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God, Pharaoh and Moses: Explaining the Lord’s Actions in the Exodus Plagues Narrative is unavailable, but you can change that!

The story of the Exodus from Egypt is of fundamental importance, both in the Old Testament and beyond. However, it also contains issues that are theologically problematic for readers, especially concerning the actions of God. Why does God send a series of plagues on Egypt? How do we understand the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart? What do the answers to these questions say about the character of God?...

Fretheim offers a position that comes between these two, albeit somewhat favouring the second.42 He rejects any attempt at psychologising which aims to ‘get God off the hook’, but also does not see any glory for YHWH if Pharaoh is an automaton. He prefers a position of limited determinism. YHWH acts and brings in the word of God, and he makes Pharaoh’s obduracy of such a character that he is driven to the point of no return, using the image of someone on the river fighting against the pull of a waterfall,
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