seems at first sight as if it ascribed the sin of that wicked man to Almighty God. But a little thought will show that it is very far from meaning this.
I. In other places the hardening is attributed to Pharaoh himself. God gives bad men a mysterious power, to change their hearts and minds continually for the worse, by their own wicked ways; so that in the end they cannot believe or repent.
It is their own doing, because they bring it on themselves by their sin, and it is God's doing because it is the just punishment which His law has made the effect of their sin.
II. God knew beforehand that the heart of Pharaoh was such that not even miracles would overcome his obstinacy, and knowing this, He determined to deal with him in a manner which ought to have softened and amended him, but which, according to his perverse way of taking it, only hardened him more and more.
III. The taking off of God's hand, after each successive plague, had the effect of hardening Pharaoh's heart more completely. He repents of his own repentance, and wishes he had not given way so far to God's messengers.
IV. Pharaoh, like other wicked kings, had no want of evil subjects to encourage him. He had magicians who counterfeited God's miracles, and servants who, on every occasion, were ready to harden their hearts with him.
Such is Pharaoh's case; beginning in heathenish ignorance, but forced by warning after warning to become aware of the truth. Every warning was a chance given him to soften his heart, but he went on hardening it, and so perished.
Plain Sermons by Contributors to the "Tracts for the Times,"vol. vi., p. 49.
References: Exodus 10:3. G. Brooks, Five Hundred Outlines of Sermons,p. 280; Clergyman's Magazine,vol. viii., p. 143.Exodus 10:8; Exodus 10:24. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxxi., No. 1830.